705 Runaway Poets - How the Brownings Fell in Love (And Why It Matters)

The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the PodGlomerate Network and Lithub Radio. Hello, this is Jack in 2025, presenting to you an episode from our archives called The Runaway Poets, the triumphant love story of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. We will present it here in all its glory uninterrupted, uninterrupted, I should say,

by Commercial Sponsorship. It's from 2017 originally, and whoa. It was actually eight years ago to the day. I see May 29th, 2017.

That was not planned. What are the odds? Has to be one in 365 and a quarter, at least. Let's ponder that for a while.

Okay, I'm done pondering. Here's the episode. I hope you enjoy it. Hello, I'm Jack Wilson.

Welcome to the history of literature. Okay, let's get started. We have a wonderful episode today, a wonderful topic with two incredible poets and the way they found one another and why they needed to find one another.

Then there's a surprise ending. A surprise ending. Well, I can't tell you much more about that because then what would be the surprise? I'd ruin it.

So we're still going ad-free and the money in the coffers is Nguyen Ling. We're down to a quarter, four pennies, a few pieces of lint, but that's okay. We're happy to go commando, as my producer says. for you, the listener, trying to improve your listening experience. You're welcome.

So the story of the Brownings. I knew much of this, but not all of it. And people, let me just tell you that there's a surprise ending that I've said too much already. If you're like me, you will come away from this with a new respect for both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning.

They had a child too. Penn Browning. Is that perfect? Or is that weird?

Yes, they were poets. Yes, they were in love. And yes, the pen is an important implement. Penn Browning, isn't that kind of something you might name a pet?

Is that how you'd name a pet? Name them after your favorite writing implement. Actually, they already did have a pet. They had a dog that they named Flush.

Virginia Woolf was so smitten by this dog, inspired by this dog. Not that she met the dog. Just the awareness of the dog. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a couple of poems about the dog, Flush.

Virginia Woolf was so inspired that she wrote a biography of it. of it, a full book of flush browning. No, I did not make that up. She wrote the waves and she wrote Orlando, no doubt you've heard of those books. And in between, she literally wrote a dog about the browning's dog called flush, a biography. The cover of it says,

with four original drawings by Vanessa Bell and six other illustrations. How would Would you like to be one of the other illustrators? Have Vanessa Bell's original drawings called out? And your illustrations just anonymously ascribed

six other illustrations. It reminds me of when I helped a woman write her dissertation once. I probably wrote about a third of it.

I think I edited every sentence, wrote a bit of it myself. She came into my office afterwards. She was very pleased. she showed me the dedication and the acknowledgments page.

There were about a hundred people on there, the members of her committee, her professors, her colleagues, several researchers, her parents, her loving husband, her kids, and I was nodding as I was reading. Oh, and I had suspected she was showing it to me because she had thanked me.

Then I thought maybe she didn't realize she had forgotten to include me. I didn't see my name anywhere. So I kind of looked up at her and said, oh, this is nice. You acknowledged a lot of people, probably people who didn't do half the work that I did

on this thing. And then she smiled. She pointed at the bottom where it said, and numerous others pointed at me and she said, that's you.

You were the numerous other. Outstanding. Outstanding. I was, of course, very flattered and a little anxious to be showered in so much glory. Worried success might change me. Guess what?

Success did not change me because that's the kind of person I am. I went home and acted like it was just any other day and I was just the same old me. That's called character people. So where were we?

Penn Brownlee. Browning. Could that be short for something? Penelope, of course, but this was a boy in Victorian England. Pennington. Pen Fred. I think it was just pen. As in, we're poets. We use pens. Let's name our son Pen. Here's why I'm not going to criticize. The two of

them, the Brownings, they married late. And Elizabeth had four miscarriages. What a run of sorrow that is. Who am I to question a parent in the moment of the naming process? Let's give a little leeway to people. Let's give a little room. Let's open our minds. Be generous in spirit. There's a villain in this story, but it is in Elizabeth and it's

not Robert. Certainly not Penn. So here we go off on an adventure to tell a true love story, one of history's great love stories. The story of Elizabeth Molten Barrett and Robert Browning. Elizabeth Moulton Barrett was born in 1806, but her story really begins 150 years earlier in 1655, when her ancestors landed in Jamaica.

It was there that the Barretts made their fortune, especially her grandfather Edward Barrett, who lived from 1734 to 1798, and owned 10,000 acres of land in Northern Jamaica. Included sugar plantations, mills, glassworks, and ships traded between Jamaica and Newcastle. Slavery was in her background. Her ancestors' background, her family benefited, profited

from slave labor. That was true on her mother's side as well. Her father moved the family to England. He was trying to clean up the Barrett name. Barrett had to be the surname.

He insisted on that. That was the rule. It was held so strongly that Elizabeth often signed her name Elizabeth Barrett, Molten Barrett,

or just Elizabeth Barrett, Barrett. Think about that. Your father wants so desperately for you to be a Barrett that your name, the way you sign your name

is Elizabeth Barrett, Barrett. This isn't the first time we'll see the father's punitive pride and anger play a role in Elizabeth's life.