Aurora Leigh

1. Aurora paints a stark contrast between herself and her aunt. Describe the differences, using quotations from the poem, in their looks, temperaments, and opinions about the appropriate role--and consequently the appropriate education--for women.
2. Romney is idealistic, progressive, and concerned for the welfare of others. Does he share Aurora's views about women? How do his views compare to those of Ellis and Patmore?
3. What is remarkable about Aurora's statement that "I too have my vocation,--work to do" (2:455)? How would Mill regard it?
4. What are Aurora's views about Victorian society and about the role of the artist (poet) in it? What should poets not write about? What should they write about? Why?
5. Like Carlyle, Tennyson, and Mill, Barrett Browning sees the early decades of Victoria's reign as a period of tumult and change. How does her attitude towards this "full-veined, heaving, double-breasted Age" compare to theirs?