Welcome to Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Selected Poems (OCR AS Level H072)
Welcome to your comprehensive revision guide for Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Selected Poems. Whether you are aiming for the top marks or looking to build your confidence step-by-step, these notes will help you master the key themes, poetic techniques, Victorian contexts, and essay skills required for the OCR AS Level English Literature examination (H072/01, Component 01: Shakespeare and poetry pre-1900).
Don't worry if Victorian poetry feels daunting at first. Barrett Browning was one of the most passionate, radical, and influential voices of the nineteenth century. She wrote courageously about child labour, slavery, romantic love, and the struggles of being a female artist. Once you understand the core patterns in her work, tackling the exam will feel straightforward and achievable.
Key Takeaway: Barrett Browning uses traditional poetic forms (like the Petrarchan sonnet and lyrical ballad) to challenge Victorian social injustices and redefine themes of love, religion, and female identity.
---1. Understanding the Exam & Assessment Objectives
In Component 01, Section 2 (Poetry pre-1900), you will write one essay in a 1.5-hour closed-book examination. This section is worth 30 marks (half of the 60 total marks for Component 01, making up 50% of your overall AS Level).
In the exam, you are provided with a printed poem or extract from the prescribed selection. You must use this printed text as a "springboard" for your analysis and compare or connect it with at least one other poem from the set collection.
Assessment Objective Weightings for AS Level Section 2
• AO1 (30%): Articulate informed, personal, and creative responses using literary terminology and well-structured, accurate expression.
• AO2 (30%): Analyse the ways meanings are shaped by examining language, form, and structure.
• AO3 (20%): Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of context (Victorian society, industrialisation, gender roles).
• AO4 (10%): Explore connections and links across the poems in the collection.
• AO5 (10%): Explore the poems informed by different interpretations and critical perspectives.
Notice that together, AO1 and AO2 make up 60% of your marks: \(30\% + 30\% = 60\%\). Your close reading of the words and forms on the page must always be your top priority.
---2. Key Themes and Essential Poems
Theme 1: Social Reform and Injustice
Barrett Browning was deeply engaged with the political and moral crises of the Victorian era. Rather than keeping poetry confined to quiet contemplation, she used it as an instrument for direct social agitation.
• "The Cry of the Children": Written in response to official parliamentary reports on child labour in mines and factories. Barrett Browning contrasts the natural freedom of young animals (fawns, birds) with the unnatural, exhausting toil of human children. The relentless, heavy rhythm mirrors the pounding machinery of the Industrial Revolution.
• "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point": A dramatic monologue voicing the intense psychological and physical trauma of a female enslaved person in America. The poem directly condemns the hypocrisy of white Christian slaveholders and explores themes of racial oppression, maternal grief, and institutional cruelty.
Real-World Analogy: Think of Barrett Browning's reform poetry as the Victorian equivalent of an investigative documentary or protest anthem—designed to provoke outrage and force the audience to confront systemic suffering.
Theme 2: Romantic Love, Devotion, and Vulnerability
Barrett Browning's love poetry goes beyond simple sentimental affection; it explores emotional risk, spiritual depth, and the mutual respect required in intimate relationships.
• Sonnets from the Portuguese (particularly Sonnet 43: "How do I love thee?"): A collection of 44 sonnets tracing the evolution of her courtship with Robert Browning. In Sonnet 43, the speaker catalogs the depth, breadth, and height of her love, integrating physical emotion with religious devotion and eternal commitment.
Memory Aid for Sonnet 43: Remember the phrase "Three Dimensions of Love"—Barrett Browning measures love spatially ("depth, breadth, and height"), daily ("every day's / Most quiet need"), and spiritually ("after death").
Theme 3: Gender, Art, and the Female Poet
In a Victorian literary world dominated by men, Barrett Browning claimed space for female authority and intellect.
• Aurora Leigh (excerpts): A verse novel following an aspiring female poet who rejects traditional domestic subjugation in favour of literary independence. It questions whether women must choose between artistic ambition and romantic love.
• "A Musical Instrument": Uses the classical myth of the god Pan violently carving a reed to create music. The poem serves as an allegory for the painful, transformative cost of creating art, highlighting how poetry requires sacrifice and suffering.
Key Takeaway: Barrett Browning balances political outrage with intimate devotion, consistently using her verse to give voice to the vulnerable, the silenced, and the female creator.
---3. Form, Structure, and Language (Mastering AO2)
The Petrarchan Sonnet Form
Barrett Browning frequently uses the traditional 14-line Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet, which consists of an 8-line octave (rhyming \(ABBAABBA\)) followed by a 6-line sestet (usually rhyming \(CDCDCD\) or \(CDECDE\)).
• The Octave: Sets up a problem, emotional dilemma, or initial premise.
• The Volta (Turn): A shift in tone, thought, or argument occurring between lines 8 and 9.
• The Sestet: Resolves, complicates, or reflects on the problem raised in the octave.
Why did she use it? By taking a form traditionally used by male Renaissance poets to idolise passive women from afar, Barrett Browning turns the sonnet into an active female expression of genuine desire, spiritual equality, and agency.
Rhythm, Metre, and Sound Effects
• Mechanical Rhythm: In "The Cry of the Children", heavy dactylic and trochaic rhythms echo the grinding wheels and pistons of industrial factories, trapping the reader in the suffocating routine of child workers.
• Enjambment and Caesura: In her sonnets, Barrett Browning uses mid-line pauses (caesurae) and sentences running across line breaks (enjambment) to make the formal metre feel like natural, breathless, passionate speech.
Key Takeaway: Never just identify a technique (like a rhyme scheme or caesura); explain how it creates emotional intensity or mirrors the poem's core argument.
---4. Victorian Contexts (Mastering AO3)
To secure high marks in AO3, integrate contextual details smoothly into your textual analysis rather than writing separate biographical paragraphs.
• The Industrial Revolution and Child Labour: The rapid rise of factory production in 19th-century Britain led to widespread exploitation of working-class children in dark, dangerous conditions. Parliamentary investigations (the Children's Employment Commission Reports of 1842–1843) shocked the nation, inspiring "The Cry of the Children."
• The "Separate Spheres" Ideology: Victorian society expected middle- and upper-class women to occupy the private, domestic sphere as the moral "Angel in the House," while men occupied the public sphere of politics and business. Barrett Browning defied this by publishing overt political critiques and claiming professional authority as an artist.
• Abolitionism and Global Human Rights: Although Britain abolished slavery across its empire in 1833, slavery persisted in the United States until the 1860s. Barrett Browning supported the transatlantic abolitionist movement, writing "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" specifically for a Boston anti-slavery publication.
• Religious Faith and Doubt: Barrett Browning was deeply read in Christian theology, yet she frequently questioned rigid religious institutions that ignored human suffering, contrasting hypocritical dogma with genuine Christian compassion.
Key Takeaway: Context is most effective when used as a key to unlock the poet's choices—show why Barrett Browning chose specific words or themes in response to her historical moment.
---5. Making Connections & Critical Views (AO4 & AO5)
Connecting the Poems (AO4)
In the exam, you must link the provided extract to at least one other poem from the selection. Practice pairing poems by concept:
• Suffering and Oppression: Link "The Cry of the Children" with "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" to compare how different victims of economic and social systems are dehumanised.
• Art and Artistic Vocation: Link Aurora Leigh with "A Musical Instrument" to explore how poetic creation requires personal sacrifice and challenges conventional gender boundaries.
• Love and Autonomy: Link Sonnet 43 ("How do I love thee?") with excerpts from Aurora Leigh to examine how female identity is maintained inside and outside romantic relationships.
Exploring Critical Perspectives (AO5)
• Feminist Interpretation: Views Barrett Browning as a pioneer who reclaimed the female voice from the male poetic tradition, portraying women not as decorative muses, but as thinkers, artists, and independent agents.
• Social / Marxist Interpretation: Highlights her direct critique of capitalist industrialisation, showing how economic greed exploits the vulnerable and destroys human innocence.
• Spiritual / Theological Interpretation: Emphasises her use of Christian imagery to construct an ethic of active love and universal justice, challenging institutional orthodoxy.
Key Takeaway: You don't need to quote famous critics by name; you can introduce alternative views using phrases like: "While the poem can be read as a personal confession of love, a feminist reading highlights how..."
---6. Step-by-Step Essay Strategy & Pitfalls to Avoid
The Springboard Essay Method
1. Introduction: Define the core theme highlighted by the question. Briefly name the printed poem and your chosen comparison poem(s), establishing a clear overall line of argument.
2. Body Paragraph 1 (Close Reading of Extract): Analyse a key quotation from the printed poem. Focus on AO2 (language/form) and connect it to AO3 (Victorian context).
3. Body Paragraph 2 (Connecting to Wider Selection): Use a comparative transition phrase (e.g., "Barrett Browning similarly explores this exploitation in...") to bring in your second poem, mirroring the analytical depth.
4. Body Paragraph 3 (Form, Structure, and Alternative Readings): Compare how both poems use structural choices (e.g., sonnet volta vs. ballad meter) and introduce a critical perspective (AO5).
5. Conclusion: Summarise how Barrett Browning's stylistic choices across both poems deliver a unified moral, emotional, or political message.
Top 4 Pitfalls to Avoid
• Pitfall 1: "Context Dumping": Writing long paragraphs about Barrett Browning's biography without connecting them directly to the words of the poem.
• Pitfall 2: Isolated Extract Analysis: Focusing 90% of your essay on the printed extract and only mentioning another poem in the last two sentences. Keep a balanced discussion.
• Pitfall 3: Feature-Spotting: Writing "She uses alliteration in line 4" without explaining the sound's dramatic effect or meaning.
• Pitfall 4: Neglecting Form and Rhythm: Discussing only the narrative story of the poem while ignoring metre, stanzas, sonnet structure, and rhyming patterns.
7. Quick Review Summary
• Component: OCR AS Level English Literature (H072/01), Section 2 (Poetry pre-1900).
• Exam Format: 1.5-hour closed-book paper, 30 marks for Section 2 (50% of AS Level).
• Key Text: Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Selected Poems.
• Core Skill: Use the printed extract as a springboard, analyse language/form/structure (AO2: 30%), articulate clear arguments (AO1: 30%), integrate historical context (AO3: 20%), make links across poems (AO4: 10%), and explore interpretations (AO5: 10%).