Reflections from a Visiting Scholar on George MacDonald, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Therapeutic Reading

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By Amanda Vernon, Ph.D.

Amanda Vernon, Ph.D., Armstrong Browning Library Visiting Scholar 2024-2025

Amanda Vernon, Ph.D., Armstrong Browning Library Visiting Scholar 2024-2025

I spent a wonderful month of March at the Armstrong Browning Library, where I had the privilege of working on materials related to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George MacDonald. My current research project considers Victorian ideas of curative or therapeutic reading and the links between these ideas and traditions of spiritual practice.

For me, there is a genuine thrill in having the opportunity to handle objects either created or owned by someone who I have spent a lot of time ‘getting to know’. When I handle old letters or books, I often feel like I’ve found a sort of wormhole—a connection with a physical past I’ve only accessed through my imagination. Engaging with material objects offers a fresh awareness of the lived experience of a writer whose ideas I am familiar with, but whose life as a person—existing in all of the physical realities of the everyday—sometimes fades into the background. I have sometimes found that, as I am looking at the pencil markings in a book or touching a dried flower enclosed in a letter, the person comes alive in a new way.

One of the aims of my visit to the ABL was to look at MacDonald’s books. I undertook my PhD research on MacDonald in his capacity as a literary scholar, and was keen to see what the annotations in his copy of Robert Browning’s Christmas Eve and Easter Day might have to reveal about MacDonald’s earliest published work of literary criticism: an 1853 review of ‘Christmas Eve’ in The Monthly Christian Spectator. I was especially curious to know whether the annotations reflected his writings on reading practice and the links between reading and spiritual practice. Alongside my interest in MacDonald, I also planned to look at EBB’s letters and the books in her personal library, in the hopes of discovering what they reveal about how she read. The library catalogue detailed some annotations in her books—would these indicate anything about how she used books when she was bed-bound? Would her letters show whether she saw reading as a source of comfort or consolation?

George MacDonald’s copy of Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day: A Poem by Robert Browning. London, Chapman & Hall, 1850.

George MacDonald’s copy of Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day: A Poem by Robert Browning. London, Chapman & Hall, 1850. ABL Rare X 821.83 P5 C466c c. 13

I was particularly struck by the marginalia in EBB’s copy of the six volumes of ‘Wordsworth’s Poetical Works’. Some of these notes consist simply of crosses or lines under or next to words. Others, however, demonstrate her critical engagement with the text in a more explicit way. EBB questions why certain metaphors are employed and also crosses out words and replaces them with others (words which, presumably, she thinks work better). The notes reveal EBB’s thoughtfulness as a scholarly reader and poet—an individual who is engaged with analysing the poetic and linguistic choices Wordsworth makes in both his poems and his prose (Volume 1 includes his preface to the 1815 Poems and dedication to Robert Jones). Going by her marginalia, EBB’s reading seems to have been primarily focused on the craft of writing and the process of creativity.

While relevant to analysing EBB’s reading practices in general, I wasn’t sure whether my observations had any relevance to my project’s interest in consolatory reading. After mulling it over for a while, and discussing it over lunch with the generous and brilliant Prof. Joshua King, I began to wonder if my definition for what counts as consolation might be too narrow. I for one have certainly found solace in focused intellectual engagement and I know that concentrated attention can be therapeutic, whether the attention is on poetry or a pattern of breathing (which are, of course, also related to one another). While I’m still mulling the question over, the challenge EBB’s marginalia offered to my understanding of the kinds of texts that might be considered ‘therapeutic’ or ‘consolatory’ has been helpful as I continue to develop my project.

Considering EBB’s reading in light of the idea of consolation connects to another book I discovered in the ABL: Hymns and poems for the sick and suffering, edited by Thomas Vincent Fosbery. The ABL has an eighth edition copy, published in 1871 and carrying an inscription on the title page to Robert Browning ‘with kind regards and many thanks’ from the editor. The volume contains several poems by EBB (which were also included in earlier editions): ‘Comfort’, ‘Bereavement’, ‘Reparation’, ‘Consolation’, and The Sleep’. As indicated by the book’s title, the collection frames these and other poems as a means of emotional and spiritual consolation for readers. The book, which is dedicated ‘to the Sick and Suffering’, aims to soothe and brighten their ‘helpless days and wearisome nights’. The numerous editions of the book indicate its popularity in the nineteenth century and gesture towards the importance of the idea of consolatory reading in the period.

Hymns and Poems for the Sick and Suffering edited by Thomas Vincent Fosbery. London: Rivingtons, 1871.

Robert Browning’s copy of Hymns and Poems for the Sick and Suffering edited by Thomas Vincent Fosbery. London: Rivingtons, 1871. ABL Brownings’ Library X BL 245.21 F746h 1871

In addition to the treasures I was able to examine during my time at the ABL, I spent happy hours reading in the Moody and Jones Libraries and enjoying coffee and lunches with members of Baylor’s English faculty. It was an unexpected delight to be able to attend some of the annual Beall Poetry Festival, including a captivating talk by the poet Christian Wiman. The hospitality and expertise of the ABL librarians, curators, and other staff made my stay pleasant and productive. I was particularly touched when, on my final morning, Christi Klempnauer brought in two types of local doughnuts for me to try before I flew back to Germany! I am grateful to have spent my month as a Visiting Scholar in such a warm and intellectually-stimulating community and hope this will be the first of many visits.

Amanda Vernon sampling Waco's finest doughnuts

Amanda Vernon sampling Waco’s finest doughnuts

The importance of not going on

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By Kristen Pond, Ph.D., Margarett Root Brown Chair in Robert Browning and Victorian Studies

This post is about a spectacular trip to England’s Lake District where I retraced the nineteenth-century adventures of Harriet Martineau and Dorothy Wordsworth walking through the hills. But I am not going to tell you about the peaks I ascended, the many paths I traversed, or the views that I beheld. I am going to tell you about not going on.

A walk in bad weather makes you aware of many things related to your physical body and the natural world around you. You notice your skin in a way you hadn’t before your rain jacket started sticking to it. Aspects of the trail change, too, like the piles of rocks created by all the other hillwalkers.

Rock pile

Rock pile.

These piles of rocks, erected not just at the peaks but along the trails as well, seem useless and even annoying sometimes – humanity’s disruption of nature, the egoist mark of “I was here.” But the first time you attempt to navigate a foggy path in the rain across a flat bog of a mountain, you feel thankful to see one. The rock piles become necessary, beacons of hope that other people went here before you and that it will be alright. You become energized by the sense that you are not alone and the day is not as dismal as before.

Bad weather also reminds you that nature is not just there to cater to your holidays and everyday enjoyment. It is doing its own thing, and as a walker, you just join in and hope for the best. Bad weather can make it seem like nature is against you (which might be taking things too personally), but it is a humbling reminder that our bodies set physical limitations. The discomfort of walking in a cold rain or the danger of high winds when walking ridges brings you close to mortality. Harriet Martineau describes one frightening walk she took during a storm: “I am on a walking trip of 5 days with a dear niece & nephew from Birmm . . . Yesy, we happily had a guide in crossing Blake Fell, – from Emerdale water to Crummock. We set out in brilliant sunshine, – saw the thunder come up from the sea, had a vast wind, first in our faces, & then suddenly in our backs (throwg me flat) & then the storm closed down upon us & round us, while we saw, far far below, the vales & lakes lying in the calmest sunshine. In 3 minutes we were wet through & through, – waterproof knapsacks & all.” [i]

So much of our emotional and psychological state on a walk is tied to whether or not we are physically comfortable. This is why the outdoor apparel industry is robust: bodily comfort really matters, and often, walking in nature endangers bodily comfort. I spent many walks mentally evaluating if I was hungry or not and wondering when I could justify a break to eat my lunch. I triple checked each morning that I remembered my chapstick and extra socks. Dry Feet! Oh what I would do to keep dry feet—like walk an extra quarter mile just to avoid the boggy area on a path.

Muddy boot

Muddy boot.

If the forecast does call for rain – do you still go for a walk? In my case, the answer was yes. I was only in the area for a week and I couldn’t waste a day just being inside. But walking in the rain, even just a steady drip, prevents us from experiencing many of the things that motivated us to walk in the first place: to enjoy views, the sunshine on our faces, and the sounds of birds and other wildlife. If you are walking with a rain jacket hood, your view even just a few inches to your left or right is obscured. At that point, you become locked into your thoughts and bodily sensations. Your concentration is spent determining where to step to avoid wet spots (even if they’re everywhere, you have to make a good faith effort to keep dry feet).  Hiking blogs advised us to choose walks in the woods or by waterfalls on rainy days, and to avoid peaks and ridges. The deaths on Striding Ridge and Helvellyn I was told about happened most often in rainy, foggy weather.

striding ridge

Striding Ridge.

Martineau mentions the treachery of ice in winter rain along even the most simple, mundane hike to a nearby waterfall called Stockghyll Force in Ambleside: “I found that in the winter, when I scrambled a few yards over a convex mass of ice, thinly covered with snow, which completely enveloped the road. I then fell, and could by no means get up again. Every attempt to move, ended in my sliding further to the edge of the little precipice” [ii]

Stockghyll Force

Stockghyll Force Watefall.

When the weather fails us (or fails our expectations, rather), it is frustrating. But perhaps even more frustrating is when our bodies fail us: when we don’t sleep well the night before and feel tired before the walk even begins, when our legs or lungs become exhausted before we want to stop, when hormones just make your body feel off and you end up thinking more about your physical discomfort than the natural beauty around you.

looking out at view

Looking out at the view.

Bad weather and tired  bodies: both can be reasons to not go on. The day I decided to walk in Dorothy’s footsteps up Scafell Pike with my sister was not an auspicious weather day. There are several ways to climb the ascent, but we decided to follow Dorothy’s track by starting from Seawaithe farm. Dorothy rode a cart from her friend Mary Barker’s home in Roswaithe, Borrowdale. We rode a bus from Ambleside that dropped us off in a tiny town called Seatoller and we walked a mile or so down a road that ended at Seawaithe farm. [iii] By the time we started ascending out of the valley, it was like someone had tossed a grey blanket over us and the mountain. It was cold and drizzly, with no visibility. As we climbed higher, the wind became unbearable. I laughed to myself when I remembered  Dorothy’s journal entry about this walk from 1818. Her goal had not even been Scafell—she only ended up doing this peak because the weather was so fine that day!

But how shall I speak of the peculiar deliciousness of the third prospect! At this time that was most favoured by sunshine and shade. The green Vale of Esk—deep and green, with its glittering serpent stream was below us; and on we looked to the mountains near the sea. . . We had attained the object of our journey; but our ambition mounted higher. We saw the summit of Scaw Fell, as it seemed, very near to us: we were indeed, three parts up that mountain; and thither we determined to go. . .

The Sun had never once been overshadowed by a cloud during the whole of our progress from the centre of Borrowdale; at the summit of the Pike there was not a breath of air to stir even the papers which we spread out containing our food. There we ate our dinner in summer warmth; and the stillness seemed to be not of this world . . . We certainly were singularly fortunate in the day; for when we were seated on the summit our Guide, turning his eyes thoughtfully round, said to us, “I do not know that in my whole life I was ever at any season of the year so high up on the mountains on so calm a day.” [iv]

Dorothy describes the magnificent views from Esk Haus, and how the sight of Scafell in the distance made them determined to summit that peak rather than stopping. The weather fed their ambition.

Kassie and me on the summit of Esk Haus

Kassie and me (left) on the summit of Esk Haus.

Not so for my hike 200 years later. When we got to Esk Haus—the original destination of Dorothy’s hike—we had to ask ourselves: how important is it that we get to the top of Scalfell? It was a good question, and I didn’t have an immediate answer. I would not see any beautiful views from the top, so that wasn’t a good reason to press on. Plus, we had been fortunate to bear witness to lots of those views earlier in the week. I had already learned that I didn’t need a peak to make my walks feel worthwhile.

beautiful view

A beautiful view.

In fact, I had been actively working to walk in a way that was less goal-oriented and more rambling. I wanted to revel in the small things around me; to notice the valley, not just the vista. I felt the constant pull to press on instead of sit and relax. I had been practicing going slower, choosing to sit just a bit longer before going on. But now I was faced with the question: do I go on? What would it mean to just turn back, to not reach our goal? To not walk exactly the way Dorothy had? Then I remembered that this was unexpectedly my third year in a row returning to the Lake District to walk. I knew I would be back. With a laugh, I told my sister that the peak of Esk Haus was Dorothy’s original goal, and that was good enough for me. I added my rock to the rock pile—which admittedly was my ego wanting to say “I was here, I made it this far”—but this time it was also a reminder that I only went this far, that I did not go on. I was cold and miserable, and maybe, it would be a good reason to come back.

I thought a lot about not going on as I trekked down the mountain, about all the reasons why not going on is sometimes a good choice for self-preservation and for the relationship with one’s walking partners, to remind us that nature is not answerable to us. My twinge of regret at not scaling the second peak was quickly replaced by gratitude as we dipped below the gray drizzle in the valley to calmer air and warmer temps.My tired legs could not imagine having gone longer.

valley beneath clouds

A valley beneath the clouds.

If we aren’t careful, walking can become an outlet for  our cultural obsession with forward progress and achieving goals. My walks in the lake district showed me that sometimes, walking is about not going on. Turning back, sitting still, walking a circle, changing one’s mind, changing one’s route—all of these practices make walking more than forward motion. Sometimes a good hill walk means you stop. And in that stillness you might notice something new, about yourself or the landscape around you.

slug

A slug.

[i] July 6, 1846. Letter to H.S. Tremenheere, 64 in The Collected Letters of Harriet Martineau, vol. 4, edited by Deborah Logan.

[ii] A Year at Ambleside, 81. Edited by Barbara Todd, Bookcase Publishers, 2002.

[iii] You can see a map created of Dorothy’s route by Paul Westover here.

[iv] Wordsworth, Dorothy. “Reading Text of ‘Excursion up Scawfell Pike’.” Romantic Circles Praxis Series, edited by Michelle Levy, Nicholas Mason, and Paul Westover, 2023, romantic-circles.org/editions.2022.DW.SP-reading.html.

 

 

 

 

Reflections from a Visiting Scholar: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Library and Revision Strategies: Aurora Leigh and the Medical Reform Act of 1858

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By Crystal Veronie, Ph.D.

Crystal Veronie

Crystal Veronie, Ph.D., Armstrong Browning Library Visiting Scholar 2024-2025

In our contemporary world, literary arts such as poetry are often imagined as wildly separate from the modes of discourse in fields of science and medicine–-what C. P. Snow famously ridiculed as “two cultures” in his Rede lecture in 1959; yet, in mid-nineteenth-century Britain, this division of literary and medical discourse was only beginning to show with the advent of separate scientific and medical publications, such as The Lancet, a general medical journal which surgeon, coroner, and politician Thomas Wakley (1795-1862) began in 1823. Rather than a separation of thought leaders in science and medicine from those dedicated to arts and letters, nineteenth-century Britain was a confluence of intellectual engagement between famous poets such as the Romantic poet and metaphysician Samuel Taylor Coleridge and chemist Sir Humphry Davy, who collaborated together with Thomas Beddoes’s Pneumatic Institution to explore the physiological effects and health benefits of nitrous oxide.

My own research concerns the historical absence of women writer’s contributions to medical discourse in nineteenth-century Britain–even as their own bodies became increasingly the subjects of medical study. In Nature’s Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science, renowned professor of history and women’s studies Londa Schiebinger asserts that questions regarding women’s perspectives on “body politics” in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries cannot be answered due to the dearth of women’s contributions to anatomical studies and other scientific and medical publications.[1] The reasons for women’s withdrawal from public scientific discourse in the eighteenth-century are multitudinous, but what is clear is that by the time of the passage of the  Medical Reform Act of 1858 in Britain, a piece of legislation that established an all-male board to regulate medical practice, women’s own authority in women’s health care rapidly declined.[2] New regulation for midwifery effectively prevented the continuance of women’s practice as independent professionals in the medical field.

In spite of prevailing social attitudes about women’s involvement in public discourse and professions in the nineteenth century, women writers were not silent on topics of interest to men of science and medicine; they wrote extensively about popular scientific and medical topics in their fiction, poetry, correspondence, and personal writing. It is to learn more about the perspectives of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning on issues of women’s health, social concerns, and the rise of medical regulation that I entered the Belew Scholars’ Room as a Visiting Scholar to research the remarkable archival collections held at the Armstrong Browning Library and Museum at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. In addition to a considerable collection of correspondence, manuscripts, and fair copies, the Armstrong Browning Library has assembled an astounding collection, the Browning Library, from the personal libraries of Barrett Browning and her equally-famous poet-husband Robert Browning. A celebrated poet at a young age, Barrett Browning enjoyed great success during her lifetime. Her most popular work in the Victorian period, a book-length poem titled Aurora Leigh, continues to delight readers. Although her collection Sonnets from the Portuguese holds higher esteem with modern readers, Aurora Leigh debuted to nearly instant acclaim. William Edmonstoune Aytoune’s review in Blackwood’s Magazine praised Barrett Browning’s bravery: “Mrs Browning takes the field like Britomart or Joan of Arc” for her insistence on authentic literary criticism without “forbearance” in regard to her “sex,” before the reviewer sets about to provide a multi-page review that compares her poetic descriptions to the magnificent strokes of painter J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851).[3] (see fig. 1)

Author’s photograph of Aytoun’s review of Aurora Leigh in Blackwood’s in 1857

Fig. 1. Author’s photograph of Aytoun’s review of Aurora Leigh in Blackwood’s in 1857, Meynell Collection, Armstrong Browning Library

The goals of my research project “Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Revisions of Aurora Leigh and the Medical Reform Act of 1858” are two-fold: 1) to enrich my current research on Aurora Leigh with broader context by researching the Browning Library Collection and 2) to examine revisions that Barrett Browning made to her poem Aurora Leigh during the period between its initial publication in 1856 and Barrett Browning’s death on June 29, 1861. While I have yet to locate any specific reference to the Medical Reform Act of 1858 in Barrett Browning’s writing, the time I spent with the Brownings’ Library collection greatly enhanced and contextualized the fourth chapter of my monograph project, “Resistive Embodiment and Bodily Autonomy in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh,” as well as the broader monograph project which examines works by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Sara Coleridge, and Olive Schreiner. The Brownings avidly read the works of Mary Shelley and her poet husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Barrett Browning had connections to the Wordsworth-Coleridge circle.

Since my research considers women’s writing against the arc of the rise of empirical medicine in the nineteenth-century, I was eager to examine texts that inform medical perspectives in the Brownings’ library. During my month with the Browning Library, I reviewed several texts in the collection that signal Barrett Browning’s interest in medical texts. Robert Browning’s contributions to their library included several works from his father, including a first edition copy of Charles Bell’s 1806 Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting., Abbe Pernetti’s Philosophical Letters Upon Physiognomies. To which are added Dissertations on the Inequality of Souls, Philanthropy, and Misfortunes. (1751), and other interesting texts related to the development of scientific thought. Additionally, a French medical text in the collection, Antonin Bossu’s Anatomie Descriptive Du Corps Humain D’anatomie Des Formes: Suivie d’un Précis includes an inscription on the cover: “Robert Browning / Paris, June 16, ‘56.” The Brownings had wintered over in Paris in 1855, and they returned to Florence in June 1856, just months before the publication of Aurora Leigh. The inscription suggests that Robert Browning acquired the anatomy text prior to their return to their beloved Casa Guidi in Florence (see fig. 2 and fig. 3).

Fig. 2. Author’s photograph of Anatomie descriptive du corps humain D’anatomie Des Forms: Suivie d’un Précis

Fig. 2. Author’s photograph of Anatomie descriptive du corps humain D’anatomie Des Forms: Suivie d’un Précis, Browning Library Collection, Armstrong Browning Library

Fig. 3. Author’s photograph of illustrations of the lungs and heart in Robert Browning’s copy of Anatomie descriptive du corps humain D’anatomie Des Forms: Suivie d’un Précis

Fig. 3. Author’s photograph of illustrations of the lungs and heart in Robert Browning’s copy of Anatomie descriptive du corps humain D’anatomie Des Forms: Suivie d’un Précis,
Browning Library Collection, Armstrong Browning Library

Barrett Browning’s own interest in medicine arises in her correspondence related to her own health and that of family members, but it also appears in correspondence related to the controversy surrounding mesmerism. Barrett Browning corresponded with author Harriet Martineau and received letters privately endorsing mesmerism. Along with the pseudoscience of phrenology, mesmerism or animal magnetism gained enough popularity in England to support the creation of a society of men of science dedicated to its study. A rising physician, John Elliotson (1791-1868) started the society and edited a journal, The Zoist, which circulated stories about its healing effects.  Separated from Barrett Browning socially by only a few degrees, Elliotson’s name appears repeatedly in correspondence between Barrett Browning and her friends and acquaintances.

One letter from Barrett Browning to author Mary Russell Mitford (November 20, [1844]) reveals Barrett Browning’s own concern about the broad application of mesmeric experiments. Barrett Browning writes to Mitford, “You see, enough is not known of the agency & the manner of its acting, to use it with judgement. Every application is a new leap in the dark.” A little further in the same letter, Barrett Browning explains that “I think it too early to make use of this power as an accredited means of restoration from disease—& that the right philosophy wd be to accumulate more facts ..in opposition to the shams ..more undeniable facts, as facts, .. &, so, to begin to classify principles, & bring about the induction of Science, instead of Mystery.” Even though Barrett Browning takes this position on mesmerism’s benefit for the general public, she also expresses belief in the author Harriet Martineau’s testimony of cure and dismay at the way that Martineau’s medical practitioners have turned on her because of her public acknowledgement of her results (see letter from EBB to Mary Russell Mitford, Thursday, Dec. 5, 1844). Thus, Barrett Browning’s correspondence evidences a hesitancy to anticipate positive results for the practice of mesmerism broadly applied to public health. Instead, she argues for more rigor in the practice of medicine, caution in disregard for the differences between individual physiologies, and ethical treatment for patients who counter medical authority.

In addition to specific medical manuals, my research in the Browning Library uncovered unexpected connections between Barrett Browning’s writing and that of other respected poets. For example, Barrett Browning’s copy of James Russell Lowell’s Poems (1844), a presentation copy of the second edition sent to her by Lowell himself, includes numerous annotations in Barrett Browning’s hand that provide greater nuance to my readings of Aurora Leigh. In Lowell’s “A Legend of Brittany,” Barrett Browning has annotated in the margins near the lines:

Not far from Margaret’s cottage dwelt a knight

Of the proud Templars, a sworn celebate,

Whose heart in secret fed upon the light

And dew of her ripe beauty, through the grate. (Part I, Stanza XVI).

The hidden quality of the knight’s love shares similarities with Barrett Browning’s poem “Lord Walter’s Wife,” a poem that also explores a man’s secret desires as a kind of corruption that tempts him to break with his own sense of moral duty.

A little later in Part II, stanza II of Lowell’s “A Legend of Brittany,” Barrett Browning marks a vertical line next to a passage that contrasts high and low elements:

Yet let us think, that, as there’s naught above

The all-embracing atmosphere of Art,

So also there is naught that falls below

Her generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe.

Similar to Lowell’s use of high and low, Barrett Browning employs the contrast of high and low in the exchange of gazes between the young Romney Leigh and Aurora in Book I of Aurora Leigh:

We came so close, we saw our differences

Too intimately. Always Romney Leigh

Was looking for the worms, I for the gods.

A godlike nature his; the gods look down,

Incurious of themselves; and certainly

’Tis well I should remember, how, those days,

I was a worm too, and he looked at me. (lines 500-556)

The passage in Lowell’s poem places “Art” at the highest reaches of the “atmosphere” but also insists that even that which is “grimed with guilt and woe” remains within its purview. Barrett Browning’s passage, by contrast, correlates Romney’s masculine objectivity with god-like heights, while it correlates Aurora’s femininity with the earthly and material—for how much more gross and corporeal a motif could she choose than the worm’s body and its frequent associations with the grave and mortal decay.

According to the edition of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language in the Browning Library, the primary meaning of the word “worm” in English is to refer to “a small harmless serpent that lives in the earth.” Other meanings of the term, however, include “poisonous serpent” and parasitic organisms, as well as references to silkworms and those worms associated with graves (see fig. 4 and 5).

Fig. 4. Author’s photograph of title page of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1786)

Fig. 4. Author’s photograph of title page of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1786), Browning Library Collection, Armstrong Browning Library.

Fig. 5. Author’s photograph of entry, “worm” in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language

Fig. 5. Author’s photograph of entry, “worm” in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, Browning Library Collection, Armstrong Browning Library.

In turning from the Browning Library collection to the revisions made to Aurora Leigh, I am drawn to descriptions of the “unseen” and invisible. In my transcription of the Armstrong Browning Library’s fair copy fragment of the first edition of Aurora Leigh, a draft of Book I, lines 9-28 and 204-207 (D0051), I notice the phrase, “hid with God” (line 204) repeated in the published first edition of the poem.

Moreover, my interest was piqued by the striking alteration to lines 204-207. In this fair copy, these lines emphasize the child’s confrontation with death:

For nine full years our lives were hid with God

Among his mountains. I was twelve years old

And suddenly these vague, unfeatured days

Grew clear with death. Suddenly woke up… (Barrett Browning,

fair copy manuscript of first edition of Aurora Leigh)

Fig. 6 Author’s photograph of an excerpt of the fair copy manuscript of Aurora Leigh (D0051)

Fig. 6 Author’s photograph of an excerpt of the fair copy manuscript of Aurora Leigh (D0051)

In contrast, the same line numbers in the first published edition of Aurora Leigh differ significantly:

So, nine full years, our days were hid with God

Among his mountains.      I was just thirteen,

Still growing like the plants from unseen roots

In tongue-tied Springs, — and suddenly awoke … (Barrett Browning,

Aurora Leigh, Chapman and Hall, 1857)

The shift between the lines in the fair copy and the lines in the first published edition is one from an emphasis upon the clarity of death that brings a sudden awareness of one’s mortality to a sense of childhood innocence lost–and an awakening into an adult consciousness more reflective of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience.

The subtle revisions from the fair copy to the first edition emphasize the quality of her father’s touch. In the fair copy, lines 19-20, “My father’s slow hand when she had left us both, / Stroke out my childish curls across his knee” and then, lines 24-27, “… O father’s hand, / Stroke the poor hair down, stroke it heavily, / And draw the child’s head closer to thy knees,” recall the child’s memory of the deceased father–the force of his heavy hand and knee–whose insistent and repetitious touch leaves its mark on the child’s memory. So too, in the 1859 fourth edition of Aurora Leigh does the paternal aunt’s gaze, which Aurora describes her eyes as “two gray-steel naked-bladed” instruments of violence (Book I, line 327). Under her aunt’s surveillance, Aurora likens herself to one who has been shipwrecked, her body “…thrown / Like seaweed on the rocks…” (Book I, lines 379-380). In a parallel to her father’s forceful stroking of her hair in the previous scene, Aurora describes her aunt’s visual scrutiny as a “prick” that seeks to:

To prick me to a pattern with her pin

Fibre from fibre, delicate leaf from leaf,

And dry out from my drowned anatomy

The last sea salt left in me. (Book I, lines 381-384).

The richness of these passages, and the doubling of paternal surveillance from the father to the aunt, also echo similar parallels in Barrett Browning’s own life between an autocratic father and family and friends intent on shaping her—not to mention the connection between the shipwreck metaphor and her own loss of her favorite brother “Bro” at sea in Torquay. It leaves me with much to contemplate in the coming weeks and months as I revise my monograph chapter.

In her exploration of conceptions of inner lives—private thoughts and feelings, of her characters, Barrett Browning conducts her own kind of anatomical discoveries. The influence of changes in medicine play out in subtle degrees in Aurora Leigh’s preoccupation with bodily autonomy, the soul, and the relationship of the mind to the body.

Since spending time with the Browning Library Collection, Barrett Browning’s correspondence, personal writing, and the various revisions that she made to Aurora Leigh and her other works, I feel my research project becoming more rooted, growing in Barrett Browning’s words, “from unseen roots” (Aurora Leigh, first edition, Book I, line 206). I am incredibly grateful for the 2024-2025 fellowship I received, which made possible the month I spent in residence as a Visiting Scholar at the Armstrong Browning Library, and for the incredible support I received from librarians Jennifer Borderud and Laura French, as well as the gracious staff, including Christi Klempnauer, Vanessa Long, and Rachael Bates. I am also deeply moved by the collegiality extended from the Margarett Root Brown Chair in Robert Browning and Victorian Studies Dr. Kristen Pond. I am also ever indebted to the generosity of donors who have made and continue to sustain the archival collections at the Armstrong Browning Library.

[1] Britomart is a reference to the female knight in Book III of Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Fairie Queene, a text also in the Browning Library Collection.

[2] Schiebinger, Nature’s Body (Boston: Beacon Press): p. 201.

[3] Wakley announces the passage of the Medical Reform Act (here called “The Medical Practitioner Act” in The Lancet on Saturday, August 7, 1858; Schiebinger asserts that “…this was a period when women’s agency in health matters was being challenged more generally. For hundreds of years, midwives had held a monopoly on the entire field of women’s health care. Beginning in the seventeenth century and increasing in the eighteenth century, Schiebinger explains, “university-trained [male] obstetricians had taken over the more scientific (and lucrative) parts of birthing” (Nature’s Body, 141).

Works Cited

Aytoun, William Edmonstoune. “Elizabeth Barrett Browning—Aurora Leigh.” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 81, no. 495 (January 1857), pp. 23-41. Meynell Collection, Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University.

Barrett Browning, Elizabeth. Aurora Leigh. First edition. Chapman and Hall. 1857. Browning Library Collection, Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University.

———. Aurora Leigh. Manuscript Draft of I, 9–28 and 204–207, on a page numbered 7. Browning Collections, Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University, D0051.

———. Aurora Leigh. 1859. Fourth, revised edition. Edited by Kerry McSweeney. Oxford UP, 1998, 2008.

———. Letter from EBB to Mary Russell Mitford. Letter 1764, November 20, [1844]. The Brownings’ Correspondence. Vol. 9. Edited by Philip Kelley, Edward Hagan, and Linda M. Lewis. June 1844 – December 1844. Letters 1618 – 1798. Wedgestone Press, 1991, pp. 234-238.

———. Letter from EBB to Mary Russell Mitford. Letter 1779, Thursday, Dec. 5 1844, Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 9. Edited by Philip Kelley, Edward Hagan, and Linda M. Lewis. June 1844 – December 1844. Letters 1618 – 1798. Wedgestone Press, 1991, pp. 234-235.

Bossu, Antonin. Anatomie Descriptive Du Corps Humain D’anatomie Des Formes: Suivie d’un Précis

Paris: Au Comptoir des Imprimeurs-Unis, Lacroix-Comon, Éditeur, Quai Malaquais, 15. Browning Library Collection, Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University.

Johnson, Samuel. “Worms.” A Dictionary of the English Language: In Which the Words Are Deduced from Their Originals, Illustrated in Their Different Signification by Examples from the Best Writers. To Which are Prefixed, a History of the Language, and an English Grammar. Vol. II. London: John Jarvis, 1786, n.p. Browning Library Collection, Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University.

Lowell, James Russell. Poems. 2nd edition. Cambridge: John Owen, 1844. Browning Library Collection, Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University.

“The Medical Practitioner Act.” The Lancet, Saturday, 7 Aug. 1858. The Lancet, vol. 2, London: J. Onwyn, pp. 149-150. HathiTrust. Princeton University. Accessed 15 July 2024, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101074830579&seq=153&q1=%22medical+reform%22.

Scavenger Hunt Through the ABL! Find the Artifacts Described in Scholar Kevin Morrison’s Book

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by Anna Clark, Master’s Candidate in History and Armstrong Browning Library Graduate Assistant

This article complements the exhibit “Digging in the Archives: Recent Scholarship at the Armstrong Browning Library” on display in the Hankamer Treasure Room, summer and fall 2024. The section on the scholarship of Kevin Morrison–in particular, his book Victorian Liberalism and Material Culture: Synergies of Thought and Place–contains a QR code that redirects to this page. The list of artifacts that Morrison used to describe the connection between Robert Browning’s home decor and his poetry are listed below. All of these items are somewhere on display here at the Armstrong Browning Library. See if you can find all of them!


In his book, scholar Kevin Morrison explores the connection between ideology and material culture. Specifically, Morrison examines the living spaces of four Victorian authors and intellectuals—John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, John Morley, and Robert Browning​—to discover how the environment in which each writer worked influenced their liberal politics. To write the chapter “Robert Browning’s Domestic Gods,” Morrison studied many of the items on display here at the ABL that were once in the Brownings’ home.

List of Artifacts to Find:

  • Velvet Folding Chair

Velvet Folding Chair, originally in the salon of Casa Guidi

This Italian velvet folding chair was one of the antique items that Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning bought to furnish the salon in their house in Florence, Italy, called Casa Guidi. Originally covered in red velvet, the curule-style chair has since been reupholstered in green velvet. The arms and legs of the chair are made of walnut and display many hand-carvings. Elizabeth described these carvings as “all grinning heads & arabesque” (The Brownings’ Correspondence 2005: 103-4, quoted in Morrison, 198).

This folding chair appealed to the Brownings because of both its comfort and its second-hand nature. Morrison explains that at this time, furnishing one’s home with previously owned goods would have been seen as undesirable to many in the English middle class, but for Robert and Elizabeth, the struggling poets they were, saving money on furniture was a wise option as well as in line with their Evangelical views of economy (198-200). Additionally, Robert wanted to invoke the culture of Italy by collecting antiques and art that reflected its aristocratic history (204). This love of Italy and its Renaissance past is seen in many of Robert’s poems.

 

  • Browning Family Grandfather Clock

Browning Family Grandfather Clock

In his book, Morrison describes the significance of this grandfather clock, which belonged to the Browning family and was on display at four of their family residences. For Morrison, the clock tells the story of a family who “emphasized religious principle of self-denial” (186). Even though Robert Browning’s father was well-off, this Bates of Huddersfield bracket clock is more practical than decorative in appearance. It is made of rosewood on a brass-mounted base with little ornamentation. As Morrison explains, “[the clock’s] modest appearance calls attention to time itself–and, by extension, the limited quantity of time, the uncertainty of days and the importance of the present moment” (186). This reminder of one’s own mortality was especially important in an Evangelical household like the Brownings’.

This clock kept time throughout the 20th-century and will still chime if wound. (The ABL staff does not wind the clock for preservation purposes.)

 

  • Elizabeth’s Writing Desk, Letter Tray, and Chairs

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s writing desk, letter tray, and chair

At this writing desk, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote many of her poems and conducted her correspondence. As an educated Evangelical woman who read and wrote broadly, Elizabeth shared her husband’s liberal views. In particular, she was well-informed on the current political scene in Florence and wrote some poems advocating for Italian independence.

 

  • Prie-Dieu

The Brownings’ prie-dieu, which is the French name for a prayer kneeler

This prie-dieu, or prayer kneeler, was owned by the Brownings when they lived at Casa Guidi in Florence. Pen, their only son, later inherited the prie-dieu and used it in his Venetian home, Palazzo Rezzonico. As Evangelicals, the Brownings dedicated time to prayer both at church and at home.

 

  • Salon at Casa Guidi by George Mignaty (1861)

Mignaty’s Painting of the Salon at Casa Guidi

This is George Mignaty’s 1861 painting Salon at Casa Guidi, which Robert commissioned the artist to paint shortly after Elizabeth’s death. Robert wanted a memento of their sitting room in Florence as it looked when Elizabeth was alive.

Kevin Morrison’s observations about the Brownings’ Evangelical mentality and Robert’s appreciation for Italian art are evident in the painting. Morrison uses Elizabeth’s description of their home as being in “graceful disorder” (Browning Correspondence 1998: 322, quoted in Morrison, 193) as he describes the crowded look of the salon. For the Victorians, the excessive ornamentation of the Brownings’ sitting room and the many pieces of antique furniture and art would have created a sense of home and comfort.

Many of the items on this list can be seen in the painting. In particular, the green Italian folding chair can be seen in the lower lefthand corner of the painting, upholstered in its original red velvet. Additionally, Elizabeth’s fan, which is in the ABL’s possession, is seen laying on the green deck chair in the lower right corner of the painting. The second-hand mahogany bookcase which stands along the left wall originally belonged to a convent and indicates both the Brownings’ love for beautiful things and their Evangelical outlook on economy. In his book, Morrison also delves into the significance of the Italian religious tapestry panels hanging on the back wall of the salon, which represent an intersection of art, history, and religion.

 

  • The Fan in Mignaty’s Painting of the Salon

Elizabeth’s fan which is laying on the chair in the painting of the salon at Casa Guidi

This fan is believed to be Elizabeth’s–in particular, the one laying on the green chair in Mignaty’s painting of the salon at Casa Guidi.

 

  • Copy of The Guardian Angel by Guercino 

The ABL’s copy of the Guardian Angel painting, which was inspiration for Robert Browning’s Poem, “The Guardian Angel”

The Guardian Angel, or L’angelo Custode, was painted in the 17th century by Italian Baroque artist Giovanni Fransceesco Barbieri, who was known as “Guercino.” This particular painting is a copy of the original, which hangs in a small chapel in Fano, Italy, where Robert Browning one day visited with his wife Elizabeth. Robert wrote the poem “The Guardian Angel” based off his perceptual and spiritual engagement with the painting. In the poem, Browning’s narrator expresses a wish that the child’s guardian angel in the painting would also minister to him. The narrator desires a supernatural encounter after admiring Guercino’s painting; in other words, the art inspires a spiritual awakening in the viewer.

As Morrison explains in his book, “works of fine art were viewed with ambivalence by Evangelicals…Many worried about art lacking biblical sanction” (190-91). This particular painting of a child’s guardian angel would have been troublesome for some Evangelicals as the existence of guardian angels had been a long-standing Christian tradition but not one that had explicit biblical exegesis. However, as Morrison explains, Robert Browning appreciated art as it “opened not only the representational world depicted on the canvas but also the historical world of its creation” (191). Browning’s perspective on art influenced how he interacted with Guercino’s The Guardian Angel painting.

Browning’s poem “The Guardian Angel” was the topic of Kevin Morrison’s 2023 Browning Day lecture, in which he explained the poet’s inspiration and pedagogy in writing the poem. The lecture complemented this chapter on “Robert Browning’s Domestic Gods” in Victorian Liberalism and Material Culture.

To learn more about Kevin Morrison’s research and past visits to the Armstrong Browning Library, the following links are provided:

Browning Day 2023, “Translated into Song: Robert Browning and a Picture at Fano” | Armstrong Browning Library & Museum (baylor.edu)

Reflections from a Visiting Scholar: Archival Expectations and Unexpected Surprises | Armstrong Browning Library & Museum (baylor.edu)

Also be sure to check out the work that other researchers and scholars have conducted at the ABL using our materials in the exhibit “Digging in the Archives: Recent Scholarship at the Armstrong Browning Library.” In particular, if you are interested in Sue Brown’s research on Julia Wedgwood, consider stopping by our Dotson Wedgwood china and pottery display downstairs on the first floor.*

*(The Dotson Wedgwood Collection here at the ABL was donated by Sue Anthony Dotson and her husband William Dotson and remains one of the largest collections of Wedgwood pottery pieces in the United States. Robert Browning and Julia Wedgwood, the great-granddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood who founded the Wedgwood pottery company in 1759, were correspondents.)

Browning Day 2024, “How Much Bacon is in this Vegan Sandwich?: The Role of Invention in Historical Fiction”

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by Anna Clark, Master’s Candidate in History and Armstrong Browning Library Graduate Assistant

On this year’s Browning Day, novelist Laura McNeal gave a lecture entitled, “How Much Bacon is in this Vegan Sandwich?: The Role of Invention in Historical Fiction,” describing her experience in writing The Swan’s Nest, a historical fiction novel detailing Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett’s courtship between 1844-1846. McNeal’s lecture was followed by a book-signing and reception downstairs in the Cox Reception Hall.

This year’s Browning Day celebration was held on Friday April 12th in the Hankamer Treasure Room and featured novelist Laura McNeal who gave a lecture on her most recent novel, The Swan’s Nest. In her opening remarks, Library Director Jennifer Borderud introduced the Armstrong Browning Library’s newest curator, Joanna Lamb, and welcomed the Baylor University Libraries Board of Advisors. Borderud acknowledged the culmination of an exciting week for the university and the city of Waco. Thousands of visitors flooded into Waco to observe the total solar eclipse on Monday April 8th, and the natural phenomenon did not disappoint despite cloudy skies prior to totality. Two of these visitors were Laura McNeal, this year’s featured Browning Day speaker, and her husband Tom McNeal.

Laura McNeal, 2024 Browning Day Lecturer

Laura McNeal is the author of Dark Water, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and a two-time historical fiction novelist as well as the co-author of four other critically acclaimed novels written with her husband Tom McNeal. She received her M.A. in fiction writing from Syracuse University and has been the recipient of two Armstrong Browning Library visiting research fellowships. These research visits to the ABL assisted McNeal in writing her latest novel, The Swan’s Nest, which explores the love story of two famous 19th-century poets, so near and dear to our library: Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Swan’s Nest, which was just released this March, covers the beginning of the Brownings’ courtship in 1844 leading up to their wedding in 1846 and their subsequent flight to Italy. In future works, McNeal intends to explore more of the Brownings’ 19th-century world as The Swan’s Nest is the first book in a planned trilogy.

How Much Bacon is in This Vegan Sandwich?

In her lecture “How Much Bacon is in this Vegan Sandwich?: The Role of Invention in Historical Fiction,” McNeal discussed the process of writing The Swan’s Nest and what she means when she says her novel is true to life. At first glance, McNeal observed, the descriptor “historical fiction” appears to be an oxymoron in the same way “bacon” and “vegan” are antithetical. How can a book be historical yet fictional? How can a vegan sandwich have bacon?

As McNeal explained in her lecture, the role of invention in historical fiction does not take away from the historical reality of what happened. Instead, historical fiction is a medium through which to welcome a new audience into the story of the past. Sometimes for the past to make sense or to understand how people in the past felt or perceived the events happening in their lives, a certain amount of artistic license is required. This is the role of invention in historical fiction: to interpret people or events in the past in order to fill gaps in their stories. In The Swan’s Nest, McNeal had to, metaphorically, put bacon in her vegan sandwich.

“That is the origin of my strange title. The book is historical but fiction. It’s non-fat, yet it has fat in it. It’s non-fictional fiction.”

A portrait of Sarianna Browning, the poet’s sister, hangs in the John Leddy-Jones Research Hall. McNeal lamented that this is one of the few depictions we have of Sarianna Browning. In her novel, McNeal brings Sarianna to life and gives her a voice and personality beyond this rather solemn face.

McNeal described the strange dichotomy of her craft in which she portrays many “fictional but historically possible” events and conversations between her characters. In The Swan’s Nest, she imagines not only Robert and Elizabeth’s courtship but also the reactions of their respective family members and friends to their relationship and eventual elopement. One of these characters was Robert’s younger sister Sarianna Browning; what we know of this intelligent and loyal woman is largely limited to her correspondence, notebooks, and sketches.

To bring Sarianna to life, McNeal had to create many of these “fictional but historically possible” scenarios. In the novel, she relies on a fictional yet historically possible conversation between Sarianna and Charles Dickens at a fictional but historically possible dinner party. In this dinner party scene, McNeal’s Sarianna frets about her outfit, comparing it to those of the other wealthier women in attendance, and displays nervousness in speaking to her literary idol, Dickens. To write these details about Sarianna’s character, McNeal used her own personal experiences. She saw something of herself in Sarianna and in the process, made Sarianna more relatable to modern audiences. Through McNeal’s storytelling, this often-forgotten sister of Robert Browning is able to step outside the poet’s shadow and tell her story–the story of a devoted sister who expressed understandable concerns about how her brother’s secret marriage to Elizabeth Barrett would impact his reputation and their family’s future financial security. Sarianna is not the only character that McNeal brings out of the wings into the limelight; Elizabeth’s sisters and brothers are also portrayed realistically and sympathetically in McNeal’s narrative. It is through many of these invented scenes and conversations in the novel that McNeal emphasizes the humanity of her characters.

The Historical Fiction Novel as a Séance

“A historical novelist is a medium,” McNeal told her audience. She described why chooses to explore the people past through historical fiction writing as it brings their voices to life in a way that biographies frequently fail to fully capture. Oftentimes as it is the case with historians and biographers of 19th-century figures, they are largely limited to what was written down and preserved in the archives. These records may not tell us everything we want to know about these people of the past. In her research for the novel, McNeal studied everything she could get her hands on, but she was not restricted by these historical sources. Instead, she used them to inform and expand upon the historical figures she chose to portray in her book. For example, McNeal used both Henrietta Barrett and Sarianna Browning’s sketchbooks to visualize her characters and their personalities. These sketchbooks, which are in the ABL’s possession, demonstrate these two women’s sense of humor and eye for beauty in the world around them.

“A medium claims to make you hear the voices of people you can’t see, to make things happen in your presence, and to connect you to the dead, to bring them back, and I think novels are the best séance there is.”

Like spiritual mediums who preside over séances, historical fiction authors encounter a lot of skepticism about the nature of their craft. The process of bringing the dead back to life is not easy; many will doubt and challenge whether novelists truly heard the voices of the past and interpreted them correctly–in other words, whether their stories are true to life.

McNeal is not alone in juggling this precarious balance between invention and truth in her writing. One of McNeal’s characters, Elizabeth Barrett herself, too employed invention when she wrote about Adam and Eve’s banishment from the Garden of Eden in “A Drama of Exile.” McNeal described how Elizabeth wrote a defense of her depiction of twilight in Eden since she was worried that literary critics and religious leaders would condemn her for making twilight “too long” in the Biblical story and therefore, historically inaccurate.

Dr. A.J. Armstrong commissioned these stained-glass windows in the Foyer of Meditation to look like dawn or dusk, the hours of the day that he believed the most artistic inspiration occurred. These purple-gold windows also evoke Elizabeth’s long purple twilight in “A Drama of Exile.”

As McNeal argued throughout her lecture, complete historical accuracy is not a standard we should hold historical fiction to; that kind of literary analysis should be reserved for biographies and history books. What she and other historical fiction writers do is take the past and make it into a cohesive narrative by imagining what it would have been like for that person to live in that time or place, using the historical record to guide their literary portrayal. McNeal explained further that all of us interpret and formulate images in our minds about the past in unique ways, and these ideas may not correlate with how others have imagined past people or events. That is perfectly okay because creativity and personal interpretation are part of the genre.

The ABL as a Place Where “the Past Doesn’t Die”

McNeal compared the way historical fiction novelists connect us to the dead to the way museums and libraries do. In her presentation, she stressed the importance of stories behind the objects we have on display, whether they are in a public museum exhibit and or on the shelf in our homes. By holding on to these relics of the past and passing the stories associated with them to the next generation, we are keeping the tenuous link to the dead alive. McNeal described the ABL as a place where “the past doesn’t die,” thanks to the Library’s continued effort to preserve and expand our collections.

In particular, McNeal referenced a letter by J.A.L. Sterling, which is part of a recent collection donated to the ABL by the family of Elaine Baly (Vivienne Browning), a descendant of Robert Browning’s uncle Reuben Browning. In this letter, Sterling lamented the demolition of Robert Browning’s home at 19 Warwick Crescent, located in the Paddington neighborhood of London. Before the home was torn down, Sterling snuck in and took photographs, which he enclosed in the letter to Elaine Baly. He also salvaged the door to Robert Browning’s study. Sterling made this door into a desk upon which he wrote his book manuscript on world copyright law, hoping that some of Browning’s genius would seep from the door into his pen.

For her lecture, McNeal examined J.A.L. Sterling’s letter to Elaine Baly (Vivienne Browning) describing his efforts to save 19 Warwick Crescent from demolition in the 1950s along with his pictures of the house before it was destroyed. The photographs and letter are now part of the Elaine Baly (Vivienne Browning) Collection gifted to the ABL by her son John Baly in November 2023.

We know what the interior of Robert Browning’s home at 19 Warwick Crescent looked like thanks to Sterling’s photographs and descriptions. We have these photographs because Elaine Baly kept the letter, and her son John chose to donate her Browning paraphernalia to the ABL instead of discarding the items. This fragile link to the past has been preserved thanks to the individual actions of many different players who saw the value in remembering Robert Browning’s life at Warwick Crescent.

Continuing this theme of doors associated with the Brownings, McNeal also discussed a visit to Wellesley College in which she touched the door that once stood guard at the Barrett residence on Wimpole Street–the very same door whose slot Robert’s letters to Elizabeth would have been slipped through and the very same door that Robert himself would have knocked in order to gain entry into the Barrett home on May 16, 1844, to meet his future wife for the first time.

McNeal acknowledged the tangible history that the Wimpole Street door represented along with the lovely letters and poems that both Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning wrote to one another. However, as much as McNeal appreciates the preservation of these historical objects associated with the Brownings, she explained that she is much more interested in the lives of these poets, in which the door served as a symbol, the opening of a legendary love story.

“It is the life that followed the letters…it’s the story, knowing the story, telling the story, and most of all, believing the story that gives the object value.”

A diorama on display in the Elizabeth Barrett Browning Salon depicting the first meeting between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett in her bedroom at No. 50 Wimpole Street. This diorama, McNeal stated in her lecture, is one of her favorite items on display in the ABL.

As in the cases of J.A.L. Sterling’s door-turned-desk and the Wimpole Street door at Wellesley, the stories behind non-fictional objects make them valuable. McNeal observed that the ABL’s Hankamer Treasure Room would not be a treasure room unless there were treasures contained within–for what is a museum without treasures?  But what makes these items treasures? A lock of hair belonging to Robert Browning has value because we know who Robert Browning was; we know the story of his extraordinary life, and we continue to tell the story of his life. What particularly stands out for McNeal in the story of Robert Browning’s life is his steadfast love for Elizabeth Barrett and hers for him.

“At the core of the Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett’s myth is the Greek myth about Cupid and Psyche. Love makes the soul immortal.”

The love shared between our two eponymous poets is what draws thousands of visitors to our Library every year. The Brownings’ love for one another is what gives greater beauty and depth to their poetry, and this enduring love story is reflected throughout the ABL. One only has to read Elizabeth’s famous Sonnet 43 inscribed on the wall in the Cloister of the Clasped Hands and admire the stained-glass windows in the Elizabeth Barrett Browning Salon to see the continuing appeal of the Brownings’ love story. We all dream of a love like theirs, which almost seems mythical–too good to be true.

The Enduring Myth of the Brownings’ Love

One of the stained-glass windows in the Elizabeth Barrett Browning Salon represents the lines of the first sonnet from the “Sonnets from the Portuguese”: “The silver answer rang…Not Death but Love.” The sonnets, although published later, were written by Elizabeth during the Brownings’ courtship, and this first sonnet foreshadows that the coming change in her life is to be Robert’s love, not death as she originally feared.

An audience member asked McNeal how the Brownings’ idea of love shaped her idea of love. Throughout her lecture, McNeal expressed her hope that her novel will leave readers wanting to learn more about the Brownings, to seek out their history, and to visit the libraries and museums which house the treasures of their lives. As for her characters’ influence on her, McNeal shared that her own dive into Brownings’ love story made her want to be a better person, and their faithfulness to one another through life’s trials was inspirational.

Robert and Elizabeth’s love story is one that endures, largely in part due to their prolific poetry and letters, but also because of people like McNeal who take up their pen and tell the Brownings’ story again.

“The whole point of a myth is to see ourselves in it and be able to interpret our experiences through it and tell it again…”

McNeal closed her lecture with a reading from her novel, The Swan’s Nest, and afterwards, answered other audience questions and signed books in the Cox Reception Hall. We encourage you to check out McNeal’s retelling of the famous love story of the Brownings in her book, The Swan’s Nest, and to keep an eye out for the next installations in the trilogy.

If you are interested in watching a video recording of McNeal’s lecture, the following link is provided: 2024 Armstrong Browning Library & Museum Browning Day featuring novelist Laura McNeal (youtube.com)

It’s Okay to Talk to Strangers: 2023 Benefactors Day Lecture by Dr. Kristen Pond

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by Anna Clark, Master’s Student in History and Armstrong Browning Library Graduate Research Assistant

Every fall semester, the Armstrong Browning Library hosts a guest lecturer to celebrate Benefactors Day. The annual event, held this year on October 20th in the Hankamer Treasure Room, recognizes our benefactors who support the Armstrong Browning Library in its mission to educate and share with visitors the lives and works of the Brownings and their Victorian contemporaries. We would like to extend our gratitude to the Guardian Angel Fund who made this year’s celebration possible.

On this Benefactors Day, Library Director Jennifer Borderud highlighted the generosity of the Brown Foundation, which sponsors the Armstrong Browning Library’s Margarett Root Brown Chair in Robert Browning and Victorian Studies at Baylor University. Established in 1970, the Brown Foundation funds the current scholar-in-residence’s research and public scholarship.

This year’s lecturer was Dr. Kristen Pond, our newly selected Margarett Root Brown Chair, who gave a presentation titled “It’s Okay to Talk to Strangers: Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë on Enchanting Encounters.” Her lecture was her inaugural address after being named the seventh Browning Chair this fall, and Dr. Pond will continue to collaborate with the ABL in the years to come as our in-house scholar on all things Browning and Victorian.

In her talk, Dr. Pond explored the ways we experience both wonder and enchantment in our lives and how encounters with strangers are often linked to these feelings of wonder and enchantment. Her address draws from her research on the importance of space and the figure of the stranger in Victorian literature.

Dr. Kristen Pond, the new Margarett Root Brown Chair of Robert Browning and Victorian Studies at Baylor University

In addition to serving as our new Margarett Root Brown Chair, Dr. Pond is also an Associate Professor in the Baylor English Department, the Interim First-Year Writing Director, and an Affiliate Faculty Member of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department. She teaches courses on 18th and 19th century British literature, and her research largely focuses on the 19th century novel, its development, and the rhetoric and ethics of sympathy. Her new book, Strangers and the Enchantment of Space in Victorian Fiction, 1830-1865, was just released this October and delves further into the themes she discussed in her Benefactors Day lecture.

Wonder and Enchantment

Dr. Pond opened her lecture with a question to the audience, asking them to think about the last time they were filled with wonder. As attendees reflected on this question, Pond showed pictures of her hikes in the mountains of North Carolina and special moments spent with her children. The sense of wonder, Pond suggested, not only comes from a feeling of awe but also some sort of disruption, something outside the ordinary events of daily life. She posited the idea that to wonder at something is to not have an immediate answer or explanation for the thing you are wondering about and to be surprised or astonished by it.

Pond then explained that Victorian authors often thought and wrote about this feeling of wonder in their works, but they often used the word “enchantment” instead. As Pond described, to be enchanted by something is to be charmed, delighted, enraptured, or even spellbound by it. Pond suggested that we often use the word “wonder” in modern language because we all have access to wonder, whereas the word “enchantment” has a magical and mysterious connotation to it. To clarify further the differences between the two words, Pond explained that wonder is often depicted as a good emotion, but enchantment can be either good or bad. Later in her lecture, Pond explored the negative side of enchantment through the character of Jane Eyre.

Personally, I am filled with a sense of wonder whenever I look down at the Foyer of Meditation from the 3rd floor balcony.

Victorians and Strangers

Pond described how Victorians lived in an age of incredible scientific discovery and technological advancement, and new modes of transport, such as the train, offered more opportunities to explore the world beyond their familiar scenes of close friends and neighbors. Their growing mobility as a culture meant more encounters with strangers.

Strangers, in particular, evoked both fear and delight in the hearts of Victorians. This double-edged emotion of fear and delight, as Pond explicated, is part of this feeling of enchantment. For the Victorian traveler, the figure of the unknown stranger offered endless possibilities beyond their own realm of experience and knowledge. Handbooks on proper railway etiquette and how to interact with other passengers were popular among Victorians.

This Victorian fascination with strangers is also seen in their fiction, as authors often examined this tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary. Pond explained that this tension is a space for wonder and enchantment. The railway as a space appealed to the romanticized idea of the journey and encountering others on their own personal journeys. Charles Dickens, in particular, was fascinated by the possibility of an encounter with an unknown stranger and explored this enchantment in both his personal life and literature.

Image of a Victorian-era train taken from the UK National Archives

Charles Dickens and the Railway as a Space of Enchantment in Mugby Junction

In June 1865, Charles Dickens rode the South Eastern Railway Folkestone to London boat train, and the train derailed while crossing a viaduct, plunging from the bridge into the riverbed below. The crash resulted in the deaths of ten passengers and the injuries of another forty. Dickens and his companions were unharmed, but the traumatic experience had a profound effect on Dickens. Some of the passengers died while he tended to them, and he had to crawl back into the carcass of the train to retrieve his papers for the last installment of Our Mutual Friend. For the rest of his life, Dickens was extremely wary of railway travel and sought alternative means of transportation whenever feasible.

Engraving of the 1865 Staplehurst Rail Crash from the Illustrated London News

Despite his fear of trains, Dickens was fascinated by the railway and wrote Mugby Junction, a collection of short stories all centered around the railway as a space of enchanting encounters. In her lecture, Pond focused on two of these stories, “Barbox Brothers” and “Barbox Brothers & Co.” The character of Jackson in these two stories undergoes transformative experiences at the Mugby Junction station because of his encounters with strangers.

In “Barbox Brothers,” Jackson is first described as a solitary and unhappy man, but his encounter with Phoebe opens his eyes to the magic of the railway and the enchanting possibilities it offers. Phoebe is a sick and bedridden young woman, but unlike her body, her mind is active. As she listens to the constant activity at the station from her window, she envisions exciting journeys to exotic places and lands that she has only encountered in her imagination. The junction as a space connects Phoebe to things and places she will never see. Thanks to Phoebe, Jackson learns to appreciate the railway as a space of enchantment and begins to take an interest in the people around him. He starts to see the world through Phoebe’s eyes and to view the railway as an imagined community, connected through shared journeys. He promises to observe the people at the seven railway lines that intersect at the junction and to visit Phoebe again, so he can describe them to her and make her imagined stories a reality.

Dickens’ second installment in the Mugby Junction series, “Barbox Brothers & Co,” again follows Jackson as he meets another enchanting and imaginative girl. Polly, whom Jackson encounters in a town at the end of the seventh railway line, asks him to tell her a story. At first, Jackson tells her that he does not have any stories to tell her, and she admonishes him. Then Polly spins a tale about a fairy, and Jackson’s imagination is opened to other perspectives of the world. He gets over his initial awkwardness with the little girl and continues her story about the fairy. In doing so, Jackson begins to deviate from his self-centeredness and to consider other people’s happiness. Polly turns out to be the daughter of the woman he once loved, and his kindness towards Polly changes her mother’s view of him. In the end, Jackson settles down in Mugby Junction and spends the rest of his days doting both on Phoebe and Polly.

Ultimately, Dickens’ two stories, Pond argued, are about human relationships. Through the characters of Jackson, Phoebe, and Polly, Dickens portrays the railway as a space of enchantment, where encounters with strangers could expand the imagination and foster meaningful connections with others. Jackson is utterly transformed by his encounters with Phoebe and Polly into a much happier and personable man.

In her lecture, Pond recognized the ABL’s possession of the Every Saturday journal in our collections, this copy having installments of Dickens’ Mugby Junction.

Charlotte Brontë and Becoming a Stranger in Jane Eyre

Pond then shifted her attention to another famous Victorian author: Charlotte Brontë. In her novel, Jane Eyre, Brontë shows us that it’s okay to be a stranger too. In addition to the importance of talking to strangers, Pond stressed the reality that we may sometimes be the stranger ourselves. Brontë’s titular character Jane chooses to become a stranger again and again throughout the novel.

Pond asked the audience to reimagine the novel as a journey that follows Jane from Gateshead Hall, the family home of her unkind aunt and cousins, the Reeds; Lowood School, where she receives an education and loses her only friend Helen Burns; Thornfield Hall, where she becomes a governess for Adele and falls in love with Mr. Rochester; Moor House, a place of refuge after her flight from Thornfield upon learning the existence of Bertha Mason Rochester and the home of St. John Rivers and his two sisters; and finally to Ferndean Manor, the secluded house where Jane seeks out Mr. Rochester to rekindle their relationship after Bertha burns down Thornfield. Every time Jane leaves one of these places, she becomes a stranger again, but she does so to preserve something inside her that is fundamental to who she is as a person.

The first time Jane becomes a stranger, taken from one of the ABL’s editions of Jane Eyre which features Monro S. Orr’s illustrations

Pond argued that Jane continually adopts the identity of a stranger to protect herself, and she used the example of Jane’s surprise at Mr. Rochester’s calling her “Jane Rochester” when they are first engaged to demonstrate the self-protective nature of the novel’s protagonist. Jane expresses reluctance to giving up her name, and Brontë describes her heroine having both a nervous fear and a sense of wonder at the prospect of becoming Mr. Rochester’s wife. Pond explained Jane’s conflicting feelings in this moment as a sort of a negative enchantment; Jane is delighted at Mr. Rochester’s proposal of marriage because she loves him, but she is fearful of becoming a stranger to herself. She instead becomes a stranger to him by leaving Thornfield and casting herself at the mercy of strangers, particularly the Rivers family. Jane refuses to become Mr. Rochester’s mistress or to falsely present herself as his wife.

Despite Jane adopting the identity of a stranger in her flight from Thornfield Hall, Jane keeps true to who she is and only trusts us, the readers, with this hidden secret of her true identity. Pond referenced the famous line, “Reader, I married him,” to demonstrate that Jane does not want to be a stranger to herself or us. She continually breaks the fourth wall throughout the story and addresses the reader affectionately as if we were a close friend or confidant. She reveals her feelings to us as both Mr. Rochester and St. John Rivers try to fit her into plans that do not align with her understanding of who she is or her vision for her life.

The only time in the novel that Brontë distances us from Jane is when Jane asks the innkeeper about the recent events at Thornfield Hall after she returns to find it a desolated ruin. Jane does not reveal her identity to the innkeeper as he weaves his tale of Mr. Rochester being bewitched by a governess, not knowing the woman in question is Jane. He tells Jane that the governess had entrapped Mr. Rochester with her charms and that would have been better for Mr. Rochester if that woman had been sunk in the sea before she ever came to Thornfield Hall. Through this harsh appraisal of Jane’s character and intentions, the audience feels a gulf between us and who we know Jane to be.

Jane and Mr. Rochester in the forest near Ferndean, another of Monro S. Orr’s illustrations

Brontë’s use of space is particularly important in the scene in which Jane searches for Mr. Rochester’s remote manor home, Ferndean. She describes Jane feeling lost in the forest and struggling to find the entrance to the secluded house. The physical deterioration of the house itself invokes the 19th century literary device of connecting the inner spiritual state of the landowner to the outer physical state of his home. The fact that Mr. Rochester is at Ferndean, in the first place, forces us to confront the uncomfortable reality that his wife Bertha burned down Thornfield Hall, partly out of anger at him for conspiring to marry another woman. Pond explained that Brontë’s employment of space in this chapter reminds us to consider other perspectives.

For Pond, one of the biggest lessons from Jane Eyre is the importance of being challenged on our views of the world, especially of other people. When the innkeeper recounts his version of the events that occurred at Thornfield Hall, we are forced as an audience to consider other perspectives of Jane’s narrative. The local community has reached a verdict on who they think Jane Eyre is, and Jane presents a version that differs from the villagers’ perception of her throughout the rest of the story. However, Jane’s choosing to become a stranger again and again requires the audience to reconsider what we know of Jane’s identity as she continually seeks change. She does not allow us to remain familiar with who she is, but rather, she constantly reveals new facets of her identity. By slowly revealing the hidden depths and the strength of her character, Jane enchants us, the readers.

It’s Okay to Talk to Strangers

To conclude her lecture, Pond encouraged the audience to take inspiration from Dickens and Brontë and seek these enchanting encounters with strangers. Like the Victorians, we may be fearful of an encounter with a person we do not know, but there are infinite possibilities in every stranger one encounters. In these spaces of disruption from our ordinary behavior and actions, we have an opportunity to encounter the extraordinary. We may be opened to a new perspective, a new way of looking at the world, that we otherwise may have never possessed if we did not garner up the courage to say hello. As Dr. Pond reminds us, it’s okay to talk to strangers, and it may even be wonderful.

Reflections from a Summer Intern

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By Jill Phillips, Armstrong Browning Library and Digitization and Digital Collection Preservation Services Summer Intern

Jill Phillips at the Armstrong Browning Library

My name is Jill Phillips, and I am senior at Baylor University studying Classics and Museum Studies. Over the past several weeks of this summer I have had the pleasure to serve as the Armstrong Browning Library’s summer intern. It has been such a fun and unique experience, and I would recommend to anyone looking for an internship to apply for a Baylor Libraries summer internship. Over the course of the internship, I am expected to help out the ABL’s staff with the creation of metadata, digitization, and creation of a temporary exhibit of my own design and curation, from several of their more recent acquisitions. Overall, my experience has been a wildly positive one, from being able to expand my experience with metadata creation, to working on a unique piece of technology, to being able to curate my own exhibit while still a student.

Working at both the Armstrong Browning Library and the Riley Digitization Center has been such a unique and fun experience that has undoubtedly added to my wonderful education that I have been receiving here at Baylor. This internship has provided me with many opportunities to grow and experience working in an active field that will help me as I near graduation in December. Part of my internship parameters was to set goals within my intern experience, and work with faculty members to grow and meet these goals. Some of the goals that I personally set for myself were to grow in my skills working with metadata and online collections, as well as learn more about the process of curating an exhibit. All of which I have been given the chance to do.

Walking into the ABL is such an amazing moment—the building itself from the outside is just phenomenal to look at—the metallic doors glinting in the early Texas sun is a sight to behold—and one that is nearly impossible to explain to its fullest extent. The library and museum are gorgeous, both outside and in, and you can tell that Dr. Armstrong had taken great pride in the building and its collection. The library and museum itself is such a unique place to be able to work. It holds a standing as a library, museum, and archive due to all of the miscellaneous collections housed within. The third floor Belew Scholars’ Room is an amazing resource for both local and visiting scholars to be able to do research into whichever topic piques their fancy. The room that I have been working in, like all of the other rooms in the library, has these two gorgeous stained-glass windows that allow the sun to be refracted into all the colors of the rainbow, while also allowing for some much-needed vitamin c without having to brave the Texas sun. The staff here at the ABL is also fabulous. Jennifer Borderud has been great to work under and has made the internship like a walk in the park. I started out my summer having a meeting with her and getting to know the ABL, taking a tour of the museum, and Jennifer showing me where the stacks were and a few other secrets of the museum. After that, I got to work! There were 2 bankers boxes worth of recently acquired letters, manuscripts, and books that I was to create metadata for and put into a pre-existing spreadsheet that was shared with the Riley Digitization Center. I got to be hands-on with each document, finding the information while also keeping an eye out for any through lines that might be appearing to use to create my exhibit in the last half of the summer. While doing that, I read several of the ABL’s manuals about exhibit creation and archive storage, to get a grasp of the industry standards that the library adheres to.

Jill Phillips at the Riley Digitization Center

Once I finished with the initial metadata, I spent several weeks working in the Riley Digitization Center in Moody Library on campus, working with the team down there to digitize and upload the documents to Baylor’s digital collections in Quartex. I had the pleasure to work with a Zeutschel Scanstudio A0, which I’m pretty sure is worth four years of tuition at Baylor, plus some. It was definitely a tad daunting, to be working on such an advanced piece of machinery; however, the Scanstudio creates some of the highest quality photographs and scans, making it perfect for the project I am working on. The Riley Center is a fabulous place on Baylor campus, with some of the kindest, most intelligent people on staff working there. They took their time to train and work with me while I was there to ensure that I knew what I was doing and the ABL was receiving the highest quality scans it could get. Working with Allyson Riley and the team was crazy fun and allowed me to see a separate part of the archival field—the digitization portion. In a world where technology is nearly impossible to separate from humans, having access to a growing and evolving digital archive is something that is incredibly important for the archival field. Plus, it allowed me to nerd out over the technology I was getting to use (I definitely took too many selfies and videos to send to my dad.) The Digitization Center showed me the different ways of collecting, storing, and uploading digital archives, while also allowing me some more hands-on work with the documents as well as some Women Poet books that also needed to be digitized and uploaded to the website. Working there taught me more of the industry standards in digitizing collections—leaving borders on letters to ensure the whole thing is captured, or cropping an image of a page in a book or manuscript where the page ends so that there isn’t anything to distract from the words on the page.

Upon returning to the ABL, I began work on my exhibit, and the whole process of creating and designing my ideas. I have been working on my context cards and labels, the lay out of the letters within their case, advertising, facsimiles and so much more to ensure I do everything by the book. I have decided to focus on classical education in the Victorian era, and how children were educated, and why language was something that was at the forefront of their education then but has seemingly slipped from American education until high school and secondary education. My exhibit will be finished by the end of the summer and on display during the fall semester in the ABL’s Hankamer Treasure Room. I look forward to being able to see this project through to the end and seeing my very own exhibit on display in a museum.

Greek, Latin, Italian, Oh My! is on display in the Hankamer Treasure Room through Fall 2023

Overall, I have really enjoyed the opportunities this internship has brought me. I’ve been able to meet some fabulous people, who all are smart and brilliant people who have been in my corner as I complete my internship requirements. The fact that I am allowed to be a student and a professional at the same time has allowed me such an opportunity for growth and professional development that I have no doubt that I have gained an experience that will benefit me well past college graduation. Please come give the ABL a visit, see my exhibit in the Hankamer Treasure Room, or simply browse Baylor’s Digital Collections. You may very well see a document that I helped scan and upload! I would like to thank the Baylor Museum Studies Department, as well as both the ABL and Riley Digitization Center for allowing me to come in and work as an intern. It has proved an extremely fruitful experience and I cannot thank everyone I have worked with enough!

The Armstrong Browning Library is grateful to the donors who made the Armstrong Browning Library Endowed Internship possible.

Browning Day 2023, “Translated into Song: Robert Browning and a Picture at Fano”

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by Anna Clark, Master’s Student in History and Armstrong Browning Library Graduate Research Assistant

Every spring, the Armstrong Browning Library hosts a guest lecturer for its annual Browning Day which commemorates the legacy of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. This year’s lecture was given by Dr. Kevin A. Morrison in the Hankamer Treasure Room on April 27th.

This year’s Browning Day lecture, “Translated into Song: Robert Browning and A Picture at Fano,” explored the connections between sensory and perceptual experience of material culture and the written word. Dr. Kevin Morrison’s presentation was based on Robert Browning’s 1855 poem, “The Guardian Angel: A Picture at Fano.” This poem was the first that Robert Browning wrote after his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and their relocation to Italy. The poem’s inspiration came to Browning after traveling to the small town of Fano, Italy, located on the Adriatic coast. While he was in Fano with Elizabeth, they entered a chapel where a painting entitled L’angelo Custode (The Guardian Angel) by the Italian Baroque painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (known as Guercino) was on display.

We were at Fano, and three times we went
To sit and see him in his chapel there,
And drink his beauty to our soul’s content
—My angel with me too: and since I care
For dear Guercino’s fame (to which in power
And glory comes this picture for a dower,
Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)—

And since he did not work thus earnestly
At all times, and has else endured some wrong—
I took one thought his picture struck from me,
And spread it out, translating it to song.

-Excerpt from Robert Browning’s “The Guardian Angel: A Picture at Fano”

Kevin A. Morrison, Professor of British Literature at Henan University and ABL Visiting Scholar

Morrison is a Professor of British Literature at Henan University in Kaifeng, China, and a Visiting Scholar of the Armstrong Browning Library. His latest book, Victorian Liberalism and Material Culture: Synergies of Thought and Place, was published by the Edinburgh University Press in 2018 and won the 2020 MLA Prize for Independent Scholars. Morrison’s book explores the links between Victorian material culture and liberal political theory through the study of four Victorian writers, including Robert Browning. Morrison is also a founder and the current president of the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies as well as the editor of the society’s journal. His newest book, The Provincial Fiction of Mitford, Gaskell, and Eliot, is set to release this fall. 

In his lecture, Morrison explained how this poem, one of Browning’s least studied, marked a shift in the poet’s literary approach. Morrison detailed the history of the poem, the significance it held to Browning, and how Browning refined his sensory alertness to and perceptual engagement with historical materiality. The poem is largely a story of the relationship between person and object: a story of Browning and his relationship with a painting he viewed in a small church in Fano, Italy. For Browning, this particular painting struck a chord with him, and he was encouraged by Elizabeth to translate his visual and emotive experience into “song.” What Browning is doing in “The Guardian Angel” poem is translating his idea—his experience—of the painting into a poetic and auditory medium.

Morrison described how for the poet, the painting spoke to his soul before it generated any thought. In the poem, Browning attempts to convey to the reader this spiritual encounter with the painting that occurred apart from rational contemplation of it. Morrison further explained how the poem does not simply give a description of the painting; if the poem were just reduced to an artistic description of what it is physically depicted on the canvas, then it would still remain Guercino’s artistic expression. What is innovative here is Browning’s own personal engagement with the painting. In the poem, Browning captures his deep desire to re-engage in a religious appreciation of beauty through his experience of sitting in front of the painting and his prayerful contemplation of it. In this way, Browning’s pedagogical activity is different than his peers and even his earlier works of poetry.

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve
Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

-Excerpt from Robert Browning’s “The Guardian Angel: A Picture at Fano”

The ABL’s copy of the Guardian Angel painting hanging in the Leddy-Jones Research Hall. Guercino’s painting depicts a child perched on a tomb whose hands are clasped by those of his or her guardian angel. The pair appear to be in prayer, looking up to the heavens where three cherubs peer down.

In the audience, members of a Baylor Lifelong Learning Class held at the ABL were present as well as Baylor faculty and students and members of the general public. The lecture was the culmination of three weeks of study for members of the Lifelong Learning Class who met at the ABL weekly to discuss and study the works and lives of the Brownings using library materials.

In her opening remarks, library director Jennifer Borderud highlighted the Guardian Angels, a group of library patrons who help support the ABL’s ability to provide free public admission, expand its material collections, and make possible events such as the annual Browning Day lecture. If you are interested in donating a gift to the Guardian Angel Fund to support the ongoing development of our unique collection of materials dedicated to the Brownings and their Victorian contemporaries as well as the hosting of Browning Day and other public programs, the Armstrong Browning Library thanks you for your generosity.

Additionally, if you are interested in experiencing the moving pathos of Guercino’s The Guardian Angel painting yourself, we encourage you to travel to Fano, Italy, and to send a postcard to the ABL. Once we receive the news that you have visited the painting in Fano, you will become a lifelong member of the exclusive Fano Club, which meets at the library every year around Robert Browning’s birthday (May 7th).

The Armstrong Browning Library would like to express its sincerest gratitude to Dr. Kevin A. Morrison for this year’s lecture and his ongoing collaboration with us to promote the study of the works and lives of poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. To learn more about Dr. Morrison’s previous visits to the library and his archival research at the ABL, the following link is provided: Reflections from a Visiting Scholar: Archival Expectations and Unexpected Surprises | Armstrong Browning Library & Museum (baylor.edu)

 

Reflections from a Graduate Student Fall 2022: Earth Crammed with Heaven

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by Anna Clark, Master’s Student in History and Armstrong Browning Library Graduate Research Assistant

When I began working as a graduate assistant at the Armstrong Browning Library last August, I had recently moved to Texas from Michigan and just started my first semester of graduate school in the Baylor History M.A. program. I was excited to begin my assistantship at the library since my area of study is nineteenth century transatlantic relations between the United States and Great Britain.

When I first stepped into the cool library out of the blazing Texas heat, I felt like I was whisked back to England. As an undergraduate student, I studied abroad for a summer at the University of Oxford and had spent countless hours in the Bodleian Library. The Armstrong Browning Library with its stained glass windows, quiet study rooms, soaring ceilings, marble columns, shelves of old books, and cases of artifacts belongs in Europe. Dr. Armstrong and the generous benefactors who first envisioned the library and those who continue to give have truly made this a sanctuary for those who love the Brownings, their poetry, and beauty in both the written word and the spaces in which it is shared.

A stained glass window in the room I work. Most of the rooms in the library, including the offices and workrooms, have colorful glass windows with inscriptions from the Brownings’ poems.

The office room I have been assigned to work in as a graduate assistant has its own stained glass windows with excerpts from Robert Browning’s poems and houses bookcases filled with rare 19th century books. The third floor hallway where most of the library staff work overlooks the Foyer of Meditation, and I often stop by the balcony to peek down on that marble room with its twilight stained glass windows. On the days the choir practices in the foyer, their music resounds through the building. It is truly a lovely place to work, and I can see how Dr. Armstrong’s vision to inspire another talent at Baylor to the renown of the Brownings may easily come true in such a place.

The soaring ceiling of the Foyer of Meditation stands at forty feet high, and the gold leaf of the dome was pressed by hand, the texture coming from the finger prints of the people who worked hard to bring Dr. Armstrong’s dream to fruition.

Stop by our third floor balcony and listen to the choir if you happen to visit on a day they are practicing. The acoustics in the library make it a favorite site for concerts.

The tasks I have been assigned by our curator, Laura French, this last semester have been very rewarding. Some of the projects I took on included writing articles and interviewing Katrina Gallegos, the curator of our current exhibit Mythic Women: Archetypal Symbology in “Fifine at the Fair,” for the library blog; taking inventory of artwork in one of the ABL’s storage rooms; reading through book catalogues to suggest new items that the library may interested in acquiring; helping Laura, our curator, organize and set up books for English classes that have sessions at the library; researching old newspaper archives to find information for a researcher who had a query about President Truman’s visit to Baylor University in 1947; and curating an exhibit on Harriet Martineau, one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s correspondents and a successful writer in her own right, to complement Dr. Deborah A. Logan’s address here at the library on Benefactor’s Day.

All of these projects have been immensely interesting and have appealed to my love of history. Through my assigned research and work at the library, I have personally handled first editions and letters of Robert and Elizabeth Browning and many of their contemporaries such as Lord Tennyson, Dante and Christina Rossetti, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Thomas Carlyle, and Harriet Martineau to name a few. Some of these artifacts are nearly two-hundred years old, and it often surprises me to think of their age and all the famous people who touched them; they are concrete links to the past, and I think it is wonderful thing that students, professors, and staff at Baylor University have the opportunity to study and examine such historical things.

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God,

But only he who sees takes off his shoes…”

– Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

I am not encouraging visitors to the ABL take off their shoes, but I think there is something to be said for taking the time to slow down and to appreciate beauty in the simple things. I think that is what Dr. Armstrong envisioned for this grand library. Take the time from the busyness of daily life to study the stained glass windows in the Elizabeth Barrett Browning Salon, stand in the Cloister of the Clasped Hands, look up at the lofty gold leaf ceiling, reflect on the beautiful love Robert and Elizabeth shared for one another, sit in the shaded garden outside, discover the magic of the Brownings’ poetry, appreciate the work and the vision that the people of Baylor had to bring this space to life, and take some of this beauty out into the world with you when you leave. Most of us will not become the great poet of talent that Dr. Armstrong envisioned being inspired by this place, but we can all be inspired and inspire others to see the heaven in the world around us. I personally believe the Armstrong Browning Library is one of those places on earth crammed with heaven.

I have truly enjoyed my first semester working at the Armstrong Browning and would like to thank Laura, Jennifer, Christi, Carolina, Rachel, and the other staff at the library who have made my experience an enjoyable one. I look forward to delving into more research and learning more about the Brownings and their Victorian contemporaries in our beautiful library.

“Mythic Women” Closing Announcement

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by Anna Clark, M.A. Student in History and Armstrong Browning Library Graduate Research Assistant

This fall, the Armstrong Browning Library & Museum is hosting “Mythic Women: Archetypal Symbology in ‘Fifine at the Fair,'” an exhibition exploring the topics of sexual desire, social class, and the male objectification of women in Robert Browning’s 1872 poem “Fifine at the Fair.” This exhibit was curated by Katrina Gallegos, a Master’s student of Museum Studies at Baylor University. Gallegos’ exhibit is on display in honor of the poem’s 150th anniversary from August 17, 2022 – February 15, 2023.

Come and see Katrina Gallegos’ Mythic Women: Archetypal Symbology in “Fifine at the Fair” before the exhibit closes on February 15, 2023!

Explore the Greco-Roman symbology of Browning’s poem “Fifine at the Fair” through Gallegos’ research and analysis of Browning’s various references to mythic women. Venus the goddess of love, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra of Egypt, and the singing sirens of myth are all symbols Browning’s character Don Juan employs in “Fifine at the Fair” to compare and objectify the two female characters, Donna Elvire and Fifine.

In her exhibit, Gallegos helps the viewer decode this language of symbology to uncover what Browning was intending to convey through his usage of mythic women, especially in comparison to their Victorian counterparts.

A 1872 first edition copy of Browning’s “Fifine at the Fair”

If you are not familiar with the poem or would like to refresh your memory, we have attached a hyperlink to a first edition copy of Browning’s “Fifine at the Fair” for your convenience: #3 – Fifine at the fair : and other poems / By Robert Browning. – Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library. 

Read more in this series of blog posts about the exhibit “Mythic Women: Archetypal Symbology in ‘Fifine at the Fair'”: