A Study Guide (New Edition) for Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 43"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide (New Edition) for Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 43", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781535867955

Book preview

17

Sonnet 43

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1850

Introduction

Sonnet 43, by British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is one poem in a sequence of sonnets Browning published under the title Sonnets from the Portuguese in 1850; the sonnet sequence, in turn, was included in a two-volume collection titled Poems: New Edition. Sonnets from the Portuguese consists of forty-four love poems that Browning wrote during her courtship with the poet Robert Browning, although she did not share the poems with him until the late 1840s, after their elopement to Italy. The poems record the early days of their relationship and Elizabeth's initial reluctance to marry Robert because of her father's opposition to her marriage and because of her poor health. The collection survives as one of the most highly regarded sonnet sequences in English and the work on which Browning's reputation rests in the twenty-first century.

Many modern readers are likely to recognize the opening line of Sonnet 43, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways, which stands next to Shakespeare's To be or not to be in Hamlet as arguably one of the most widely recognized lines in English literature. The title of the collection, Sonnets from the Portuguese, is likely to puzzle some readers. My little Portuguese was Robert's pet name for Elizabeth. It is derived from one of Elizabeth's earlier poems, Catarina to Camoens, which depicts a Portuguese woman's love for a poet. Moreover, Elizabeth may have had Creole ancestry, so the nickname seemed apt. Elizabeth wanted to protect her and her husband's privacy, so she proposed a title that would suggest that the poems were translations from the work of a foreign author. Happily, they rejected the title Sonnets from the Bosnian after Robert suggested Portuguese. Sonnet 43 is found in numerous editions of Browning's poetry, including Elizabeth Barrett