Sonnet 14 Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese

Brief Overview

Sonnets from the Portuguese was written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning between 1845 and 1846 and was published in 1850. It is a collection of forty-four love sonnets written for her, so, futurity married man Robert Browning. The content and tone of the sonnets change as her relationship with Browning relationship progressed. In the earlier sonnets she expresses her doubt and fear about kickoff a human relationship with Browning. Every bit the human relationship progressed Barrett Browning was able to overcome her anxieties, and eventually, they took a more accepting and passionate tone. Originally, she did not plan to publish the collection due to their extremely personal content, but changed her mind after Robert Browning insisted, saying they were perhaps the best sequence of English-written sonnets since Shakespeare'southward time. In order to maintain some privacy, Browning disguised the title in hopes people would believe they were translations from foreign sonnets. According to Wikipedia, the collection was originally called Sonnets from the Bosnian, but was inverse to Portuguese after Robert'southward suggestion, maybe stemming from his nick-name for Elizabeth: "my little Portuguese."

The sonnets are some of the some of the nearly famous love poems of the Victorian Age, or any other. The opening line of "Sonnet 43" has become and so securely embedded in our culture that even people who have never read the verse form know it. However, Barret Browning's sonnets are and so much more only this i line. They are a work of passion, doubt, fright, and most importantly, beloved.

Sonnet 1

I thought once how Theocritus¹ ² had sung
Of the sweet years, the love and wished-for years,
Who each 1 in a gracious hand appears
To bear a souvenir for mortals, erstwhile or immature:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweetness, pitiful years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightaway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did motility
Behind me, and drew me backward by the pilus;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,
"Approximate now who holds thee?" – "Expiry," I said, But, there,
The silvery answer rang, — "Not Expiry, but Love."

Analysis
Browning starts out by touching on the work of the Greek writer Theocritus. Browning had an extensive knowledge of the archetype writers, having studied the Greek language itself and keeping close correspondence with Greek scholars. This offset sonnet is an fantabulous stepping stone for the progression of emotions that will be experienced through the next 43. Information technology expresses the depression and sadness that she had felt for nearly of her life, due to her extreme illness and isolation. Withal, the "Shape" mentioned was not the impending feeling of death every bit she thought, but the surprising sensation of falling in love with Robert Browning.

Sonnet 12

Indeed this very dear which is my boast,
And which, when rising upward from breast to brow,
Doth crown me with a ruby large enow¹
To draw men's optics and prove the inner toll,—
This beloved fifty-fifty, all my worth, to the farthest,
I should not dear nevertheless, unless that thou
Hadst set me an example, shown me how,
When start thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,
And love called beloved. And thus, I cannot speak
Of love even, as a good thing of my own:
Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—
And that I dear (O soul, nosotros must be meek!)
Is past thee only, whom I love alone.

Analysis
The outset line of "Sonnet 12", expresses a keen sense of pride because of the dear Barrett Browning is experiencing. Lines 2 through 4 express how the love the fills her and those around her detect information technology. In lines v through 9 she acknowledges that this love is solely a product of the honey Browning has shown her. He has taught her how to love and before him she did not know how to love. Lines ten through xiv depict how his soul has helped hers upwardly, and placed it along aside his, and because of this she tin can now love and she loves only him. i. enough

Sonnet 13

And wilt m have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words plenty,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are crude,
Between our faces, to cast lite on each?—
I driblet information technology at thy anxiety. I cannot teach
My mitt to hold my spirit so far off
From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof
In words, of love hid in me out of reach.
Nay, let the silence of my womanhood
Commend my woman-love to thy belief,—
Seeing that I stand unwon, yet wooed,
And rend¹ the garment of my life, in cursory,
By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,
Lest one bear on of this heart convey its grief

Analysis
In the first two lines of "Sonnet 13", Elizabeth Barrett Browning asks Robert if he wants her to write how she feels about him. In lines 3 and 4, she uses the metaphor of a torch in rough winds, which is meant to enlighten what is between them. In line v, she drops it and goes on to say she cannot describe what she feels between them. In lines half dozen through eight, she says she cannot risk herself by describing to him how she feels, and that she volition not. In lines 9 through fourteen, she goes on to say that her silence must act every bit an respond to his question, otherwise she will chronicle to him nothing only the grief she has suffered.
1. tear violently

Sonnet 14

If thou must beloved me, let information technology be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of idea
That falls in well with mine, and certes¹ brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a twenty-four hours'—
For these things in themselves, Dearest, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, and so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own love pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But dear me for love'southward sake, that evermore
Chiliad mayst dearest on, through love'due south eternity.

Analysis
In lines I and ii of "Sonnet 14", Elizabeth Barrett Browning says she wants only to be loved for "beloved's sake". The side by side four lines describe all the things she does not want to be loved for. She tells the states in lines 7 through nine, that she does not desire to exist loved for these reasons because they are child-bearing and unreliable. In lines 10 through 12, she says she does not want to loved because he feels pitiful for her because ane twenty-four hours her tears will dry out, and so what is left for him to love. She closes by restating her wish to be loved only for "dearest's sake" because that is the but dear that lasts.
1. certainly

Sonnets "12", "thirteen", and "14"are a few of the sonnets which best express Elizabeth Barrett Browning's initial reservations regarding her human relationship with Browning and how he helps her to overcome them. In "Sonnet 12", she describes how before Robert Browning, she had no dearest to telephone call her own. In "Sonnet 13" she tells Robert that she cannot wholly describe her feelings for him considering she is however unsure. In "Sonnet xiv", Browning describes the details of what she believes constitutes a real love and her expectations regarding Robert.

Sonnet 25

A heavy heart, Belovèd, have I borne
From twelvemonth to year until I saw thy face,
And sorrow afterward sorrow took the identify
Of all those natural joys equally lightly worn
As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn
By a chirapsia heart at dance-time. Hopes apace¹
Were changed to long despairs, till God's own grace
Could scarcely lift above the globe forlorn
My heavy heart. Then thousand didst bid me bring
And permit it drop adown thy calmly bang-up
Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
Which its ain nature doth precipitate,
Which thine doth close to a higher place it, mediating
Betwixt² the stars and the unaccomplished fate.

Analysis
This sonnet again touches upon the sorrow and depression that Elizabeth says she experienced almost of her life, due to her disease. She expresses that she has lost her childhood, or natural, joys as her sorrows have added in number. Though the sonnet starts in a very melancholy tone, it takes a drastic turn when she mentions "1000," or Robert Browning, stating that he took away all of her sadness.
ane. swiftly
two. between

Sonnet 43

How do I dear thee? Allow me count the ways.
I honey thee to the depth and breadth and tiptop
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and platonic Grace.
I dearest thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet demand, by sunday and candle-light.
I honey thee freely, as men strive for Correct;
I love thee purely, every bit they turn from Praise.
I dearest thee with a passion put to utilise
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a honey I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I dearest thee with the jiff,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but honey thee meliorate later death.

Assay
The 2nd to final and most famous sonnet of the collection, Sonnet 43 is the most passionate and emotional, expressing her intense love for Robert Browning repeatedly. Elizabeth says in the 2nd to third lines that she loves Browning with every attribute of her soul. She and then goes onto say that she loves him enough that it meets the needs of every day and every nighttime in lines five and 6. Through lines 7, 8, 9 and 11 Elizabeth repeats the phrase, "I love thee…" to build intensity and show emphasis. Line seven says that she loves him "freely," or willingly, every bit men who try and achieve "Correct," which in this example could hateful righteousness, or in correlation with the previous give-and-take "freely" it may mean freedom. Line 8 means that she loves him, every bit it says, purely, without any desire for praise. It is interesting that line 9 says that she loves him every bit passionately, or intensely, as she experienced her old griefs or sufferings, and with a faith as strong as a child'south. This helps to transition into line 11, expressing she loves him as much equally she used to honey the saints as a kid. And the terminal three lines state that she loves him with all of her life and, God willing, she'll go on to love him that deeply in the afterlife. It is not surprising that this sonnet is so passionately written, as information technology helps to show how her love for Robert Browning grew intensely over time, starting out as nothing and blooming into a beloved that most of us could only wish to experience.

Works Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnets_from_the_Portuguese
http://world wide web.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1939
http://www.nls.great britain/traquair/index.html

*Texts for Sonnets "12", "xiii, "14" taken from:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-12-indeed-this-very-love-which-is-my-boas http://www.poemhunter.com/verse form/sonnet-xiii-wilt-thou-have-me-fashion-into-spe/
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-14-if-grand-mustlove-me-let-it-be-for-nou/

*Text for Sonnets "1", "25", "34" taken from:
http://members.aol.com/ericblomqu/brownine.htm#001//
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Sonnet43.html

Dorsum to Elizabeth Barrett Browning