The Literary Network Of Robert Browning And Elizabeth Barrett Browning Exhibit Poster

In fall 2017, students in Dr. Kristen Pond’s upper-level English course, “Literary Networks in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” explored the relationships between writers of the Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist Periods utilizing the letters, manuscripts, rare books, and other collection materials at the Armstrong Browning Library.

The course revealed the discrepancy between the image of a ‘solitary genius’ creating art in isolation handed down from the Romantics and the act of literary creation. The nineteenth century boasts some of the most fascinating relationships between famous literary figures. Authors did not work alone but often collaborated, either directly by each person contributing something to the final piece or indirectly through the influence of conversations, interactions, or from reading one another’s works.

The students ended their semester by each curating a miniature exhibition that demonstrated connections between a Romantic, Victorian, or Modernist literary figure and Robert and/or Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Authors chosen by the students range from William Wordsworth to Charlotte Bronte and from Tennyson to T.S. Eliot. Come by the exhibit to see more authors and items chosen by the class which reveal the wide literary network of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.