Sonnet 29

Question 1

The abrupt simplicity of this line conveys the speaker’s all-consuming feelings. She later qualifies and explains herself, but her real emotional state is best conveyed through straightforward declarative syntax and exclamation, since her feelings are strong, instinctive, and unmediated by rationality. Each word is only one syllable, further contributing to the feeling of straightforwardness, although repeated “th” sounds create a softening effect. Meanwhile, the pronoun “thee,” used in informal address, implies intimacy between speaker and addressee right away.

Answer 1

I think of thee!

Question 2

The idea that physical distance stimulates passion and that being forced apart ironically draws the lovers together is the conceptual foundation of the poem. This paradoxical idea is made more concrete through an extended metaphor. In this metaphor, the speaker’s thoughts are granted a physical presence, making it easy for Browning to display the relationship between imagination and reality. Moreover, the metaphorical link between the lovers and the natural world underscores the instinctive, inevitable aspect of their emotional tie.

Answer 2

my thoughts do twine and bud

About thee, as wild vines, about a tree

Question 3

The poem’s final line moves readers rapidly through a concluding thought, with the second half qualifying the first. At first, the speaker appears to denounce her lover, or at least to denounce her imaginative conception of them. Yet the sentence’s second half, following the suspense created by a hyphen, features a kind of plot twist. The speaker explains that, by not thinking about the lover, she is by no means denouncing their love. Rather, she is choosing the lover’s literal presence over the one she has constructed imaginatively. Moreover, the parallel syntax of the line’s two halves reveals that these truths are intertwined, with the couple’s proximity engendering the speaker’s ability to curtail her imagination.

Answer 3

I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.

Question 4

Talking about her lover

Answer 4

“Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare”