Elizabeth Barrett Browning began gathering material for
Casa Guidi Windows, her two-part poem about the Italian struggle to end Austrian domination, on 12 September 1847, her first wedding anniversary and the end of her first year in Italy with Robert Browning. Part One is a commentary on the hopeful early events in the Risorgimento, her adopted country’s struggle for political autonomy and unification. Part Two, written about three years later, records Barrett Browning’s recognition that the Risorgimento will in fact be painful and protracted, and that the results are uncertain. Her eye-witness view – literally from the windows of Casa Guidi, her new home in Florence near the Pitti Palace – is announced in the title. And she insists from the beginning of the poem that her…
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Citation: Sanders Pollock, Mary. "Casa Guidi Windows". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 June 2004; last revised 03 June 2024. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14956, accessed 24 November 2024.]
