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Elizabeth Barrett Browning expresses her views on the education or lack of education of Victorian women in her verse novel, Aurora Leigh. In this work, she reflects how Victorian women are not educated for the purposes of becoming capable, enlightened human bein ....

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.... Two other women of this time that spoke out against the “miseducation” of women were Frances Power Cobbe who wrote Life of Frances Power Cobbe as Told by Herself, and Harriet Martineau who wrote What Women Are Educated For. Their views support what Barrett Browning communicates in Aurora Leigh with additional insights into the reality of the Victorian education of women. The main focus of the instruction of young women in the Victorian era, which they referred to as an education, was on making these women into “Ornaments of Society” (Damrosch 1604). This meant that women were to adorn society with their appearance, their voices, the ....