The poems “Sonnet 43” and “First Love” by Elizabeth Barret Browning and John Clare respectively, are both based on love, however, the two poems demonstrate different sentiments and experiences in their representations. One poet depicts an impassioned, amorous love, whilst the other describes unrequited love with a gentle beginning but acerbic end. Browning uses contrasts, structure and imagery to accentuate the passion she feels towards her husband, to convey to the reader that her love is genuine, God-given and everlasting. In ‘First Love’, John Clare expresses the persona’s journey of experiencing love for the first time, using imagery, tone and structure to silhouette its innocent nature and to convey the persona’s thought progression during the bittersweet journey of unreciprocated love.
“Sonnet 43” is a Petrarchan sonnet that exemplifies the intensity of Browning’s love. The anaphoric repetition of “I love thee” emphasises the excitement in Browning’s tone, thus how much love means to her. Browning begins by saying, “Let me count the ways! -", suggesting that Browning is excited about reciting these innumerable ways, reinforced by the use of an exclamation mark. Additionally, the pause allows Browning to take a breath before she “counts” this infinite list, emphasising its enormity, creating an impassionate experience.
Browning gives her love space and depth using contrasts. She says, “I love thee to the depth & breadth & height” which portrays Browning as trying to quantity a love that is unquantifiable, giving it boundaries. This is juxtaposed when Browning states her love is “free” and “pure”, revealing that her love does not have limitations, rather it is limitless, hence immeasurable. She states that her love can be see...
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...product of love and the lastly displaying the persona’s realisation of the cold-shoulder love is giving him. This can also be symbolic of the persona’s heartbeat, in which it fluctuates from stable to volatile to finding stability in volatility. Clare has used structure effectively, to divide the poem into distinct segments, making the experience of the persona clear.
As observed, the two poems share similar themes and the two distinct experiences have been defined through similar methods to outline how their personas feel. Personally, I believe that Clare’s interpretation of love is more realistic than Browning’s. He provides a lifelike plot of unrequited love, which allows one to empathise with him, particularly near the end of the last stanza. Clare creates an interesting and methodical approach to first love that outlines the structure of a relatable experience.
The two Robert Browning poems, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ were written in the infamous Victorian Era whereas the two Shakespearean Sonnets were written in the Elizabethan Era. The styles of the poems differ in accordance to the difference of the time in which they were written. Pre-Romantic Era poems moved away from the idealistic concept of love towards a more realistic consideration of it, taking into account the social crisis of the time.
Most people have fallen in love at least once in their lives. I too fall in this category. Just like any Disney movie that you watch, people fall in love with each other, and they get married and live happily ever after right? Wrong! In real life, there are some strange things that can happen, including death, divorce, or other weird things that you never see in Disney movies. Robert Browning’s literary works are great examples of “Non-Fairytale Endings.” Not only does Browning have endings in his stories that aren’t the norm in children movies, but he also has some twisted and interesting things happen in the story of lovers. In Robert Browning’s works, Porphyria’s Lover, and My Last Duchess, the speakers can be both compared and contrasted.
Love is portrayed in numerous mediums: song, history, rhythmic dance, or poetry. These four instruments of love typically identify the notion as subjective, lifeless, and static. Song writer of this age often convey love as a goal in life not as an element of living. While people from different periods in history used love to gain power giving love a bare and emotionless personnel. And lastly dance and poetry perceives love as inaudible and plain, because the vary performers and authors have not experienced love on an intimate or divine level. However William Shakespeare is one of few to frequently incorporate simple, yet complex terminology in sonnets to convey different concepts of love. The comprehensive
Have you ever fallen in love? Have you ever developed strong feelings for another? If problems arose between the two of you, were you able to overcome them? Well certain men in Robert Browning’s works couldn’t seem to. . . “overcome” these differences with their women. Browning grew up learning from his father’s huge library. His wife was much more successful at writing than him. Eight years after her death, his career turned around for the last 20 years of his life. During this time, he wrote many short dramatic monologues such as My Last Duchess and Prophyria’s Lover. These two very intriguing and disturbing Monologues, My Last Duchess and Prophyria’s Lover, by Robert Browning, involve two very messed up men whose actions are both alike in their idea of immortalizing their woman, but different in why they chose to commit the act between the two stories, and a conclusion may be drawn from this observation.
The first pages of this work quickly establishes this extremely effective stylistic imagery and quickly captures the readers attention, making it a chore to be diverted from reading this famous work. She begins with the metaphor, which likens writing this novel to better herself "as when you paint your portrait for a friend," (Longman p. 1863; l. 5) and it continues to connect the past and present for that friend. The imagery is so real that the reader quickly becomes completely enthralled within the world Browning is describing. Just twelve lines into the work, she masterfully creates a tender and calming scene of an infant smiling in its sleep, due to its understanding of the infinite nature of life. Then broadening the view of the scene to include the watchful mother outside the nursery, calming the household to insure the continued peaceful rest of the infan...
"Robert Browning." Critical Survey of Poetry: English Language Series. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Vol. 1. Englewood Cliffs: Salem, 1982. 338, 341.
In “Sonnet,” Billy Collins satirizes the classical sonnet’s volume to illustrate love in only “.fourteen lines.” (1). Collins’s poem subsists as a “Sonnet,” though there exists many differences in it, countering the customarily conventional structure of a sonnet. Like Collins’s “Sonnet,” Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” also faces incongruities with the classic sonnet form as he satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was largely a convention of writings and art during the Elizabethan era. Although these poems venture through different techniques to appear individually different from the classic sonnet, the theme of love makes the poems analogous.
Relationships between two people can have a strong bond and through poetry can have an everlasting life. The relationship can be between a mother and a child, a man and a woman, or of one person reaching out to their love. No matter what kind of relationship there is, the bond between the two people is shown through literary devices to enhance the romantic impression upon the reader. Through Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham,” Ben Jonson’s “To Celia,” and William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” relationships are viewed as a powerful bond, an everlasting love, and even a romantic hymn.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 's "Sonnet XLIII" speaks of her love for her husband, Richard Browning, with rich and deeply insightful comparisons to many different intangible forms. These forms—from the soul to the afterlife—intensify the extent of her love, and because of this, upon first reading the sonnet, it is easy to be impressed and utterly overwhelmed by the descriptors of her love. However, when looking past this first reading, the sonnet is in fact quite ungraspable for readers, such as myself, who have not experienced what Browning has for her husband. As a result, the visual imagery, although descriptive, is difficult to visualize, because
Browning's amazing command of words and their effects makes this poem infinitely more pleasurable to the reader. Through simple, brief imagery, he is able to depict the lovers' passion, the speaker's impatience in reaching his love, and the stealth and secrecy of their meeting. He accomplishes this feat within twelve lines of specific rhyme scheme and beautiful language, never forsaking aesthetic quality for his higher purposes.
In “Sonnet XVII,” the text begins by expressing the ways in which the narrator does not love, superficially. The narrator is captivated by his object of affection, and her inner beauty is of the upmost significance. The poem shows the narrator’s utter helplessness and vulnerability because it is characterized by raw emotions rather than logic. It then sculpts the image that the love created is so personal that the narrator is alone in his enchantment. Therefore, he is ultimately isolated because no one can fathom the love he is encountering. The narrator unveils his private thoughts, leaving him exposed and susceptible to ridicule and speculation. However, as the sonnet advances toward an end, it displays the true heartfelt description of love and finally shows how two people unite as one in an overwhelming intimacy.
In “Sonnet 43,” Browning wrote a deeply committed poem describing her love for her husband, fellow poet Robert Browning. Here, she writes in a Petrarchan sonnet, traditionally about an unattainable love following the styles of Francesco Petrarca. This may be partly true in Browning’s case; at the time she wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese, Browning was in courtship with Robert and the love had not yet been consummated into marriage. But nevertheless, the sonnet serves as an excellent ...
In conclusion, Browning uses many different techniques of conveying the complexities of human passion, and does this effectively from many points of view on love. However, it does seem that Browning usually has a slightly subdued, possibly even warped view of love and romance ? and this could be because his own love life was publicly perceived to be ultimately perfect but retrospectively it appears his marriage with Elizabeth Browning was full of doubt and possessiveness, as seen in ? Any Wife To Any Husband? which most critics believe to be based on the troubled relationship between the Browning?s.
...madness, and jealousy. In his poem he used imagery and wordplay Browning links with unit 5 because in his poem he put out a symbol for the urban modern life he writes this poem to influence the generation. I believe he is a symbolic author and a master at writing dramatic monologues. In conclusion, Browning is a modest author and he was one of the most important poets in the Victorian period. Browning lived a great life and his poems live on too I believe Browning work was just misunderstood back in the day and his most important poem would be ‘’ The Ring And The Book’ it is not often looked at today but the poem did bring him a lot of success before he passed away. The descriptions Browning gave off in his poems brought his readers close with the characters Browning made them relate in some shape of form with his unique techniques in his dramatic monologue.
Shakespeare's sonnets are a romantic and charming series of poems. His use of rhyme and passionate, eloquent language serve to illuminate his strong feelings. These techniques were probably the most fluent way for such a writer as him to express the immeasurable love that he obviously felt for his mysterious lady. Examining the numerous ways Shakespeare found to describe it, the reader believes that this love was undoubtedly lasting and authentic. He often made heart-felt comments about his emotions that could also suit lovers in the present day. Because of this, and the fact that people read them yet, Shakespeare's sonnets are timeless and universal, just like the concept of love itself.