Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Love Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Love Poems
I’m not an educated reader of poetry but I suspect these wouldn’t be for me even if I were. I was glad I read the introduction first. I frequently leave introductions to the end because they too often give away plot points, but in this case it’s unlikely I would have understood the “plot” if I hadn’t been told it. The sonnets tell the story of Elizabeth Barrett meeting and falling in love, albeit after some reisistance, with Robert Browning.
The other thing I learned from the introduction that was key to understanding her poetry was that she considered herself an invalid, nearly always on the brink of death. There doesn’t seem to be any medical reason for her belief. After she married Browning and had a child, she magically got “all better.” But her maudlin belief in her eminent death comes through in the sonnets.
I found her sonnets overly sentimental, pretty obviously the result of a woman experiencing love for the first time. They’re also repetitive and most are uninspired. Any eighth grader with a crush on the guy in the seat next to her could do as well.
I think I’m not a big fan of sonnets because the strictness of structure and rhyme forces the poet to compromise and say, not what she meant to say, but what fits into the poem. Much of which is completely assinine. Take, for instance, the first stanza of her famous “How do I love thee” sonnet, which is part of this collection.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace,
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle light.
What’s this business about “when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.” Does that even mean anything? The bit about “the level of everyday’s most quiet need” is nice–the idea that love can be quiet and abiding, as well as violent and passionate. But then she ruins it with “by sun and candle light” which is clearly in there just to rhyme. Taking out the padding (as described above and throughout the rest of the sonnet), you get:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose,
and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
It’s not a sonnet anymore, but I say it’s better.