Sonnets from the Portuguese

plays a significant role in portraying values of the composer triggered by time and place. ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ (1845) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a reflection of her personal experiences in the context of the Victorian era’s gender issues and female expectation in a Petrarchan form. Similarly F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ (1926) centres of the failure and tragedy of the American dream in the Roaring 20's. Both texts explore the positive and negative effects of idealised love and time through numerous literary techniques. Even though the text share similar themes their interpretation completely differ influenced by diverse historical context and human values. In the context of Great Gatsby, the value of time…

Reflected within a text are the changing perspectives of its time, which ultimately shapes form, expression and meaning. A comparison of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet sequence ‘Sonnets From The Portuguese (1845)’ and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby (1925)’ substantiates the influence of context on textual meaning through their exploration of similar ideas such as Romantic love and female identity. Whilst EBB’s sonnets encompass elements of her suffocating, conservative…

Gatsby” and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnets from the Portuguese” it is apparent that an idealistic love is only achievable once societies values are questioned. Gatsby is the victim of the values of his post World War I society. He aspires to achieve an unattainable dream, which is founded on flawed values. Similarly, to those of…

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote sonnet 43 in a series of sonnets titled Sonnets from the Portuguese. Although the individuals in the poem ‒ the narrator and the lover ‒ are ambiguous, there is a strong correlation between Barrett Browning's love life and the complex love of the sonnet. Even though there can be an argument made that sonnet 43 is not Barrett Browning’s husband, I will be using the assumption that Barrett Browning is the narrator and her husband is the lover. The theme that…

Through the comparison of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) and F Scott Fitzgerald’s modernist novella The Great Gatsby (1926) it becomes evident that the presentation of universal themes is intrinsically linked to the composer’s context, purpose and audience. Whilst both texts convey love’s ability to impact on one’s identity and present notions of a woman in love, as a result of their starkly contrasting contexts, purposes and audiences; Browning’s…

This is reflected in Sonnet XIV, where Browning discusses the characteristics of true love and how to achieve eternal romance. This is also shown in the poem of Meeting At Night where the poet describes his journey to his secret lover, including all of the areas he would travel through to reach her. He also describes the many areas as being beautiful and breathtaking, but overall indicates that the one thing that makes his journey worthwhile is who is waiting for him at the end. In Robert’s…

When the author said “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach”, they were using metaphors to show how big their love was for their partner because their love was described physically, so the reader can comprehend the author's love. An example of hyperbole in the poem was when the author said: “I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life”. The author describing things related to life means that the author loves their partner with not just all their heart,…

well-known works include Sonnets from the Portuguese, The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point, A Musical Instrument, and many more. The Sonnet from the Portuguese is an example of an Italian Sonnet, also known as the Petrarchan sonnet. An Italian Sonnet is a sonnet that includes an octave, eight lines, usually following the rhyming scheme abbaabba. Next, the Italian sonnet transitions into a sextet, six lines, which usually follows the rhyming scheme cdcdcd. The Italian Sonnet has 14 lines,…

Agnes”by John Keats and “Sonnets from the Portuguese” by Emily Elizabeth Browning have a few differing ideas about love. “The Eve of St. Agnes” by Keats was written in the Romanticism period. In the Romanticism period love was very private. None of the love between Porphyro and Madeline was seen in public. Once the two officially were together they moved away to a mysterious elfin wood. Also in the Romanticism period there was rarely any respect for one’s partner. On at least two occasions…

Since each sonnet did not have a specific name but a number most could not guess what each was going to be about. Each one of the 44 sonnets refers to her relationship with Robert Browning. Examples of how they refer to her relationship are: Sonnets 1 to 9 show the first stages of the relationship, 10 illustrates the changes of love and her personal transformation and 20 to 25 portray the union of two souls. This book was written before Robert and Elizabeth were married, but published…