23 https://doi.org/10.2979/victorianstudies.61.2.02 English eng Madden, Caolan Contributor <p><span style="color: rgb(85, 85, 85); font-family: Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Audience is dangerous in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's verse novel Aurora Leigh (1856). As Aurora puts it, this danger lies in the theater's dependence on "the public taste" (5.270): like a performing dog, the dramatist might be rewarded by applause, but he might just as easily be "hissed at, howled at, stamped at" by the audience (5.277). Rather than risk such violent public judgment, Aurora declares, "I will write no plays" (5.267). Yet the insistent presence of Aurora Leigh's crowd scenes makes it possible to understand the poem as a theatrical space, and focuses our attention on the poem's real and imagined audiences. This paper considers the ways in which Aurora Leigh looks outward to acknowledge the crowds of audiences (and actors) that Aurora's poetics often seem to exclude, registering the poem's uneasy stance toward the existence of poetic traditions in which choral, public performance is as important as written language.</span><br></p> Indiana University Press Winter 2019 pdf ISSN 0042-5222 English literature Looking Outward at the Audience in Aurora Leigh mixed material Indiana University Press