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Category: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  • Sonnet 2 “But only three in all God’s universe”

    Image: Elizabeth Barrett Browning – NPG, London

    Sonnet 2 “But only three in all God’s universe”

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s second sonnet from Sonnets from the Portuguese reports that her relationship with her life-mate is granted by God, and thus, it cannot be broken or disavowed.  

    Introduction and Text of Sonnet 2  “But only three in all God’s universe”

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet 2 focuses on her growing relationship with her beloved life partner, Robert Browning.  In this sonnet, the poet creates a speaker who insists that the relationship is the destiny of this couple; it is karmically determined, and therefore, nothing in this world could have kept them apart once God had issued the decree for them to come together.

    The speaker’s faith allows her to begin a healing process that had begun with the onset of the relationship that would result in permanent love and affection between the two. Still, she will continue to muse and ruminate on her lot; she will remain cautious until she can become totally enveloped in the notion that she is loved as much as she had longed for and hoped.

    Sonnet 2 “But only three in all God’s universe”

    But only three in all God’s universe
    Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside
    Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
    One of us … that was God, … and laid the curse
    So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce
    My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,
    The deathweights, placed there, would have signified
    Less absolute exclusion. “Nay” is worse
    From God than from all others, O my friend!
    Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
    Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
    Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:
    And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
    We should but vow the faster for the stars.

    Reading 

    Commentary on Sonnet 2  “But only three in all God’s universe”

    In sonnet 2, the speaker reports that her relationship with her life-mate is granted by God, and thus, it cannot be broken or disavowed.  

    First Quatrain:   A Private and Holy Trinity

    But only three in all God’s universe
    Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside
    Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
    One of us … that was God, … and laid the curse

    The speaker avers that in the couple’s relationship, there are only three beings who have been privy to “this word thou hast said.” When her partner first told her that he loved her, she senses that God was speaking His own love for her as well.

    As she excitedly but tenderly took in the meaning of the declaration of love, she realized what her lot might have become without this happy turn of events. She responds rather hesitantly, even awkwardly recalling her physical illnesses that she labels “the curse.”

    Second Quatrain:   The Curse of the Body

    So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce
    My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,
    The deathweights, placed there, would have signified
    Less absolute exclusion. “Nay” is worse

    The speaker’s reference to the “curse” is an exaggeration of the earthly physical body’s many issues with the pain of having to exist in a physical body.   Additionally, it might be helpful for readers to know that the poet did suffer much physical illness during her lifetime. 

    Thus, she can rightly allow her speaker to focus on the inharmonious circumstances that have disrupted but also informed the dramatic issues infusing  her poetics. This  particular “curse” that was put “[s]o darkly on [her] eyelids” might have hampered her ability to see her beloved.  Even if she had died, her separation from him would have been no worse then her inability to see him in this life.

    First Tercet:  God’s No

    From God than from all others, O my friend!
    Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
    Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;

    The speaker then truthfully responds that when God hands down a “no,” it has meaning beyond the kin of the human mind and heart, and regardless of what humanity thinks, what God assigns reigns.

    If God’s answer to a mortal’s most ardent prayer is a resounding no, then that supplicant will suffer more than being turned down by a mere fellow mortal.  The suffering is likely to continue until that deluded soul finally reaches emancipation, thereby understanding all. But by good fortune, God brought this pair together, and thus, nothing any person could do or say could alter that fact that God bestowed this love on this couple.

    The speaker is echoing the marriage vow: “what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”  Thus, the speaker is asserting that the bond that rendered her happiest on this earthly plane of being is the one with her beloved partner and future husband.

    Second Tercet:  Ordained by God

    Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:
    And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
    We should but vow the faster for the stars.

    The speaker then reveals that she has confidence that the union with her beloved is ordained by God.  With such assurance, she knows that even if “mountain-bars” tried to separate them, their “hands would touch.” 

    So completely confident is she that she can declare that even if after death, if heaven tried to disrupt in any way or intrude in their union, the couple’s bond would become even tighter, protecting the love that is blessing them.  Not even the influence of astral movements could begin to intrude upon the God-given bond this couple has gained and nourished.

  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung”

    Image:  Elizabeth Barrett Browning – NPG, London

    Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung”

    The first sonnet in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese features a speaker who is expressing the futility of concentrating on death and the melancholy such musing too often may create.

    Introduction with Text of Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung”

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese unveil a marvelous testimony to the love and respect that the poet fostered for her suitor and future husband Robert Browning. Robert Browning’s stature as a poet rendered him one of the most noted and respected poets of Western culture.  

    Robert Browning’s fame and influence in literary studies has spread over the globe, and his wife’s reputation has also been enhanced by his noteworthiness as well as her own mastercraftmanship as a sonneteer.

    In the dramatic renderings of the sonnet sequence, as the relationship between the poets continues to flower, Elizabeth worries that it might not long endure.  She thus has created a speaker who muses on and voices the insecurities experienced by the poet.

    Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung”

    I thought once how Theocritus had sung
    Of the sweet years, the dear and wished for years,
    Who each one in a gracious hand appears
    To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
    And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
    I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
    The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
    Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
    A shadow across me. Straightway I was ‘ware,
    So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
    Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,
    And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, …
    Guess now who holds thee?’—Death,’ I said. But there,
    The silver answer rang … Not Death, but Love.’

    Reading 

    Commentary on Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung”

    Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung” in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s classic work, Sonnets from the Portuguese, opens as the speaker is musing on the pressure created by melancholy.

    First Quatrain:  The Bucolic Classical Poetry of Theocritus

    I thought once how Theocritus had sung
    Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
    Who each one in a gracious hand appears
    To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:

    The speaker begins the dramatization of her musing by reporting that she has perused the pastoral poetry of the ancient classical poet, Theocritus.  She reveals that that classical Greek poet put into song the nature of the time of life when the young are full of hope and wishes—such desire renders those years sweet.

    The speaker has garnered the notion from the poem’s insightful knowledge that every year bestows on each mortal “a gift”; the elderly and the youthful are both able to accept those magnificent and eternal blessings.

    The speaker’s own melancholy and sadness have prompted her to seek out answers for questions that have troubled her, answers to important issue such as the very purpose of life on this planet.

    The speaker appropriately and with gratitude has been turning to the ancient thinkers because she understand that they have bestowed wisdom and encouragement to each of the succeeding generations.

    Second Quatrain:  Finding Her Own Life in Poetry

    And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
    I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
    The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
    Those of my own life, who by turns had flung 

    After a significant period of time spent in musing on the words of Theocritus, the speaker has come to comprehend the important ideas presented by those words, and their gravity brings tears to her eyes.   It is, thus, through those emotional tears that the speaker seems to be able to view her “own life.”  

    She becomes well aware that her own years have not rendered to her any special  kindness.  Her own years have been filled with pain and sadness.  Those gifts presented by time are not always useful or pleasant ones to the recipient.   But that is how life is.

    Each person’s individual karma remains responsible for the specific events that occur in each life.  One can remain assured that one will always reap what one sows.   But each individual is not required to be happy or even satisfied with the results; thus, one becomes motivated to strive to change former karmic patterns by improving one’s thoughts and behavior.

    Barrett Browning’s ability to understand the original Greek text is critical in her ability to feel the profound emotional impact of those thoughts.   Fraudulent “translators” such a Robert Bly, who was not fluent in the languages of the texts he supposedly translated, could not faithfully render emotion expressed in the original.  

    As poet Stephen Kessler has averred:  “The major problem with [Robert Bly’s] translations (often from languages he didn’t know, by way of other English versions) was that he made every poet, from García Lorca to Mirabai, sound like Robert Bly.” But Barrett Browning was fluent in the languages which she read and studied, and thus she could translate accurately and render in her speaker unique, genuine emotion.

    First Tercet:  Life Beneath a Shadow

    A shadow across me. Straightway I was ‘ware,
    So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
    Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair, 

    The speaker then reveals that her own life has been passed under a “shadow.”  A dark cloud has moved “across [her],” and she has suddenly become cognizant that she is weeping.  

    She feels as if she is being dragged backward by someone or something. Some being seems to be pulling her by the hair into some “mystic Shape.”   Unfortunately, she remains unable to ascertain just what that strange creature is who seems to be tugging at her.

    Second Tercet:  A Correcting Voice

    And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, …
    Guess now who holds thee?’—Death,’ I said. But there,
    The silver answer rang … Not Death, but Love.’

    As she tries to right herself, she then becomes aware of what seems to be a voice—a “voice of mastery.” That strange voice poses a question to her; it asks her to take a guess regarding who “holds [her].”  The speaker then suddenly responds fatalistically, “Death.” However, she is then relieved to hear a surprising retort, correcting her fatalism: “Not Death, but Love.”

    An Inspiring Love Story

    The love story of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning has become and has remained a subject for research and exploration as well as admiration in the literary world, especially in the poetry branch of that world.

    In her Sonnets from the Portuguese, Mrs. Browning crafts and portrays a speaker who dramatizes the poet’s moments of sorrow and melancholy as well as her painful doubt-filled hours.   

    Her speaker becomes elated at times that a man as accomplished and noteworthy as Robert Browning would take note of her and even desire to spend time with her. But then her mood will change, and she will grow doubtful that the relationship could ever blossom into a lasting, true love.

    Readers who explore the sonnets will become pleasantly captivated by her amazing growth from skepticism and doubt to deep awareness and faith that the couple’s love is genuine and sustained by the Divine Belovèd Creator (God).   Uniquely told in sonnets, the Brownings’ courtship leading to their marriage remains a truly inspiring love story.

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