The Enduring Romance of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Love
Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned some of the most celebrated verses on love and devotion in the entire English literary canon, and this particular quote stands among her most intimate and philosophically profound expressions of romantic connection. The passage is often attributed to her personal correspondence with Robert Browning, the poet who would become her husband, though the exact provenance remains somewhat mysterious in literary circles. What is undeniable is that it perfectly encapsulates the philosophy of love that Barrett Browning developed throughout her life and work, a conception of love that extended far beyond mere passion into the realm of mutual transformation and spiritual growth. The quote likely originated from her private writings or conversations with Browning during their courtship, a period of intense intellectual and emotional exchange that lasted from their first meeting in 1845 until their marriage in 1846. During these pivotal years, Barrett Browning was already an accomplished and celebrated poet in her own right, a status that made her correspondence with the slightly younger Browning one of the most fascinating romantic and literary exchanges of the Victorian era.
The author herself was born Elizabeth Moulton Barrett in 1806 to an extremely wealthy but domineering family in Jamaica and later Durham, England. Her father, Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett, was a tyrant who controlled nearly every aspect of his children’s lives, forbidding his adult children from marrying or pursuing relationships outside the family’s approval. Elizabeth was the eldest of eleven children and became a precocious intellectual, teaching herself Greek, Hebrew, and multiple modern languages before her teenage years. By her twenties, she had already begun publishing poetry under her own name, an audacious move for a woman of her era, and had achieved considerable success and critical acclaim. Her health, however, was fragile from her childhood onward, and in 1821, she suffered a serious illness that left her with chronic pain and various ailments that would plague her throughout her life. By the time she was in her late thirties when Robert Browning entered her life, she had largely withdrawn from society, living as a semi-invalid in her father’s house, her days filled with reading, writing, and correspondence rather than social calls and public engagement.
What most people do not realize about Elizabeth Barrett Browning is that she was not merely a romantic poet but also a fiercely political writer and thinker. She wrote extensively against slavery, child labor, and the subjugation of women, embedding these progressive views into her poetry in ways that were revolutionary for her time. Her epic poem “Aurora Leigh,” published in 1856, was a groundbreaking work of feminist literature that told the story of a female poet and included scathing critiques of women’s limited opportunities and restricted roles in society. She was also deeply involved in Italian politics and wrote passionately about Italian unification and independence, causes she championed publicly despite the political dangers of doing so during the Victorian era. Her published letters reveal a woman of sharp wit, intellectual rigor, and surprising courage, someone who sparred with intellectuals and wasn’t afraid to express controversial opinions. The popular image of her as a delicate, passive romantic figure is a profound misreading of her character and legacy, perpetuated partly by her subsequent portrayal in popular culture.
The meeting between Elizabeth and Robert Browning was itself the stuff of literary legend, happening when the already-famous Elizabeth Barrett received a fan letter from the rising poet Robert Browning in January 1845. What began as literary correspondence quickly transformed into something far deeper as the two poets discovered in each other not just romantic partners but intellectual equals and kindred creative spirits. Their love letters, hundreds of them exchanged over the course of their courtship, are themselves considered among the finest expressions of romantic love in the English language. Against her father’s wishes and despite her physical fragility, Elizabeth agreed to marry Robert, and they fled to Italy in secret in 1846. Her father never forgave her for this act of rebellion, but the marriage proved to be genuinely happy and mutually supportive, with both poets continuing to produce significant work throughout their years together in Florence and Pisa.
The quote in question captures something essential about Barrett Browning’s philosophy of love that distinguishes it from more conventional romantic sentiments. Rather than positioning love as a passive experience of admiration or possession, she presents it as a dynamic, transformative force that fundamentally changes both people involved. The idea that we “love not only for what you are” but also “for what I am when I am with you” suggests that love is not merely about the other person’s objective qualities but about the person we become in their presence. This is remarkably modern thinking for a woman writing in the 1840s, anticipating psychological and philosophical concepts about interdependence and mutual growth that wouldn’t be formally articulated in academic terms for another century. The quote also contains a subtle argument for equality in love relationships—if both people are being transformed by the other, then both are equally valuable, equally essential to the relationship’s meaning and purpose. This egalitarian vision of love was particularly daring coming from a woman of her era, when marriage was legally and socially constructed as a transaction in which women essentially became the property of their husbands.
The cultural impact of this quotation has been enormous and continues to grow in the modern era, particularly as romantic expressions in popular culture have become increasingly commercialized and detached from genuine philosophical reflection. The quote appears everywhere from wedding invitations to social media posts to Valentine’s Day cards, making it one of the most recognizable expressions of romantic sentiment in contemporary culture.