Topic Summaries

• Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
• Year: 1850
• Form: Petrarchan sonnet
• Key techniques: Extended metaphor, assonance, imagery, enjambment

About the poet

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent English poets of the Victorian era. Born into a wealthy family in County Durham, she displayed remarkable literary talent from a young age, publishing her first work at 12. Despite chronic illness throughout her life, Barrett Browning maintained a prolific literary output. Her most famous collection, Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850), from which this sonnet is taken, is a sequence of love poems addressed to her husband, fellow poet Robert Browning, during their secret courtship. The title was deliberately modest to deflect attention from their intensely personal, romantic nature. After eloping with Robert Browning to Italy against her father’s wishes, she spent the rest of her life abroad, producing some of her most celebrated works.

Historical context

The Victorian era was a time when public propriety and emotional restraint were highly prized, particularly for women. Barrett Browning, however, defied these norms by expressing intense personal desire and extolling intellectual equality in her love poetry. At the time, women’s writing was often coded or restrained, yet Barrett Browning gives voice to profound physical and spiritual yearning that was extremely bold for the era.

Literary context

The poem belongs to the Romantic and early Victorian literary tradition, combining the emotional intensity of Romanticism with the introspective, moral concerns of Victorian literature. While Barrett Browning adheres to the Petrarchan sonnet structure, she subverts traditional gender roles by giving the female speaker an active, even dominant voice. Instead of idealising love in abstract terms, as many Petrarchan sonnets do, she explores the tension between physical presence and mental obsession.

Key ideas

• Romantic love and desire
• Imagination versus physical reality
• Obsession and longing
• Emotional intimacy
• Female agency in love
• Intensity of relationships