Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Sonnets Of The Portuguese - Plus A Great Love Story! - a podcast by Christy and Garry Shriver

Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Sonnets Of The Portuguese - Plus A Great Love Story!

 

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver, and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us. 

 

And I’m Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  This is our second week in a two part series discussing one of English Language literature’s most romantic couples- the poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  Last week, we introduced Robert Browning and his notable dramatic monologue My Last Duchess which gives voice to a twisted psychopath.  We talked a little bit about Robert Browning’s life, but not too much.  This week we’ll return to his story as well as introduce his remarkable wife and her poetry, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  Christy, am I correct when I say that during their lifetimes, she was famous and he was the Mr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, so to speak?  Also, am I also correct that the man who wrote about the most twisted love relationship in British poetry also arguably had one of the most famous personal love stories!   

 

You are correct on both accounts- although, in his defense, in regard to the second fiddle Robert played to Elizabeth during her life, history has elevated him over the years.   

 

And been less kind to her, am I right about that? 

 

 

For a while-you’re right- the world turned on  Elizabeth, or EBB, as she signed her things.   

 

Wait= stop there- EBB for Elizabeth Barrett Browning?  She went by that?   

 

Well, she had a family nickname BA, but in her professional life-Yes- she signed everything EBB but there is a story.  When she was single she was Elizabeth Barrett Barrett- so, she started that before she got married.  When she got married, she kept up the EBB- it avoided all the normal name confusion women deal with when they marry later in life and have the hassle of changing identities.  In her case, sticking with thethe initials  just made it easy. 

 

That worked out.   

 

I agree- Anyway- back to your point that history was RUDE to her.  There was a period of about 100 years where people really criticized put her down.  Virginia Wolfe, specifically, wrote what to me is a cruel essay about EBB’s most accomplished piece of poetry, a long epic novel in poem form called Aurora Leigh.  Wolfe is very condescending for many reasons, but from my perspective, Wolfe just didn’t like poetry very much, and Aurora leigh is an epic poem.   So, EBB, for about a 100 years drifted along on the coat tails of her husband, ironically, whose reputation gained ground over that same period of time.  It was this giant reversal after death.   

 

Huh- I guess it’s a good thing they were both gone- that could have brought some marital complications!   

 

So true, but maybe they would have laughed.  When they were alive, Robert Browning once said that the only way he could get a publisher to look at his work was if he promised he’d get Elizabeth to print something with them.   Today, though, over two hundred years later, we can all be relieved to know, history has decided to let them rest together in peace. They are both viewed in high regard in their own rights.  The Wolfe crowd has settled down, and we can see EBB with a more balanced perspective, especially her work Aurora Leigh- something notable but more than we can really handle in one episode-  I did want to mention because it was EBB’s masterpiece- and something that is quite original- if you like her stuff or if you like epic poetry, you should check it out.  No one has really done an epic poem about a female hero like her either before or since, at least that I know anything about. When it came out It was extremely popular, as well as quite scandalous. It’s a plot driven story, and Marian Erle, a heroine in the stories, gets raped, has a child, refuses to hide the fact that it was a product of rape and does not take a proposal in marriage that would redeem her reputation as a fallen woman, so to speak.  It has been said that women read it secretly under their sheets so as not to be discovered, and EBB loved that.   

 

Let me just tell you, that might scandalize readers even todayOh my, I’d say that’s a very different hero than Odysseus or Gilgamesh, and I can see why Aurora Leigh was so popular so quickly not just in Britain but in America- in fact,. I read it hadsomewhere that they printed over 20 editions before the end of the 19th century.  But, let’s back up and get a little of the back story on this scandalous Victorian celebrity.   

 

Okay- boring stuff first.  EBB was born on March 6, 1806, the eldest of TWELVE children to very prominent people.  Her father’s family, the Barrett’s owned thousands of acres of sugar plantation in Jamaica plus all the slaves that went with that.  The Barrett’s had gobs of money.  Her early years were happy, and for a while she lived in a fairy land.  Her father built this incredibly lavish estate, and she had free reign to roam at will, and that’s exactly what she did.  In one sense, her family was progressive.  They encouraged and even supported her studying, and she did and loved it.  She had an excellent private tutor and she worked hard- even though at the time for a woman there wasn’t much point in it.  She received a very good classical education becoming proficient in both Greek and Latin.  She read all of the time and anything she could get her hands on- which was a lot.  She also got into poetry writing pretty early on. She wrote for everyone and all the time.  Her father called her the Poet Laureate of Hope End (that was the name of their estate).  He even sponsored the publication of her first epic poem she was only 13.   

 

Can you imagine a proud father publishing his teenage daughter’s epic poem- that’s definitely a rich kid thing to do. 

 

Well, it certainly was and an indication that her life was all just dreamy…until it wasn’t.  First, The Barrett’s, as in the extended family, had some sort of squabble about the sugar plantation money and somehow, I’m not sure how, Elizabeth’s dad, lost a big chunk of it.  They lost the big fancy estate and had to move into some sort of temporary housing. 

  

Then, and this is even worse although, it seems what I’m about to describe happened to a lot of women during this time period, at age 15, she started getting really sick with no commensurate explanation.  To this day, her illness is undiagnosed, but she had all kinds of symptoms that left her weak to the point of literally being physically disabled.   

 

What did they say it was at the time?  And as historians have looked back through the record is there an idea today about what made her sick? 

 

Two good questions.  Well, of course, her family tried everything, including moving to live by the seaside- which we’ve seen in a lot of British literature- that came up even in Emma.  But in her case her health never really improved. By the time she was 25, her family was living in London,but that place wasn’t really known at the time for its fresh air- think the chimney sweeper or Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.  What happened to poor Elizabeth is that she ended up spending all of her time confined in a bedroom in that famous address associated with her today- 50 Wimpole Street.    

 

Well, I’m not sure about 50 Wimpole street, but isn’t 57 Wimpole street the famous home of Paul McCartney- the place where he and John Lennon wrote “I want to Hold your Hand” and then later “Yesterday”.   

 

Yes- that’s a little bit after EBB’s time there, though.  HA.  But actually, they did make a fairly famous movie called The Barretts at Wimpole Street about Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  So, there’s that too. 

 

Anyway, back to EBB’s health-  Victorian London, in general,  was dirty and smoggy, and so Elizabeth ended up basically being locked up in her room theoretically for her own good.  There is a school of thought that suggests that Some of her problems were connected to an issue with her spine from an injury she got from falling off a horse.  We also know for a fact she  had a lot of trouble with her lungs.  I think the most trustworthy sources say she probably had spinal tuberculosis. Honestly, I really don’t really know what was wrong with her except to say that by the time she was twenty-five, it seems she was pretty much disabled.  And, if that wasn’t enough, she has another issue- again fairly common for the time period.   Her doctors- proscribed to her meds- and you can probably guess where I’m going with this- that were addictive- and like so many back then as well as today- she became an opium addict, of course, all under her doctor’s care.  This seems a little horrifying to me, partly because we just finished watching the Netflix series The Pharmacist which was an expose on the opium problem in the United States connected to Oxycotin and the ensuing 400,000 overdoses directedly related to that drug.  But Garry, clearly, opium addiction is not a 21st century phenomenon, we talked about it a little bit with Frankenstein because it surfaced a little in that book, and even though this is a little tangential, it’s interesting to me, so tell us about what opium addiction looked like in the 19th century and why would a little doted on homeschool girl wind up addicted to it? 

 

 Sure, wellFirst let’s establish what it was she was taking.  It was a common drug called laudanum is what Elizabeth Barrett Browning was addicted to..  She wasn’t popping pills or shooting up. anything.   Laudanum was an alcoholic herbal preparation thatand was 10% opium.  It was prescribed pretty much for everything: it was used as a pain reliever, a cough suppressant, it was used to control depression, heart palpitations.  It was given as a sleeping pill, menstrual cramps were treated with laudanum.  Just likeEven worse than oxycotin in the early days of the opioid epidemic today, itlaudanum was an entirely uncontrolled substance. Almost no one took the side effects of the drug seriously- and there were a lot of them- But another point to understand, and again this is just like opioids today- there was that associated euphoria people experienced from taking the drug that encouraged it’s people to use it.  Why not, right?  It’s not hurting anything, and it makes me feel good.    

 

.  However, as we all know, thatdrug euphoria comes at a cost and the cost was depression, the slurred speech, the restlessness, poor concentration, and of course, theif you ever wanted to get off, terrible withdrawal symptoms.  Here’s one crazy fun fact that might blow your mind- Itlaudanum was even spoon fed to infants, if you can believe that.   

 

No way! 

 

But before we judge too quickly with the arrogance of the present, we have to remember, that it wasn’t until 1899 that aspirin was invented.  These were days when there were no antibiotics,  no mild tranquiliers;  not much of anything and people needed help- not just pain relief, but with all kinds of things, and this is what they had.   

 

Do you think Barrett’s prolonged disabilities could be connected with her drug use? 

 

I’m sure it’s possible, but I really don’t know.  Laudanum has no curative properties. After they got married, Robert Browning did help her reduce her drug use significantly,  and in fact, she reduced her dosage to where she was finally able to get pregnant after two miscarriages related to laudanum.  After marrying him, her entire health condition improved actually.  She even got to where she could walk again, but I’m not sure what all the factors were that contributed to her general improved health.  She was definitely in a better climate and presumably happy.   I do want to be clear, there was no stigma at that time in using laudanum, so we don’t need to see her as dark or even unconventional because she was a laudanum user.  Lots and lots of people used it for all kinds of things and lots were addicted- including names we recognize like Charles Dickens.   

 

Okay-moving on to the love story- so Elizabeth was pretty much locked up in her room, disabled but otherwise living a fairly engaging intellectual life.  She was writing poetry, writing letters and basically building a literary career out of that bedroom, even in her disabled state.  In 1838, she published a book of poetry called The Seraphim and Other Poems and that one was met with a lot of critical success- oh and let me note- Elizabeth Barrett Browning published her work under her own name!!!  That wasn’t what a lot of women writers were doing.  But, because her work was well received and NOT anonymous, this led to her corresponding via the mail and making friends with important literary figures of her day- some we’ve even heard of today- famous people like William Wordsworth and Edgar Allan Poe.  In 1844, she published another book of poetry, and it met even more success- and it was the publication of this book that changed her personal life completely.  In one of the poems in this collection,  the poem’s name, btw, was  “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship”, If you’re interested, but in this poem she references the poetry of another  fairly obscure British poet,  a man by the name of Robert Browning.  Well, this obscure poet, Robert, was highly flattered to be noticed by someone who was now quite famous, and wrote her a letter thanking her for the shout out.  However, this was not your run of the mill thank you note.  In his thank you letter he very forwardly and now famously said this, “I love your verses with all my heart, Miss Barrett”…”, I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart- and I love you too.”   

 

Ha!  That is forward.  Robert Browning was very much a very bold suitor- no doubt.  He pursued Elizabeth and all throughvia the mail. I was amazed to read there are over 573 letters between these two, and these letters pretty much document the story of two people falling in love.  Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan’s email drama has nothing on these two!!  They wrote each other every day and seemingly pretty much about everything  in the world.  These were not check in texts.  These were not Joey Tribiani lines like “what’s up!”- they were full on epistles.  

 

So true, and these letters have been popular reading material ever since- for those of us who want to take stalking to the next level and stalk the love lives of the dead.  You really get an intimate look at two people falling in love.  Elizabeth said they were “talking upon paper”.   When you read the letters, you literally feel like you are injecting yourself into their private world.   

 

Mostly because you are.   

 

I guess that’s true, but it is sweet.  Here’s a clip for you to see what I mean.  “You’ve come to me as a dream comes, as the best of dreams comes.”  That’s Elizabeth to Robert. And Robert Browning responds in the same sorts of ways, “I have loved you all my Life unawares- that is the idea of you.”      

 

It’s a very special back and forth that has been preserved, and they were clearly falling in love now before the eyes of the world and posterity- but we also see that Elizabeth was not totally sure marriage was the path for her.   

 

 No, she had a couple of serious hesitations.  Not the least of these was her father.  He absolutely did not believe in allowing his children to get married- especially Elizabeth, and by that I mean not ever.  They were a close family, and that put her in a terrible position.  To marry Robert would be to cut off her father.  Her relationship with her father otherwise was good- if you take out the tyrannical controlling thing- I know that kind of fails the say out loud test.    

 

And of course we see in the letters that Robert, obviously was totally against this kind control over her.     

 

That was one big problem, but she was also concerned about her disability and her age.  She was six years older.  Would this really work? By the time, they got married she was 40- today 40 is the new 20, but she didn’t feel that way.   She felt past her prime.  These are some of the insecurities, we will see her write about in her love sonnets.  But, at the end of the day, Robert did love her.  He wanted the relationship to work.  And despite her father’s objections, he visited her home 91 times unrelenting in wanting a relationship with Elizabeth.  Garry, do you have a theory as to what Mr. Barrett had against Robert or marriage in general? 

 

Well, for one thing, he thought Robert might be trying to use Elizabeth’s fame for his own career- and that would be understandable, I guess, although for a 40 year old, today that seems her problem not his.  But the bigger problem was sex in general.  From everything I’ve read he was a good father and loved his daughter.  Elizabeth, who they calledhis Ba- in many ways she his pride and joy.  He struggled with his daughter having her own sexual identity- he had idealized her.  It seems that as he got older, the sex piece was just more than he could handle.  This sort of thing happens even today. 

 

Well, the locking the daughter up in the room plan failed.   

 

I will say those plans usually do. 

 

Robert and Elizabeth were in love, and on September 12 1846, with the help of her maid, Elizabeth sneaks out of the house and marries Robert.  One oddity is that after they get married, she had to sneak back into her father’s house and live there secretly married for another week before they could work out their train tickets to Italy.  But they did ran away together and eventually settled in Florence and where they lived for the rest of Elizabeth’s life.  

 

One unfortunate fall out is that her father never got over the elopement.  He disowned her; cut her off financially and never spoke to her again.  He would die never to see his daughter again.  That’s sad.  

 

I suspect she knew that was a possibility, and the reason for her hesitation.  I’m also sure that really hurt, but she didn’t seem to regret her decision.  Italy was her choice.  She’d loved it from her classical studies.  The doctors insisted it would significantly improve her health- which it did.   She also wanted Robert and a life with Robert, so Italy was the plan.  After three miscarriages, they had a son, she began walking again; she got involved with European politics, supported the the Unification of Italy, took stands on women’s rights issues.  She was fully engaged in a life there.  In 1850, she would publish another collection of poetry- this one contained what she is most famous for- her “Sonnets from the Portuguese”.  Selections from this work is what we’re going to read.  These were poems she had written to Robert during those days when she was living locked up in that room on Wimpole street.  She wrote 44 love sonnets to Robert,  but she didn’t give them to Robert until after they were married.   

 

What’s the connection with the Portuguese?   

 

Well, when they were dating, Elizabeth wrote a poem about a Portuguese girl named Catarina who was beloved.  Robert loved it and always connected Elizabeth to this fictional girl Catarina from the poem.  When Elizabeth published these love sonnets it was kind of an inside joke- the speaker is the Portuguese (her) and the poems are all love poems to her husband.  Sonnets from the Portuguese. 

 

Also, you may remember from Robert’s life- he had kind of a bad experience with writing personal confessional poems, so when it came to publishing truly personal poems, he wanted her to create some distance between the speaker of the poem.  So, they basically pretended she translated the sonnets. I like the idea- although, I will say, it’s not super-well disguised.   

 

So, why are these love sonnets so popular? 

 

For one, there’s just the idea that they are so so sweet.  And since their love life is so well documented with their letters, the personal story makes the sentiments in the sonnets charming.   Elizabeth was 39 years old.  She considers herself past her prime when they met.  She was disabled.  She expresses what to me seems like a disbelief someone she found to be as amazing as this man she admired really truly loved her.  On his part, it’s kind of a female fantasy- it’s sweet- against a lot of big obstacles,he made her believe he loved her because he did.  He really did.  He was equally enamoured with her.  He admired her.  He wondered how could a woman as brilliant as this woman love me?  

 

And there we have something special- a mutual admiration- it is this mutual admiration that led to a real intellectual exchange.  In these letters we watch this intellectual exchange develop into a reciprocity of respect and from this respect we see trust and then intimacy. All of this, of course, is exactly the kind of thing Ibsen advocates for in A Doll’s House.  The Browning’s relationship is the exact opposite of the Helmer marriage.  The BrownsingsThe Brownings started  as intellectual equals but then emotionally connect.  After many months of back and forth, after many doubts, we finally land on those famous lines most of us recognize from grocery store valentine cards that young boys glue boxes of chocolates or put in the arms of teddy bears. “How do I love thee, let me count the ways?”  

 

 I really like Elizabeth; but I also like Robert.  He loved her for who she was.  He was bold; he took risks.  This is something young men aren’t often encouraged to do. For whatever reason, Robert demonstrated leadership, and Elizabeth absolutely reciprocated this strength back to him.  Sonnets from the Portuguese take us on her journey. And because we know the true story of their real-life romance- the sonnets just seem sweet, romantic and precious. 

 

You seem smitten, Christy, should I be concerned?  Or should I write sonnets? 

 

Oh, you should definitely write sonnets, But let me say, there is more to appreciate about these love sonnets than just the love confession.  EBB was a rhetorician- and you know I love rhetoric- persuasion.  These poems don’t just express emotion.  They are making an articulate argument- she’s making a statement one I find interesting and relevant. Because Elizabeth was a product of the Victorian era, she had a very specific understanding of the view of the ideal woman of her day.  However, she was an intellectual, her father had done her the disservice of introducing her to Greek and Latin philosophy.  She was enamored with the female poet Sapphos- so as she sat in the confining room on Wimpole street, receiving letters from Robert- she found herself thinking- what does something like romantic love mean for someone like me?  I don’t need a man for money?  I don’t need a man for a career?  I don’t even need a man for love- my father loves me.  What is romance?  What is love?  What is a relationship between a man and a roman?  She sat around her room a thought about those sort of things and she draws conclusions.  

 

For one thing, she  defines female love in a different way- it doesn’t have to be the same thing as masculine love- but it also doesn’t have to be this frail Victorian helpless type she found typical of the age- she defines feminine love in a stronger way.  For EBB love comes from confidence and fills the lover with confidence. In the beginning we see a woman who was confident in her intelligence; confident in her work, confidenr in her family,  but not necessarily confident in any romantic sense.  And how many of us can relate to that?  This was exactly me as a high school and college student- if I’m being honest.   

 

 One thing that stands out to me is this idea the frail female.  This WAS the ideal female for a lot of men at this time period.  Of course, most men, even today, want to be strong for a significant lover or the love of women in general,  but this dramatic idea of the sickly and frail woman is very typical of the Victorian period.   I can see that a woman expressing powerful confidence was not something people expected from a female in a romantic relationship and certainly not in a female romantic figure.   

 

Exactly, and EBB, who ironically was sickly, didn’t want that to be the reason someone loved her.  She ran from that.  In fact, she even ran from being appreciated for being a woman in general.  When Wordsworth died, England needed a new poet Laureate, Elizabeth’s name was recommended to succeed him.  The argument was that there should be a woman poet Laureate for the nation because there was a woman monarch.  Barrett took issue with this- she made the statement that she was not a poetess but a poet and she thought poetry should be judged by its merits not by the sex of its writers. 

 

HA!!  19th century cross-sectional politics. 

 

I know, right, but here’s why I bring it up.  When it came to her poetry, she didn’t want to be looked at as a woman-as in a hyphenated sub-group.  She saw this kind of thing as patronizing like how I heard boys talk about girl athletes when I was a kid- phrases like, “she’s pretty fast- for a girl.” That was not Elizabeth’s thing.  It’s why didn’t use a pseudonym like George Eliot or Emily Bronte who went by Ellis Bell.  Hiding your gender professionally  was totally acceptable.  But it seems to me that for EBB she wanted to say- I am a woman- know that-, I have the feelings and desires define me as a woman.   I will write about women and what women care about.  I will show how I as a woman see the world and I will stand confidently this.  This is an important thing to do.   Don’t patronize me by qualifying me by gender; I define my femininity for myself.    But all of that only applies to outside relationships. n 

 

So, how does it apply to personal relationships?  

 

It seems crazy, and unljikely but somehow, she and Robert were on the same page in their understanding of how men and women should relate.  He was not intimated by her professional success at all, and he really should have been.  She was very well known; he was not.  Their personal relationship was all theirs.  She was a woman who wanted to be desired, to be cherished, to be loved and adored- and he wanted very much to do all those things for her.  That is a very traditional relationship, and maybe Victorian in nature- but I have to be honest, I love all those very same things.  

 

As we read these poems, I see a powerful writer but also a dreamy love-struck woman.   “As the prisoners think of liberty, as the dying think of heaven so I think of you.”  That is another quote from one of her letters to Robert- but in this line we see a brave but smitten female voice.   

 

So, you’re saying, she’s not writing as someone trying to be coy or silently waiting to be seduced.   

 

 Exactly, she does want to be seduced; she’s just dropping the silent part.  Sonnets from the Portuguese are in sequence; they take us through her evolution of thinking and her emotions on this experience of falling in love.  In sonnets 1-2 we see the woman speaker as object of man- she is not the creator of her own poetic voice yet.  And this of course is what we think of when we think of traditional love poetry- man loves woman- man speaks- woman stays silent- just think about the convention of the sonnets in particular- especially Petrarchan sonnets.  That’s what they were all about. 

 

Now, we don’t need to rehash our entire episode on Petrarch- although he’s worth listening to if you haven’t listened to that podcast- or at least not in a while- but, by way of reminder, Petrarch wrote sonnets to a woman named Laura who did not return his affection- the entire genre of the Petrarchan sonnet is about objectifying women.    In fact, I’m pretty sure Petrarch never really even refers to Laura as a whole human being- it’s always her hair, or her breasts, her voice, her smile- even the name Laura- some people think just stands in for the word Laurel.   

 

You’re right.  Laura is distant- impersonal- an ideal.  The sonnets are mostly about Petrarch- the man- not the woman at all. Elizabeth is to not just going to reverse this- she’s going to redefine the sonnet genre entirely.  She’s going to say, I’m the object- yes- I want to be the object, but I’m also the speaker- I am not silent.  I am a recipient of a love that empowers, but I am also the giver of a love that emboldens.  The poetic relationship in these sonnets is reciprocal- His love calls for her poems- SHE writes them.  In a sense, he is a magic prince who kisses and restores her- she sees him like this- but she is not weak, she is not powerless- even in her physical fraility- even in her age- and she did see herself as kind of past her prime maybe physically but definitely not creatively or professionally.    SHE is the creator of the art here- she is creating this new idea that I can be a the muse for love and the creator of its art.   

 

I also want to point out that their relationship, although it is intellectual,  it is not platonic.  It’s very romantic and there is a lot that is physical here… and some of this is erotic to be honest… He was bold towards her, but now she reciprocates with boldness of her own…. 

 

Well, that could get interesting.   

 

I think so, but we’ll let you read those on your own, though.  

 

Okay- so, we’re going to read three of her sonnets?  

 

Yes, I want to.   I think it’s nice to try to see a little bit of the progression we’ve been talking about- how they kind of show her evolving into her own understanding of her relationship.  We won’t overdo the analysis thing because there are three of them- and we’ll just try to enjoy them more holistically.  We’ll start with 14, move to 22 and then finish with the famous 43- the one most people know.   

 

 

Sonnet 14 

 

If thou must love me, let it 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 thought 
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought 
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"— 
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may 
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought, 
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry: 
A creature might forget to weep, who bore 
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! 
But love me for love's sake, that evermore 
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity. 

 

 

It seems very straightforward and easy to understand for me.   

 

It really is.  Just to give a little introduction to the form, notice that it is in iambic pentamenter, that means there are five strong beats in every line- just like in most every other sonnet in the world. Also, just like Petrarch, there is a rhyme scheme abba abba cdcdcd. But, that’s as far as she will follow Petrarch’s model.  In fact, she’s almost responding to Petrarch- don’t love me like Petrarch loved Laura.   He loved her for stuff- for her smile, her look, her way… all that garbage… don’t even love me for any cute thing I say, or even what you do for me and how it makes you feel to do stuff for me, like wipe tears from my cheeks- nonsense like that…I’m just not interested.  If we’re going to do this love thing, we need to get past all that and figure out something much deeper …the smile and tears stuff isn’t enough.    “Love me for love’s sake, that evermore though mayst love, on, through love’s eternity.”   

 

Well, it’s a very ornate style- and it’s understandable in light of what we know about her own personal underconfidences that she would talk like this, but like I said before, I really enjoy seeing a mature woman experience a deep and intimate love- she’s allowing herself to enjoy all the emotions of love like most people associate with you, but it’s not immature love, it establishs reciprocal terms.  

 

 

Another point I want to make before we read the next one, and this may be one of the reasons her poetry was so ill-received in the 20th century, EBB has no trouble exploring her doubts and underconfidences in her romantic relationship.  And we see that a little here, although the earlier ones had more of it.  She seems slightly concerned that if the love relies too much on the physical, it might be a bust.  Feminist critics of the 20th century didn’t like that.  They said things like, she’s lowering herself in the relationship when she should be promoting herself.  And there is a real sense that that is true- she clearly submits to Robert in these sonnets- on purpose- but here is the difference that I think has since redeemed her- it’s a reciprocated submission- it’s not something that Robert himself was not doing.  Today, as we read her poems, we aren’t really offended by her vulnerability.  In fact, the honesty has been reinterpreted as confidence.  It takes quite a bit of sincerity and confidence to be openly underconfident and dependent- as paradoxical as it sounds.   

 

Well, of course, I agree with that.  And I have to think, from a psychological point of view, that being in love and writing about how it makes you feel at age 39 as opposed to 19 is probably why she can be vulnerable about her self-doubts without coming across as weak and pitiful.  She’s already been through the adolescent stuff as a totally separate issue, so as she tries to understand what about love is overwhelming her and making her feel so differently- she can separate what is unique about this particular love relationship from regular developmental issues of underconfidence or even the loving relationships she’s already experienced from her family- which we have to remember- she’d been adored her entire life.   

 

Let’s read 22- we can see the tone has shifted.  There’s been a progression from love me for love’s sake to now WHEN we stand erect…the posture is very different.  Let’s read it.     

 

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,   

Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,   

Until the lengthening wings break into fire   

At either curvèd point,—what bitter wrong   

Can the earth do to us, that we should not long  

Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,   

The angels would press on us and aspire   

To drop some golden orb of perfect song   

Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay   

Rather on earth, Belovèd,—where the unfit  

Contrarious moods of men recoil away   

And isolate pure spirits, and permit   

A place to stand and love in for a day,   

With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. 

 

Again, we have the same iambic pentameter- five strong beats in every line.  We have the rhyme scheme Abba Abba cdcdcd.  But what we notice more than the rhyme change is the tone change.  Traditionally in the Petrarchean sonnet the first eight lines set up a question and then the second six lines answer it.  There’s a turn.  In this one, the first eight lines or the octave are going to define the status of their love as it is now.  The last six will argue- quite untraditionally that they need to stop time and just stay in the present moment.   

 

HA!!  Wouldn’t that be nice to be able to do.   

 

Yeah- but I guess it’s a nice sentiment even if a bit unrealistic.  I guess that’s why she can enjoy it.  I want to point out how much religious imagery she throws in here.  It’s not two bodies- it’s two souls- they are not constrained by physical restraints anymore- something she was all too familiar with.   I also want to point at how equal the two people in this poem are.  They are two souls- erect and strong- face to face- with wings breaking into fire- that’s pretty cool imagery.- kind of like some mythical phoenix full of power and energy. 

 

And yet, as cool as they would be, I would prefer to just stay here in this moment with you.  It’s sweet.  Okay, ready for the last one…the famous sonnet 43, the second to last poem in the series- in many ways the concluding one.  In this one, she is going to summarize some of the arguments she’s made throughout the other sonnets.  She is going to catalogue the eight ways of loving that she’s been making for the last 42.  Let’s read it and then we’ll see how this famous love story ends.   

 

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 every day's 
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for right. 
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 
I love thee with the passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death. 

 

By the end of EBB’s sonnet sequence she has reshaped her understanding of love.  She has allowed herself to express her initial insecurities, walked us through her doubts and developed before us a full and complete discovery of what her romantic relationship means.   Again, she is using the same iambic pentameter- and the same abba abba cdcdcd.  It’s simple.  It’s obvious.  It’s confident. Where in the first one we read, there was a lot of insecurity, the second a very confident equality, here she is asserting her own leadership.  I think she’s ready to elope!!! 

 

HA!!  I guess she is.  Again there is a lot of religious and Christian imagery- it even alludes to the Bible.  The languages borrows from St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians where he describes Christ’s love for humanity.   

 

Exactly, she’s expressing a completeness here- in every line she’s showing us this cycle.  There’s spiritual love, every day love, free and society love, virtuous love, passionate love, permanent love and finally eternal love- after death. 

 

Well, how does their story end.   

 

It’s nice.  First of all, I forgot to tell you, they nicknamed their son, Pen.  That’s cute.  After the elopement and the move to Italy, they had 15 years before Elizabeth’s health finally gave out.  The story goes that on the day Elizabeth died, Robert lifted her up towards him and she kissed him repeatedly, even kissing the air after he put her back on her bed.  Robert was heard saying, “Beautiful, beautiful.”  After she breathed her last breath, he looked at her and said, “How she looks now, how perfectly beautiful.”  This was on June 29, 1861.  That autumn, Robert and Pen left Florence never to return.  He prepared and published her last works that he titled, “Last Poems”.  He was unselfishly pleased that even after her death, sales of her work exceeded his.   

 

Browning stayed in England, gradually establishing a place in London society.  He did propose again to a woman named Louisa, Lady Ashburton, a rich and attractive widow in 1869.  However, he blew the proposal so badly that she turned him down.  

 

You know bad proposals are some of the things America’s Funniest Home Videos really taught us all to enjoy.  But how was his so bad.  I mean, he was a poet.  You’d think he could turn a line.    

 

Oh, he turned a line for sure, but this stands out- even in a long list of bad proposals.   He literally told her that his heart lay buried with his wife in Florence and he really just wanted to marry her for the advantages it would give Pen.   

 

Well, at least he was honest.   

 

Yes, he was that- just honest and single.  He continued to write and to publish all the way until his death.  And he died in the same country as his wife.  He and his sister were vacationing in Venice, Italy.  He had bought a house there for Pen.  While in Venice, he caught a cold and died on December 12, 1878 there.  Today, EBB is buried in Florence, but ironically they did not ship Robert Brownings down to Florence to be buried with her.  He actually got a very prestigious placement.  Today Robert Browning’s body rests in Westminster Abbey. 

 

Wow, that’s impressive and an interesting ending to this very famous romance. 

 

Unless  it doesn’t end the romance…according to Elizabeth, she was going to love him better after death. 

 

Ha!!!  Well, there you go, perhaps she’s set those wings on fire!! 

 

Oh my, we’ve read way too many sonnets this week.  Next week, we are changing gears entirely.  If you’re listening to this in real time, it’s October 2021, Halloween season and we are starting The Haunting of Hill House by the American Shirley Jackson.  It’s not my favorite sub-genre, but here we go…into the scary stuff!!! 

 

Thanks for listening, please know we appreciate you spending time with us each week.  We hope you are enjoying exploring the classics with us.  If so, please help us by tweeting an episode, posting a link on Facebook or LinkedIn or simply texting an episode to a friend.  And if you’re a teacher, Visit our website for teaching support. 

 

Peace Out. 

 

 

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