"MY NAME TO ME A SADNESS WEARS:" SELF AND OTHER ACCORDING TO DIARY BY E. B. B.
Vol.7, Issue 2, 2021, pp. 209-226 Full text
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.21.2.5
Web of Science: 000737013000005
Author:
Yana Rowland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0906-1454
Affiliation: Plovdiv University Paisii Hilendarski, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Abstract
This paper dwells on the issue of selfhood in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Diary (1831 - 1832). It explores individuation against three major presences in the poetess's life: her father (and family), Hugh Stuart Boyd, and literature. The employed strategy of research includes a phenomenological (interspersed with feminist touches) focus on select excerpts from the Diary which reveal the writer's concern for Self as the recognition of the priority of a precursory Other. Observations are made on the limits of human perception, time and space as human variables, the ontological essence of interpretation, and memory as a premise for cognizing life as care. A rare example of prose-fiction in the poetess's oeuvre, her diary could be read as an instance of simultaneous self-nullification and self-affirmation, which offers possibilities for a dialectical definition of female genius as dialogue through narrative.
Keywords: Elizabeth Barrett Barret (Browning), diary, Self, Other, care, guilt, death, hermeneutics
Article history:
Submitted: 1 October 2021
Reviewed: 1 November 2021
Accepted: 30 November 2021
Revised: 15 December 2021
Published: 30 December 2021
Citation (APA):
Rowland, Y. (2021). "My Name to me a Sadness Wears:" Self and Other According to "Diary by E. B. B.". English Studies at NBU, 7(2), 209-226. https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.21.2.5
Copyright © 2021 Yana Rowland
This open access article is published and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. If you want to use the work commercially, you must first get the authors' permission.
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