Aurora Leigh: What the Heart Knows

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's longpoem Aurora Leigh is a drama of love and ideas in an era shaken by revolutions and progressive programs. Her headstrong heroine makes her way without her cousin's help, refusing his offer of marriage to stake our her own career. Yet their stories intertwine with other characters, efforts to better the world that come crashing down, miscommunications, until they both individually undergo changes of heart that allow for what we presume is to be a happy ending on a rather high level. Is it a poem? Is it a drama? It's a compelling story of women claiming more than men had traditionally allowed, and proving their worth. Aurora Leigh is one of the last works that E. B. B. completed before her death at age 55. In her life, she had been nominated to be Poet Laureate of Britain, but that was not to be. This is a book of ideas, and discoveries of what love really is. Another book that explores the indomitable energy of a young girl becoming a woman is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's semi-autobiographical novel Benigna Machiavelli (www.createspace.com/4264375). The girl determines that villains are the interesting characters who get things done, so she decides to be a "good villain."