Varia: Writing as Truth-Seeking, According to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s 𝐸𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑦 𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑑 (1826)

Authors:

Pages: 53-63
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/MPHG4869

Abstract:

Whether devoted to family members (𝑇𝑜 𝑀𝑦 𝐹𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑛 𝐻𝑖𝑠 𝐵𝑖𝑟𝑡ℎ-𝐷𝑎𝑦, 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑀𝑦 𝐵𝑟𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟), poets (Pope, Byron), or patriots and national heroes (Rigas Feraios, Rafael del Riego y Núñez), Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s occasional verses, companion poems, elegies and philosophical reflections in her earliest published collection, 𝐴𝑛 𝐸𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑦 𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑑, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑃𝑜𝑒𝑚𝑠 (1826), represent a versatile dialogue with a past which she perused consistently to claim a voice and identity of her own. She conceptualized time, suggesting that the emergence of selfhood lay across a journey “to the grave” (viz. supplementary analysis of 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝐼, 𝐴𝑛 𝐸𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑦…). This article aims at revealing the ontological range of her writing, according to 𝐴𝑛 𝐸𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑦 𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑑. From a hermeneutic perspective, the essay defends the writer’s faith in experiential knowledge as a foundation for the creative process while it also explores her interest in learning as a duty and in poetry as truth-seeking and truth-telling.

Keywords:

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, truth, time, poetry, knowledge, identity, hermeneutics.

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