So highly regarded had she become by 1850, the year of Wordsworth’s death, that she was prominently mentioned as a possible successor to the poet laureateship. A framed portrait of Barrett Browning hung in the bedroom of Emily Dickinson, whose life had been transfigured by the poetry of “that Foreign Lady.” From the time when she had first become acquainted with Barrett Browning’s writings, Dickinson had ecstatically admired her as a poet and as a woman who had achieved such a rich fulfillment in her life. An example of the reach of her fame may be seen in the influence she had upon the reclusive poet who lived in the rural college town of Amherst, Massachusetts. She had a wide following among cultured readers in England and in the United States. During the years of her marriage to Robert Browning, her literary reputation far surpassed that of her poet-husband when visitors came to their home in Florence, she was invariably the greater attraction. Among all female poets of the English-speaking world in the 19th century, none was held in higher critical esteem or was more admired for the independence and courage of her views than Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
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