Responsivity And Responsibility In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetry
Responsivity And Responsibility In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poetry

Author(s): Yana Rowland
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, British Literature
Published by: Пловдивски университет »Паисий Хилендарски«
Keywords: Elizabeth Barrett Browning; responsivity; responsibility; self-consciousness; time; death
Summary/Abstract: This paper seeks to find the connecting tissue in a range of poems Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote mostly between 1840 and 1860. I focus on some prominent examples of the poet’s sensitive, responsive and dutiful way of reflecting on life as a phenomenal domain in need of narration as dialogue between human beings. From the earliest works (e.g. “A Woman’s Shortcomings”, “The Poet and the Bird”) to the last (e.g. “A Child’s Grave at Florence” and “Question and Answer”) in the said time, Barrett Browning exposes writing as an indispensable tool for maintaining an ontology not untypical of women yet overwhelmingly self-conscious in its profound denial of subjectivity for the sake of comprehending time as the infinity of an Other (after Bakhtin) at the heart of one’s own perception. Ultimately, my aim is to illustrate that responsivity and responsibility overlap in a hermeneutically insightful way as two pivotal concepts that underpin Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s thought.

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