Sonnet 29-' I Think Of Thee' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Flashcards
Compare the poem to…
Farmers bride/ neutral tones(nature) Letters from Yorkshire/ winter swans (distance) Singh song (relationship)
Themes
Longing,nature,distance,fulfilment, intensity
“ I think of thee!”
First person shows its more personal and directed at her husband
Exclamation mark- shows the intensity and the excitement of her love
Effect of ‘Thee’
Repetition show her focus on him and nothing else
Proves her immense love for him
Metaphor of the “tree”
Used to describe her husband
Shows his immense power
The link is shown through the internal rhyme between ‘tree’ and ‘thee’
Metaphor of the “vines”
She is the vines and relies on him m to live
A metaphor for her thoughts like her thought they are growing
“Deep joy”
More then just physical & emotional it is with the whole soul
Is more profound than just physically being near him, seeks comfort from his strong presence
“Breathe within thy shadow a new air,”
Willing to be overshadowed in his presence as her love for him is so immense
Love is fresh
“I do not think of thee-I am too near thee”
Once she is with him her thoughts of him will be unnecessary and fulfilled
Her world is better off with him
Caesura creates a longer pause in the sentence, to show her life is better with him
Reversal of the first line- highlights the difference between thinking of him and being with him
Effect of “because”
‘B’ plosive something nd marks the conclusion of her argument- she wants him to understand how much she wants to be with him
form of the poem
Petrarchan sonnet (Italian) has 14 lines split into octave and sestet. It’s written in iambic pentameter. Has an ABBABBACDCDCD rhyming scheme, contains a ‘volta’
Iambic pentameter- continuous heart beat, love for Robert is continuous and unbroken. She uses caesura to break up the rhyme to make it more interesting
Solution arrives on the seventh line, early, reflects the narrators impatience to see her lover
Structure of the poem
The transition from problem to the solution reflects the difference between the narrator thinking about her lover and being with him
Emphasised by the reversal of the first and last line
Feeling and attitudes in the poem
LONGING-the narrator longs to be with her lover
INTENSITY-thinks about her lover all the time, her language is forceful- uses imperatives
CELEBRATION-takes pleasure in her feelings of love for him, enjoys the ways her thoughts envelop him, but takes greater joy in the thoughts of him being a physical presence in her life
Why does the narrator compare her love to a tree
Trees are the basis of nature and life in the world suggesting that her lover makes her world go round and without him her world would be suffocating.
A tree is a symbol for never ending, reflects what she believes their relationship is like
Do you get the impression the love is returned?
The reader gets an small insight into the love returned from her husband, however it sounds forceful and only sexual making the reader question if she is as important in his life. This is reflected through the metaphor of the “vine” and to him she is only a nuisance. “Set thy trunk all bare”
