Inaugural Dissertation--Leipzig. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1958. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 336-351).

Inaug.-diss.-Würzburg. / Cover title. Lebenslauf. "Vorliegende dissertation bildet einem teil der grösseren arbeit 'Die literarischen anschauungen und kritiken E.B. Browning', die als drittes heft der Würzburger beiträge zur englischen literaturgeschichte ... erscheinen wird."

Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig. / Lebenslauf. Bibliography: p. [7]-8.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas Christian University, 2007. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 301-316). Also available in electronic form.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas Christian University, 2007. / Title from dissertation title page (viewed May. 15, 2007). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

This dissertation explores Elizabeth Barrett's dependency on the archetypal Victorian patriarch. Chapter I focuses on the psychological effects of this father-daughter relationship on Elizabeth Barrett. Chapter II addresses Barrett's acceptance of the conventional female role, which is suggested by the nature and the situation of the women she chooses to depict. These women are placed in situations where they can reveal their devotion to family, their capacity for passive endurance, and their wish to resist. Almost always, they choose death as an alternative to life where a powerful father figure is present. Chapter III concentrates on the highly sentimental images of women and children whom Barrett places in a divine order, where they exist untouched by the concerns of the social order of which they are a part. Chapter IV shows that the conventional ideologies of the time, society's commitment to the "angel in the house," and the small number of female role models before her increase her difficulty to find herself a place within this order. Chapter V discusses Aurora Leigh's mission to find herself an identity and to maintain the connection with her father or father substitute. Despite Elizabeth Barrett's desire to break away from her paternal ties and to establish herself as an independent woman and poet, her unconditional loyalty and love towards her father and her tremendous need for his affection, and the security he provides restrain her resistance and surface the child in her.

Virginia Woolf once remarked that, “[t]here is no reason to think that the form of the epic ... suit[s] a woman any more than the [masculine] sentence” (Woolf 84). This thesis represents an attempt to explore what the epic genre, as imagined and written by women, might look like in regards to the verse of fellow women poets Felicia Hemans and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Despite the persistent critical misconception that women’s poetry of the Romantic and Victorian periods is comprised mainly of light, lyric verse and tends to lack that “great effort” – for example, the epic poem – which often appears in the work of their male contemporaries, this thesis will argue conversely that Hemans and Barrett Browning do assume certain aspects of traditional epic poetry – a genre “almost coterminous” with masculinity (Schweizer 1) – in their work, while also managing to transform the genre in order that their work might successfully embody a more feminine perspective. The first chapter of the thesis examines the ways in which these two women poets are able to bridge the private and public spheres by transforming the quintessential role of the female poet as record-keeper into that of the poet as prophet and visionary in their political poetry. The two following chapters will highlight the ways in which both Hemans and Barrett Browning remodel the epic form in order to draw attention to the female voice (chapter two) and to examine new and unconventional prototypes of female heroinism, for example the pioneering female artist and the militant mother (chapter three). With strong ties to a masculine tradition of epic, yet incorporating aspects of femininity hitherto foreign – perhaps even inimical – to the traditional conception of the genre, female epic, while admittedly something of a hybrid, arguably represents a distinctive genre in its own right and one which certainly merits more critical attention in the future.

Virginia Woolf once remarked that, “[t]here is no reason to think that the form of the epic ... suit[s] a woman any more than the [masculine] sentence” (Woolf 84). This thesis represents an attempt to explore what the epic genre, as imagined and written by women, might look like in regards to the verse of fellow women poets Felicia Hemans and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Despite the persistent critical misconception that women’s poetry of the Romantic and Victorian periods is comprised mainly of light, lyric verse and tends to lack that “great effort” – for example, the epic poem – which often appears in the work of their male contemporaries, this thesis will argue conversely that Hemans and Barrett Browning do assume certain aspects of traditional epic poetry – a genre “almost coterminous” with masculinity (Schweizer 1) – in their work, while also managing to transform the genre in order that their work might successfully embody a more feminine perspective. The first chapter of the thesis examines the ways in which these two women poets are able to bridge the private and public spheres by transforming the quintessential role of the female poet as record-keeper into that of the poet as prophet and visionary in their political poetry. The two following chapters will highlight the ways in which both Hemans and Barrett Browning remodel the epic form in order to draw attention to the female voice (chapter two) and to examine new and unconventional prototypes of female heroinism, for example the pioneering female artist and the militant mother (chapter three). With strong ties to a masculine tradition of epic, yet incorporating aspects of femininity hitherto foreign – perhaps even inimical – to the traditional conception of the genre, female epic, while admittedly something of a hybrid, arguably represents a distinctive genre in its own right and one which certainly merits more critical attention in the future.