Flush, an imaginative biography of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning's cocker spaniel, is a cross-genre blend of fiction
and non fiction. This unusual biography traces the life of
Flush from his carefree existence in the country to his
adoption by Ms Browning and his travails in London, leading
up to his final days in a bucolic Italy. Woolf ostensibly uses
the life of a dog as pointed social criticism, ranging across
topics from feminism and environmentalism to class conflict.
She creates a biography that works on three levels. It is
overtly a biography of a dog's life. Since this dog is of interest
primarily for its owner, the work is also an impressionistic
biography of Elizabeth Barrett during the most dramatic
years of her life. At this level, Flush mostly recapitulates the
romantic legend of Barrett Browning's life: early confinement
by a mysterious illness and a doting but tyrannical father;
a passionate romance with an equally talented poet; an
elopement that permanently estranges the father, but which
allows Barrett Browning to find happiness and health in
Italy. On a third level, the book gives Woolf an opportunity
to return to some of her most frequent topics: the glory and
misery of London; the Victorian mindset; class differences;
and the ways in which women oppressed by `fathers and
tyrants' may find freedom.
- ISBN10 1512266639
- ISBN13 9781512266634
- Publish Date 18 May 2015 (first published 12 November 2006)
- Publish Status Active
- Imprint Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 46
- Language English