Aurora Leigh: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism (Norton Critical Editions)

Rating:
Summary: Great, but . . .
Review: E.B.B. set out to outstrip Milton and does so in an amazingly original way. Aurora Leigh is a novel in blank verse that is actually longer than Paradise Lost! She combines the genre expectations for a woman writer--the novel--with an audacious bid for poetic immortality. The book tells a good story but it also works as a formidable reminder to her contemporary poets that the novel is taking over and poets must make sure that they are writing in the spirit of the age.

Rating:
Summary: An amazing achievement
Review: E.B.B. set out to outstrip Milton and does so in an amazingly original way. Aurora Leigh is a novel in blank verse that is actually longer than Paradise Lost! She combines the genre expectations for a woman writer--the novel--with an audacious bid for poetic immortality. The book tells a good story but it also works as a formidable reminder to her contemporary poets that the novel is taking over and poets must make sure that they are writing in the spirit of the age.

Rating:
Summary: Great, but . . .
Review: This is a great, even epic poem, but it can not be considered the definitive ninteenth-century work by any means. It can not be considered in any way to measure against such other epic poems, such as the classics (Homer, Vergil, Langland, Chaucer, etc.), later epics along the lines of Pope's "The Rape of The Lock" or Goethe's "Faust," and, most especially, Milton's "Paradise Lost," the great English epic poem above all others (if somewhat more esoteric to nowaday's "well-read" intellectuals). The "Aurora Leigh" has also unfortunately suffered the stigma of being a work solely concerned with feminism and social commentary. But I digress. The "Aurora Leigh" is an amazing work to explore, a true landmark, despite its flaws (of which there are honestly a few), in both the English language and ninteenth century studies. The Norton Critical Edition is wonderful, complete with well-organized and relevent supplementary literature (such as interpretive notes, essays, etc.). A great work to explore, though remain aware that this is a single interpretation of the ninteenth century, and that E.B.B., for all her gifts, was not the "shining light" of the time (there are writers just as good from the period, such as her husband Robert Browning).