Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Legacies of Aurora Leigh: Literature, Politics, Society
A one-day conference at the University of Westminster, London
15 October 2016
Confirmed Keynotes:
Professor Marjorie Stone (Dalhousie University)
Professor Margaret Reynolds (Queen Mary, University of London)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh was one of the most radical and controversial poems of the Victorian period, and the work into which Barrett Browning believed her ‘highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered’ (‘Dedication’).
160 years on from the poem’s initial publication in November 1856, this one day conference at the University of Westminster’s historic Regent Street campus seeks to consider the legacies of Aurora Leigh for writers, artists and thinkers in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. What did Aurora Leigh mean for writers and intellectuals in the mid-Victorian period, the fin-de-siècle, and the modernist period? How did EBB’s formal experimentation and often challenging stance on issues of her ‘live, throbbing age’ (AL 5:203) influence subsequent poets, novelists and non-fictional prose writers? And in what ways did writers and artists critique, challenge or re-envision what EBB considered ‘the most mature’ of her works?
Proposals for 20 minute papers are invited on any issue related to the legacies of Aurora Leigh, c. 1860-1945. Topics might include:
Please email proposals of up to 250 words and a brief biographical note to s.avery@westminster.ac.uk. Proposals should be received no later than 1 July 2016. For more information, please visit the conference website: https://auroraleigh2016.wordpress.com/.