SONNET 43 Flashcards
Poet, date,genre / themes
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850, LOVE/obsession/ infatuation
Who was Elizabeth Barrett Browning?
Context about her!!!!!!!!!
Poet 1806 -1861
Suffered lifelong illness
married Robert Browning (poem written to robert browning pre marriage) - Against wishes of father – SHOCKING!
writes about marginalised?
Poem Context
Interest in gender equality, writes traditionally masculine form of poetry
Publishes poems as if they weren’t hers
How could her relationship with her father reflect in the poem?
Father -> tyrannical figure
Unhealthy or obsessive love could be due to negative relationship with father / male figures in life? (brother died?)
ATTACHED TO ROBERT BROWNING AS he was her SAVIOUR?
What poems could this be linked to?
SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY = Love
Pining for innapropriate lover
Love is BLINDING
OZYMANDIAS = Power/ corruption
Both appropriate / unconventional sonnet form to veil condemnation of societ
Elizabeth and Robert
Sonnet 43 written to express intense love for him PRE MARRIAGE
Volume ‘poems’ written while recluse attracted robert browning -> exchanged 574 letters over the next 20 months
They elope and move to italy where her health IMPROVES
does not speak to father again
has a son
Publishes sonnets from the portugeese
STRUCTURE of the poem
petrarchan sonnet –> EPITOME OF LYRICAL LOVE POEM
uses italian form (ran away to italy ) (controversial, masculine form challenges patriachy)
TONE
hyperbolic!
Link to ( love / oppression)?
She Walks in Beauty
?
