'How Do I Love Thee?': Love Letters from Elizabeth Barrett Browning

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Joe and Maiya delve into Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s timeless Sonnet 43, ‘How Do I Love Thee?,’ exploring its profound portrayal of love’s transcendence and the poet’s relationship with Robert Browning.

They discuss the sonnet’s enduring appeal, from its heartfelt imagery to its structure as a Petrarchan sonnet, positioning it as a love letter between two literary giants. Joe and Maya examine Barrett Browning’s personal struggles with chronic illness and social constraints, which amplify the depth of her love, creating a unique contrast between spiritual devotion and physical limitations.

Get exclusive PDFs on 'Sonnet 43' available to Poetry+ users:

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For more on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry, visit PoemAnalysis.com, where you can explore extensive resources in our PDF Learning Library, explore a wide range of analyzed poems, with thousands of PDFs, and much more - see our Elizabeth Barrett Browning PDF Guide.

Tune in and Discover:

• The role of faith and marriage vows in 'Sonnet 43'
• The impact of Barrett Browning’s health on her writing
• Insights into Victorian literary couples and their influence
• Why 'Sonnet 43' remains a popular reading at weddings

Transcript

'How Do I Love Thee?': Love Letters from Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Transcript)
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[00:00:00] 

Maiya: And breadth and height my soul can reach when feeling out of sight for the ends of being an ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely as men strive for right. I love thee purely as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion to put to use in my old griefs And with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seem to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smile, tears of all my life. And if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Joe: Welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by the team at poemanalysis in association with Poetry+. I'm Joe, and I'm here with my co host Maiya, who just did a fabulous reading of today's poem, which is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's [00:01:00] Sonnet 43, How do I love thee? Now we're going to be discussing the poem today and we're going to be covering a range of topics, including literary couples, the importance of faith and the relationship between abstract love and physical realities.

Now, Maiya, could you tell us a little bit about Browning, her childhood, her upbringing, and where she is when this poem is published in 1850?

Maiya: Thanks, Joe. So, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in County Durham in England in 1806. Now, she was born into a relatively affluent family, but herself suffered with chronic illness that would continue to plague her throughout her life 

now, this informs much of her work. She is often construed as a bit of a rebel figure. She rebelled against her family. She was for a lot of causes that at the time were really contentious. Now one of the lovely, lovely things about Elizabeth Barrett Browning is that she was actually in a relationship with, and later married, Robert Browning, another very famous poet.

This sonnet that we're [00:02:00] talking about today was a love poem to him, and it's such a wonderful thing to explore across how their poetry interacts with one another and how you can read it as a really true and authentic love story. Now this collection was written between 1845 and 1846, Elizabeth married Robert in 1846, but the collection wasn't actually published until 1850, and it was relatively late in her life. She then moved to Italy and passed away in 1861. So you're looking at about 11 years before her death. Now, Joe, where would you like to start with this poem?

Because it is beautiful. 

Joe: Thanks, Maiya. You're absolutely right. It's a really stunning poem and very, very popular to this day, you know, often read at weddings and you can see why. And I think the thing I'd like to start with is that opening line. It's one of the most famous opening lines in literary history.

So if I'll just repeat, the poem begins, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. And the things I want to focus on with regard to that line is [00:03:00] just two things. First of all, is that word thee. Now again, to modern readers, this seems kind of archaic, but just to clarify for any listeners who aren't aware, thee is an old fashioned form of the word you.

So what we have here is the direct address. It doesn't feel that direct to modern readers because we don't use the word the very often, but obviously at the time this is a direct way of talking to somebody. So we have the closeness, the intimacy established right from the opening line. And the other thing I love about that line is the balance between the rhetorical question in the first half and the confidence of the second half.

There is no hesitation. They don't need to wait. They don't need to gather their thoughts. They are ready to immediately reel off the reasons they love the person they love.

And it, I just find that to be such a warm, intimate way of beginning the poem. 

Maiya: Well yeah, I mean it's one of the most powerful openings to a poem, I think. You know, one of the things I think is that, and we often talk on this podcast about how poems, after they've been repeated and recycled so many times, they lose their power a little bit, or people tend to pick and choose parts that don't [00:04:00] necessarily reflect the full scope of the poem. For example, our earlier episode on Rudyard Kipling's If and the famous lines that are so often repeated. So if listeners haven't had a chance to tune into that one, I would massively recommend. But for this poem, I don't think it falls under that same scrutiny. No matter what line you pick from this, it is absolutely crystal clear what Elizabeth Barrett Browning is trying to do. And I really love what you said about the balance between the rhetorical question and the certainty of that following line.

And I've always been under the impression with this poem that That question isn't necessarily reflective of her being directly asked it, but it's something that the speaker mediates on all the time. She is able to pull these answers out so quickly, because she is always thinking about that person, and cements the certainty of that love, so even though it's a question, even though it should be more abstract, Yeah, I think it actually serves to really concretize how this speaker is

Joe: I love that point. And I think [00:05:00] just to add to that, one of the brilliant things about including this rhetorical question is it creates a sense of spontaneity and that sense of spontaneity is almost certainly not real, right? We don't know how many hours Elizabeth Barrett Browning spent editing this poem, going over it.

But I think. By including the rhetorical question at the beginning, Browning gives the sense that the lines that follow are an immediate response to that, as though she is able to express that love immediately. And I just think that the inclusion of the rhetorical question sort of, obscures the fact that this poem will have gone through many edits, many hours of rewrites, and almost implies that the love is so great that she can just express this immediately without any need to consider or to reflect upon what she feels.

Maiya: What's fascinating as well is that, you know, so often, even in the modern day, you're asked the question, How much do I love you? How much do I love that person? It's quantifiable. Here, she says, How do I? Let me count the ways. There isn't [00:06:00] a sense that she is telling you everything. She is just reeling off all these, like, beautiful, beautiful emotions, but it's still not everything.

And I really love the fact that it's not quantifiable in that way, because I think it really speaks to the fact that a love poem shouldn't just be a straight answer. There is so much more to it than that. 

Joe: 100 percent and you're right to pick up on that. difference between how much do I love you and how do I love you? Because what again, the verb do does is it makes love an act. It makes love a series of motions to go through.

And we're going to talk later on in this poem about the relationship between abstract love and physical reality. Now, I think what is so powerful about the use of that verb do is that. It highlights the way that love manifests itself in everyday actions, physical movements, physical interactions.

And I think that's so much more powerful than any attempt to kind of dislocate the way you feel about somebody from the actions with which you show that affection.

Maiya: it's brilliant, isn't it? That, you know, this is Sonnet 43. It doesn't officially have a [00:07:00] title, but we have taken this to be the title. Because it is so concrete. It is one single line. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Full stop. I find with a lot of sonnets that explore love or passion, there tends to be a spilling over through the lines. There tends to be a less concrete start, even if there is a concrete finish. But with this, you can just take that single line.

You don't need to read the rest of the poem and you know exactly that she's going to have this great love. You completely understand it from the get go, and that is so powerful.

Joe: Now. I think. It's impossible for us to have a conversation about a sonnet written in the 19th century without talking about the influence of Shakespeare and kind of where he fits into this story. We did an episode on Shakespeare sonnets, and I implore listeners to go and check that episode out.

And in that episode, we discuss the difference between the Shakespearean sonnet that he went on to obviously define and bears his name and the Petrarchan sonnet that kind of goes further back and dates back to Italy a few hundred years before. And I [00:08:00] think what's really interesting about this poem is it takes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet and not a Shakespearean sonnet.

And again, the reason I think that's really interesting and it alludes to something we discussed in that episode is that Shakespeare's sonnets are not straightforward in their affections. There is competing love, there is competing jealousy, et cetera, et cetera. Petrarch sonnet sequences are far more resolute.

They are affectionate poems written for one individual Laura. And I can't help, but think that. Barrett Browning's decision to kind of base it on Petrarch's sonnets, not on Shakespeare's, speak to that sense of, this is a poem written for one person. And actually, Robert Browning, her husband, was the one who insisted that she publish these poems.

I mean, these weren't initially written with the public in mind. So, I know, Maiya, you and I spoke before the episode about the significance of the correspondence between Elizabeth and Robert prior to their marriage, and I wonder whether we can view this poem as kind of a continuation of those letters.

What do you think?

Maiya: Well, just to frame it for listeners who don't know, theirs is one [00:09:00] of the most beautiful love stories, I think, and especially as someone who enjoys poetry, enjoys those sort of romantic sentiments. The way in which they met was actually Robert Browning writing a letter to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, complimenting her work, complimenting her poetry, saying he loved it.

I think, what was the quote, Joe, that you had earlier?

Joe: So, Robert wrote in a letter before he'd actually met Elizabeth to say, I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett.

Maiya: I mean, that's just stunning, isn't it? But they continue to converse through these letters, eventually married, and I really am under the impression with this, in the sense that you say, this Petrarchan sonnet is so straightforward and so forthright, that I wouldn't be surprised if this was originally fleshed out in a letter between the two of them, for all we know, she may well have sent this as a love letter, and then taken the important parts and distilled it down into a poem, because there is so much power in this, and I wonder whether that came from multiple revisions as you said earlier, or if it came [00:10:00] from just an outpouring of , genuine truth.

Joe: Well, it fits the bill for every love poem, doesn't it? I mean, the reason we go to love songs and love poems or even songs that express other emotions we look for people who can articulate a feeling that we have, but can't find the words for and the rhetorical question helps achieve this is it creates a sense that Barrett Browning had the words immediately. And look, you know, Maiya and I are literary nerds. You know, we want to know the story behind the story.

Listeners, regular listeners will know by now that I love a deep dive and learning more about that relationship prior to this poem being published and this poem being written really adds to it for me. I mean, the quote that I read from Robert Browning earlier on, you can see the relationship between their correspondence and the poems sort of played out.

You can almost read that line from him as being lifted from one of her poems. And I think that it might also interest listeners to know that this was a secret relationship, because Elizabeth Browning rightly predicted that her father would not approve of Robert Browning, and actually they were disinherited after they married. I mean, it's a deeply kind of cinematic story. [00:11:00] It's a real Hollywood romance.

There's The outpourings of affection. There's the secrecy. There's the happy ending, which is something that Hollywood doesn't always give us, but I mean, that period they spent in Italy was less fruitful artistically because Elizabeth Browning, as Maiya mentioned earlier on, suffered greatly with health issues throughout her life.

She had spinal issues as a child and actually went on to develop tuberculosis as an adult and had to take opium sort of throughout her life. And we're going to talk a little bit now, I think, about how we think those physical frailties play out in this poem. What kind of relationship does her limitations physically have upon the poem?

And do we find those limitations in the text? I mean, what do you think, Maiya? 

Maiya: Absolutely. I think those second and third lines of this poem really explore what you mentioned earlier, the relationship between the abstract and the physical. Now, these second lines go, I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. Now, reach is the really important word there, because [00:12:00] generally when we talk about a soul, it is abstracted. It is something that is formless, doesn't really have or take up space. But here, Elizabeth Barrett Browning is using the soul and imposing limitations on it.

There is a very evident space she is creating that has depth and breadth and height. Now this is a great space, from what we understand of this poem, but it is still confined. Now, Joe, do you think that came from her own understanding of her physical limitations and How that played in with her relationship with her body and with how she can love.

Joe: I think it's highly likely that it did. And I think it's one of the things about the poem that I didn't really notice on first reading. But I think when I go back to it, it's actually one of the things that, for me, makes the poem So special because we are so used to outpourings of love that seem limitless.

And actually the imposition of limits to me, speak to the authenticity of that emotion. I think that, you know, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, like I said, had [00:13:00] spinal issues, wasn't massively mobile, suffered from chronic pain, simple acts like reaching things on high shelves or going to fetch books from the bookshelf.

These would have been difficult things for her to do. And actually the decision to go and do them anyway speaks to the value of the experience, right? When doing something causes you pain, you have to make sure it's worth doing.

You know, I think it can be difficult for sort of able bodied readers to really understand. Understand the ways in which disability or physical limitations or chronic pain affect your experience of the everyday. And of course, I think those experiences filter through the language you would use when expressing yourself, even abstractly like this.

But what do you think, Mai? 

Maiya: You're absolutely right to say that it is impossibly hard for even an able bodied reader or listener to understand just how extreme this was. I think Imposing those limits in many ways, strengthens the sense of love that we have in this poem, it strengthens the passion, because what Barrett Browning is not saying is I just love you and there's no [00:14:00] problems that I have to contend with, she's saying. I love you, in spite of. I will push through these things. Now, just to land very swiftly on the abstract in this, Yes, she endured physical chronic pain, but there was also the disapproval of her family that she had to contend with.

Her getting married was not easy. She had to do it in secret. Her relationship with Browning was completely impeded by her family's decisions. Now that in itself is a different sort of pain. She had to make a choice. She had to choose between family or Browning, and she chose the latter. Now that isn't an easy decision, so when she discusses depth and breadth and height, there were very physical and very real limitations on how she could love him, which again roots back to this first line, how do I love thee, against all odds, I think is the answer.

Joe: I think that's a fabulous point, Maiya. And just while you were talking. I was trying to think about ways in which. Chronic pain, physical [00:15:00] disability have kind of impacted other forms of literature. You know, one of the things I think you and I really enjoy on this podcast is kind of fleshing out the poems.

Where are the people who wrote these poems? Where did they come from? Who are they? What made them the poets they went on to become? And I think, you know, we talk a lot about geography, about literary movements, about time period, but you know, physical disability and so often are kind of written out of the story of great art.

You know, we don't tend to think about those things as much as I think we should. And I think that the example that came to mind, and it's not one I'd thought of before, is kind of a contrast between Browning and the 20th century, very famous Mexican painter, Frida Kahlo, again, very similarly from about the age of 15, 16, suffered from chronic pain.

And all the things that that entail, you know, having to take painkillers, having to be bed bound for periods of time. And I think that if any listeners haven't seen any of Frida Kahlo's paintings, I'm more than encouraging to go and look at them because they're [00:16:00] stunning kind of mediations on what it means to be limited physically and how the art can kind of function as a way of transcending those physical limitations, even while acknowledging them.

Maiya: For sure, and actually that word transcendent is one that I would really like to pick up on because this poem is a poem about transcending those limits. It's a love poem that takes everything of a person and offers it to someone else.

The latter part of line that I just read is followed by, When feeling out of sight for the ends of being an ideal grace. Again, this is stretching those limits even further. If you position yourself in this poem, and you keep in mind the pain and the limitations, you really do begin to feel stretched within this poem. You begin to understand that love and pain go hand in hand, but one makes the other so much more worth it. And that is what I think Barrett Browning is touching on throughout this because she is consistently pulling back [00:17:00] to her loved one, even when he is, as she says, out of sight, even when she is at the ends of her being.

Joe: Yeah, and I think you struck upon one of the poem's many kind of contrasts there, that contrast between love and pain, and that kind of works really well with the point we were making earlier on about that contrast between abstracted love and kind of the way in which it's funneled through the physical realities of her experience.

And I think you get that a little bit later, just a couple of lines further on when Browning writes, I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need by sun and candlelight. And it's that by sun and candlelight I just want to focus on because again, what we have there is two kind of iterations of light, two sources of light.

One of them, the former, the sun is obviously something that we have come to associate with love, poetry and poetry in general. It's kind of this great source of light and hope and love. And again, ~it's ~Doesn't come from one of his sonnets, but if you think about, again, going back to Shakespeare, it is the East and Juliet is the Sun.

That kind of symbol of love that's constant, that's [00:18:00] powerful, et cetera. The thing I love about this poem is that she immediately clarifies it by saying, and by candlelight. We have, again, that relationship between the grand and the mundane, the simple and the elevated. And she's saying, the circumstances don't really matter.

It doesn't matter whether I'm talking about my love in grand terms or in kind of humble terms. I love you the same. And that consistency, I think is something really, really sort of moving.

Maiya: I do have a question for you as well. And perhaps this is the, the romantic sentiment in me, but, I've always imagined those lines As if the poet is talking about how she writes, too, you know, so much of her relationship with Browning was mediated through letters and through correspondence, that part of me really sits there and imagines that, you know, young girl sitting in a room, writing at her desk by the sun and then by candlelight as well.

It really creates for me quite a strong evocation of that almost tortured writer [00:19:00] but here it's Tortured by feeling, tortured by love, as opposed to being tortured by pain.

Joe: Wow. I mean, I hadn't really considered that, but I think you're definitely onto something there. And I think it really speaks to the tireless need to create the compulsion to write and whether or not that's, her letters to Browning, which again, ~I, ~I Completely agree. I mean, I said earlier on, it's quite a cinematic story.

You can imagine a scene in which she's writing these letters late at night by the light of a candle. But if we go back into her childhood as well, I mean, she was writing from an unbelievably young age.

I mean, Elizabeth Barrett Browning actually started a Homeric epic at the age of 11. 

So, again, this is somebody who from the earliest period of her life had this compulsion to write, this need to create and you're absolutely right that the contrast between the sun and the candle is not only a comment on Maiya's strength of that feeling as I was exploring, but also on the tirelessness of her needs to write.

She wants to write during the day, but she's not satisfied when the sun's gone down.

Maiya: I must admit, I, think it speaks really clearly to their shared interest as well, obviously, they are [00:20:00] both poets, they are both writers, they both understand that need, and it's impossible to read this poem for me without thinking about the recipient, and again, I know I've mentioned it time and time again, but it strengthens that bond, it really cements how they feel towards each other, because there is that mutual understanding there, and ~I think ~I love the idea that regardless of how secret their relationship had to be, they were potentially sat in different rooms at the same time, writing similar love letters to one another, and ~that, ~that quiet need always stands out to me because their love is not loud, it's not allowed to be, it's quiet, it's subdued, but it's theirs, and that sense of ownership comes through really strongly for me.

So whether you are a regular listener or this is your first time listening to our podcast, encourage anyone who wants to learn a little bit more about Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or about the sonnet form, to check out our poem printable PDFs. [00:21:00] Now on these, you can toggle the settings to show you, The rhyme scheme, the meter, it'll explain to you a little bit more about what the sonnet represents and beyond that, if like Joe you're a fan of the deep dive, you can go and check out the extensive PDF learning library. Now you can cover thousands of topics within there, from the founding father of the sonnet form Petrarch, to Shakespeare's versions of sonnets.

You can also look at Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and learn a little bit more about the two of them. ~I. ~Though I am sure Joe and I will touch on Robert Browning in a few episodes time. So go check out the poem, printable PDFs or the PDF learning library@poemanalysis.com.

Joe: Welcome back to this episode of Beyond the Verse, where Maiya and I are discussing Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43. Now, just before the break, Maiya was talking about the importance of the fact that the recipient of this poem is also a poet himself, 

But I just want to touch [00:22:00] on. The significance of the relationship between two artists and how that changes the work of each one. And it doesn't have to necessarily be a romantic relationship. I mean, listeners who enjoyed our episode on Kamala Das introduction will remember that her mother and her great uncle were also writers and that kind of proximity to fellow artistic people can really help as a writer.

You know, Elizabeth and Robert Browning are among the most famous literary couples in history. I guess, you know, other examples might spring to mind. I mean, the Shelleys, Mary and Percy Shelley, I think would be a really interesting counterpoint. But Maiya, I'd love to know your thoughts on this. Do we overvalue sort of literary couples? Is it just something kind of slightly, I don't know, gossipy or tabloidy in us that we want to sort of imbue those things with significance, or do you think it really genuinely matters that those artistic people are in the same room talking about things over breakfast or however it goes?

Maiya: I don't think we overstate the importance of it at all. I mean, there was a recent study done [00:23:00] on modern relationships and how, even if you're not artistic, if you're not a poet, if you're not a writer, couples create their own languages, they use nicknames, they create certain words for things that between the two of them is completely understood, but out of the realms of that would not be.

Now, that's a very simple point, but what it does illustrate is that the connection between two people and the manner in which they interact is so impactful on the other that they create a shared experience. Now, when you're looking at a love poem between two poets, you're looking almost at an echo chamber, I don't doubt for a single second.

That Barrett Browning's work was influenced by Browning, and Browning's work was influenced by hers. Maybe as a slight counterpoint to that, I don't necessarily think we have to look at similarity all the time. I think part of the benefit of being close to other writers offers you something to write against. [00:24:00] or to contrast, or to offer a different point of view to. Now one of the things I love about this poem is that it is beautifully simplistic, it is truly uncomplicated.

By contrast, if you pick up Browning's work, there are poems that he has that are significantly more layered. They are a little bit more complicated thematically. So really, I don't think we can sit there and say that the only influence on this poem was Browning.

However, the relationship between the two of them will have undoubtedly informed the way in which she wrote this, whether it was by contrast or by similarity. And I know that sounds like a bit of a cop out answer, but I'd love to know what you

Joe: I think I'm broadly in agreement. I mean, I have to sort of second guess myself sometimes because as you, you know, I've mentioned earlier on, I do love a deep dive and when you have kind of those relationships between people that you admire and people whose work you enjoy, there is that tendency to kind of over speculate and try to fill in the gaps and you know, whether it's the Brownings, [00:25:00] whether it's the Shelleys, whether it's.

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. And I know, you know, it's only a matter of time, I think, before we do an episode on, on one or both of them, perhaps, or, you know, Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville West. I mean, there are, there are countless examples of couples that I want to sort of dedicate time to. I think the crucial thing is trying to be disciplined in not over speculating.

I think where there are. Lessons to be learned and kind of, insights to be gleaned, like the point we were making earlier on about the way in which this poem is elevated. If you read their letters, which obviously readers at the time in 1850 wouldn't have had access to because they were only published after the Browning's deaths.

But I think those examples can elevate the experience of reading the literature, but I think I would caution myself and all listeners against over speculating 

Maiya: You know, you have to be cautious around generally when you're exploring poetry, because there is a lot of conflicting information out there as well. This is one of the few poems I think it's probably a little safer to say that because you know the answer to this poem, because you know that there was love there, you can understand it in a [00:26:00] slightly more rich sense Because you can read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's work about love, about her husband, and you can see the red thread that carries through them all.

But Joe, one of the things I'd actually quite like to touch on is that this poem was written 1846. just prior to her wedding.

Now, if you think about traditional marriage vows, think about what those are made of. To have and to hold. Very physical. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. Little bit more abstracted. To love and to cherish till death do us part. This poem, to me, follows a roughly similar line.

There is a faith element that is very, very strong in this poem that I'm sure we'll touch on in a minute, Joe. But also it ends with death. I shall but love thee better after death.

A part of me wonders, was this, was this inspired by those traditional marriage vows?[00:27:00] 

Joe: It's a fascinating question. I think actually this goes beyond those marriage vows. It's almost a, an acknowledgement of the fact that those marriage vows don't go far enough. I mean, I've always been slightly perturbed by that notion of till death do us part.

Again, I'm sure that somebody who knows more about this than me would point out that that simply means that when one person dies, they part, but they will be reunited in the afterlife. But I've always been slightly unsettled by that as a way of ending a wedding vow. Whereas this one suggests that that is simply a moment of change rather than any kind of ending that actually the experience of death is something that will only bring these two closer together.

And actually their love will be strengthened after death, I think is a kind of. ~A ~subtle, but quite subversive sort of to the limitations of those traditional vows.

Maiya: I really hadn't thought of it that way, but actually now you've pointed it out. There's a lot more continuity in this poem, you know, you look at a traditional marriage vow and it's from that moment until death. It doesn't look back. It purely looks forward. it speculates [00:28:00] how the relationship will continue, but ~in, ~in Barrett Browning's poem, she touches on the passion put to use in my old griefs and with my childhood's faith.

She looks back too. She says that everything that she is. All of her past, and all of her future, and her present, puts all of her love into this one person. That's a really gorgeous, cyclical idea, ~that,~ that almost offers the speaker some retribution, in a sense. You know, the pain that she has gone through, the old griefs, the things that she's been dealing with for a long time, and the faith in And her childhood faith that things maybe would get better is almost being rewarded here, I find.

Joe: Yeah, I agree. And I think the thing about those lines that really speaks to me is that sense of love as something that elevates rather than something that limits. There's those three anaphoric lines that begin, I love thee, I love thee, I love thee, and the first one uses that word freely.

I love thee freely as men [00:29:00] strive for right. And what we have there is a sense that Love is something that liberates Elizabeth Barrett Brown, which obviously is something that women in the 19th century absolutely could not have taken for granted.

You know, of course, there are many exceptions to this, but if we think about the way in which marriage worked as a contract for women in the 19th century, often it would mean going from the household of your father to the household of your husband, and you are not entirely free in both of those situations.

Whereas this feels like. The pains that she used to experience have been kind of transformed by the experience of falling in love and the fact that rather than viewing Signing a wedding contract as being any kind of imposition on her freedoms It actually serves to emphasize them and I mean, that's what anybody wants in love It makes you feel like you have freedom and choice.

Whereas, you know, in many ways, the act of entering into a marriage and signing a monogamous kind of wedding contract means that you are giving up certain freedoms, but it's about perspective.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning views this experience, this kind of symbolic wedding, which we can [00:30:00] almost view this poem to be this commitment to the other person. She views that solely as something that elevates her, that liberates her rather than anything that keeps her down or oppresses her. 

Maiya: And it's interesting that you touch on the legal aspects of it, because in this poem I find that Legality and faith are quite contrasted against one another in the same sense that we have faith as something abstracted and the marriage contract being something that is legal and physical and a document, right? Let's not forget that in the 19th century, a marriage that wasn't approved was not an easy choice to make. You are ostracized from social life, you are ostracized from your family. It is a monumental decision. But here, Barrett Browning uses faith as something to further liberate her, despite the hardship that accompanies that decision, she, puts faith in God. She puts faith that God will understand that their love transcends those boundaries, [00:31:00] and in doing so, God will allow her to love him even after death. You know, what faith does in so many ways is allow someone to have hope outside of their circumstances. And although Barrett Browning evidently is putting a lot of personal faith into her relationship and its endurance, she is also asking something of God.

She is asking something of a higher power to grant her that love to continue even after death. As you said, Joe, those traditional vows. Really end at death. You are looking at purely the physical plane. But for Barrett Browning to ask to continue that even further, in the closing line of this, I think is so, so beautiful.

Joe: Yeah. 100%. And I think that notion of love as something that provides and reaffirms is another thing that we get in these sort of closing three or four lines. That line in particular that I want to look at is. I love thee [00:32:00] with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. There is a sense here that despite going against her father, despite being ostracized from her family, despite having to leave the country and give up all of those relationships inherent within, you know, living in a certain place, this is something that has given her more than it has taken away.

It's restored her faith in God in many ways. It implies that there were doubts. It implies that she has kind of moved away from God. And the act of falling in love with Robert is something that reaffirms everything. And I think that's a, you know, a beautiful way. It doesn't have to be faith in a particular religion, but it's a lovely way of looking at love as something that makes you see things that you had lost faith in.

It restores you. It's something invigorating rather than anything that demands things from you.

I know Maiya, you wanted to talk about this poem in relation with another of Barrett Browning's sonnets. So take it away.

Maiya: for sure, the poem that I would actually really like to touch on is Sonnet 28, more often known, My Letters! all dead [00:33:00] paper, Mute and White. Now, we've talked a lot in this episode about how important correspondence was, how Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning communicated through the letter form. This sonnet takes a slightly different spin as opposed to Sonnet 43's more delicate and refined vocality. This is actually a sonnet that has a little bit more feeling and is arguably a little bit more jazzed up. It opens with the following lines. My Letters! all dead paper, mute and white, and yet they seem alive and quivering against my tremulous hands which loose the string and let them drop onto my knee tonight.

Now, I really love this sonnet, think it's a fantastic exploration of anxiety and nerves in conjunction with passion and love. And what I really appreciate is how it can be framed against Sonnet 43.

Sonnet 43, as we've said throughout this episode, is the best. Stunning, and beautiful, and sweet, and genuine. [00:34:00] There is a reason that this poem is quoted and re quoted at weddings, for example.

It is so well constructed that there really isn't much room for error. sonnet 28, by contrast, is about the error. It's about the nervous feeling. It's about writing that letter and not knowing how it's going to be received. One of the things I mentioned earlier is that what makes Sonnet 43 so great is that you know how it was received.

It makes it stronger because it was received well. I find that Sonnet 28 actually speaks more to me as a poem because It has a little bit more tension between the writer, between the speaker, and who they are writing to. And it's about the act of writing as well, it's about the letters.

One of the things I really love about Elizabeth Barrett Browning is that you have both sides of this. And I don't want to just sit here and explore What is an objectively great poem and say, you know, she was so delicate because she had this other side that was also excitable and fresh and a voice that really is a [00:35:00] once in a generation talent.

But Joe, what do you think about the contrast between those two poems and how do you think it situates one against the other? Well, I think it serves as a demonstration of her range as a poet. I think you're absolutely right to talk about a once in a generation talent. And, you know, maybe we'll talk about this just before the episode's conclusion about kind of How out of time in many ways, she feels looking back, she feels so strikingly modern in some respects.

Joe: I mean, she wrote poems about grief, about love, about the abolition of slavery. Some of her most impressive works are arguing for the abolition of slavery. She wrote the novel in verse, Aurora Lee in 1854. I mean, she really has two or three different poetic careers. In one. I mean, she's a phenomenal, phenomenal poet and I would implore listeners to go and seek out more of her work on the website and whether it's the poem that Maiya mentioned or others, there is something in there for everybody.

And I think just before we conclude the episode, I'd like to just sort of take a wider view of Barrett Browning's career and where she sits in the history of [00:36:00] literature, because it really is kind of a sliding doors moment, not only for her as an individual, but for female poets.

I mean, the year this collection Sonnets from the Portuguese was published, 1850, was the same year that William Wordsworth died. William Wordsworth, at the time, was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Now, Barrett Browning was widely considered to be a contender to replace him, and she would have been the first woman to hold that position.

Ultimately, that role went to Alfred Lord Tennyson, who went on to hold it for over 40 years. And ~so ~at the time the position was given for life, nowadays there are fixed terms, but I think what's really interesting is that 1850, when she could in theory have got that position was before women were allowed to study at universities in the UK.

It was decades before women got the right to vote. This would have been. Such a leap forwards for women's rights, for women's visibility in the arts, for all kinds of things. It wasn't until 2009 when Carol Ann Duffy was named Poet Laureate that there was a [00:37:00] female Poet Laureate in the United Kingdom.

So 159 years later, that's how long it took to get the female Poet Laureate that in many ways we should have had. I mean, it's no disrespect to Tennyson. Tennyson was more than a worthy Poet Laureate, as was Wordsworth before him. But that for me, feels like a real sliding doors moment, especially given the way in which her reputation has continued to rise. 

She is rightly viewed as one of the UK's finest poets of the 19th century. And I just, I think it's a real shame that we didn't get that moment as early as we could have done.

Maiya: I couldn't agree more. I think we were robbed a little bit of her fantastic voice and, you know, looking back how fresh and how modern she feels in so many ways it can be a little bit terrifying for new readers, for new listeners, to jump into a poem that seems As if it might be difficult, you know, looking at the 1850s, or even earlier, they are using [00:38:00] unfamiliar language, they're using terminology that you may not understand, but think Barrett Browning is a fantastic place to start, she is so incredibly accessible, even now, And you know, the sonnets are a great place to start.

They're short, they're expertly communicated. And I would love to see Barrett Browning's poetry go through a resurgence. I'd love to see it become more popular again, because it is so good. And that might just be my biased opinion, but I think it is brilliant. And I must admit. When you look back at a time like that, and as you say, it being so removed from some basic rights that women still didn't have, that is just a testament to how much of a rebel, how much she stood her ground on things, how impressive she was just as a person. So, not solely for her poetry, but for her legacy.

I think she is someone that should be talked about for years and years to come.

Joe: Wow. I [00:39:00] love that episode, Maiya. And it was brilliant to discuss a poet that I think we both have so much affection for, and I hope our listeners enjoyed it. And remember that if you have questions you'd like to ask, if you have suggestions for future episodes, or if you just want to share a reflection from any of our episodes, you can email us at beyondtheverse@poemanalysis.com. We love hearing your comments and we're really enjoying how much you're all engaging with the podcast.

Now, next week we are going to be sticking with the 19th century and with one of the people we've mentioned in this episode, because we're going to be discussing William Wordsworth's famous poem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. And I for one, can't wait for that conversation with Maiya. Now, in the meantime, if you can't wait for that episode, you can check out our ever growing back catalogue of episodes and make sure to remember to rate and review Beyond the Verse wherever you get your podcasts.

But for now, it's goodbye for me. ~It~

Maiya: And goodbye from me and the team at Poemanalysis. com. See you next time.