Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 44"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2023

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Today’s poem is by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861), an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime.

In the 1840s, Elizabeth was introduced to literary society through her distant cousin and patron John Kenyon. Her first adult collection of poems was published in 1838, and she wrote prolifically between 1841 and 1844, producing poetry, translation, and prose. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery, and her work helped influence reform in the child labour legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth.

Elizabeth's volume Poems (1844) brought her great success, attracting the admiration of the writer Robert Browning. Their correspondence, courtship, and marriage were carried out in secret, for fear of her father's disapproval. Following the wedding, she was indeed disinherited by her father. In 1846, the couple moved to Italy, where she would live for the rest of her life. They had a son, known as "Pen" (Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning) (1849–1912). Pen devoted himself to painting until his eyesight began to fail later in life; he also built up a large collection of manuscripts and memorabilia of his parents; however, since he died intestate, it was sold by public auction to various bidders, and scattered upon his death. The Armstrong Browning Libraryhas tried to recover some of his collection, and now houses the world's largest collection of Browning memorabilia.[3] Elizabeth died in Florence in 1861.[1][4] A collection of her last poems was published by her husband shortly after her death.

Elizabeth's work had a major influence on prominent writers of the day, including the American poets Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. She is remembered for such poems as "How Do I Love Thee?" (Sonnet 43, 1845) and Aurora Leigh (1856).

—Bio via Wikipedia

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
0:04.8	I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Thursday, September 7th, 2003.
0:10.8	Today's poem is by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and it's called Sonnet 44, or sometimes known by its first line, beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers.
0:26.8	I'll read the poem once, offer a few comments, and then read it a second time.
0:35.4	This is Sonnet 44 from Sonnets from the Portuguese.
0:40.3	Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers plucked in the garden all the summer through in winter,
0:49.3	and it seemed as if they grow in this close room, nor miss the sun and showers. So, in the like name of that love of
0:57.6	ours, take back these thoughts which here unfolded to, and which on warm and cold days I withdrew
1:05.2	from my heart's ground. Indeed, these beds and bowers be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, and wait thy weeding.
1:14.2	Yet here's Eglantine, here's ivy.
1:17.1	Take them, as I used to do thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
1:22.5	Instruct thine eyes to keep their colors true, until thy soul their roots are left in mine this is the 44th and
1:34.6	final sonnet from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's collection sonnets from the Portuguese
1:41.6	which are a collection of love poems, primarily or in some form
1:48.1	or other, that she wrote as a gift to her husband, also a famous poet, Robert Browning.
1:55.4	They were then published in 1850, and since then have often been acclaimed as the greatest
2:03.6	example of poetic writing by a woman in the English language.
2:10.6	And gender aside have been compared to Shakespeare's own sonnets in discussions of their greatness.
2:21.9	This final one offers a kind of summation of the themes of the other poems, and it's just
2:29.3	a genuinely lovely love poem.
2:32.2	She has been ruminating on her love for her husband and her husband's love for her
2:36.6	in this collection of poems.
	...

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