Sonnet 43

Sonnet 43

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Background

Elizabeth Barrett’s love affair with the poet Robert Browning against the will of her father is well documented. The strength of her love is well evoked by the collection of sonnets she wrote entitled Sonnets from the Portuguese of which this is number 43.

She had health problems from an early age and was deeply upset by the death of her brother, Edward, who was killed in a sailing accident. Because of these factors and the strictness of her father, she became very reclusive. She did, however, write poems, one of which praising a work by Robert Browning caught the latter’s attention and led to a correspondence between them. This, in turn, led to a strong and lasting love between them which had to remain secret at first because of her father’s opposition.

The collection of sonnets was published in 1850, four years after the two lovers eloped together. 

We can assume that “my old griefs” and “my lost Saints” refer to her childhood bereavements.

The form of the poem is extremely important.  This is a sonnet, of the Petrarchan form.  You should work out the rhyme scheme and the meter very carefully indeed.  For this you will need to ascribe letters to the rhyming sounds at the end of the lines.  You`ll notice a pattern.  We must remember that there are many different accents and differences in pronunciation of certain words in English and so we need to accept that the poet in this case intended “ways” to rhyme with “Grace”. 

In terms of content the opening line is striking.  What is the effect of this line and what tone does it establish?  A catalogue of emotions is introduced in the poem, enumerating the ways the poet loves her partner: count these and write them down and see if there are any patterns or a trend of any sort.

You may wish to look, for example, at dimensions in L2 and explain the effect of the repeated ampersand: what does this emphasise? With reference to these dimensions, what does “out of sight” emphasise?  The reference in L4 is important: why has the poet used capital letters (in one respect, this was a Victorian tradition); what is being referred to here; is it some physical or non-physical?  What are the connotations of these nouns in line 4?

Now you have written down all the ways the poet loves her partner you should analyse them and look at the differences between them.  There is certainly a striking contrast between lines 4 and 5: what does this suggest about the poet`s love?  Look at the adverbs in lines 7 and 8 and try and explain what they say about the poet`s love.

There is a clear difference in the rhyme scheme in the last six lines and this serves in the case of this poem to convey a sense of climax.  Explain in detail how this is achieved.