sonnet 29

“I think of thee! - my thoughts do twine and bud”

• extended metaphor - he is a tree and her thoughts about him are a vine

• exclamation mark how’s depth of her feelings, and may also appear defensive - perhaps as a response to an accusative letter

• By directly addressing the poem at her lover, it is being set up as a personal poem initially, making it a more intimate love poem

• “I think of thee!”→ immediately draws the readers attention to her lover, and the fact that she is addressing him personally makes it seem much more personal.

“About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,”

• Her growing thoughts are beginning to feed off of him and become detrimental

• “Tree” and “thee” sets up an internal rhyme which makes the relationship appear more harmonious - emphasises her lover’s character as a tree

• Natural imagery of the growing vines reflects the constant growth and development of her feelings for her lover, as well as their intense and invasive nature

Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,”
“Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,”

• Auditory imagery ‘rustle thy boughs’ has natural connotations, implying inevitability of their love for each other

• The alliteration between the starts of both lines draws attention to the imperatives, which emphasises the narrator’s desperation for her lover to act.

• ‘set thy trunk all bare’ - it displays the narrator’s desire to be with her love, however, it has a second meaning as an innuendo, where she wants to see his shaft in the more literal way, which would have been considered extremely bold in the Victorian era in which this was written, since women were expected to be more mature, and not talk about sex.

“burst, shattered, everywhere!”

• Use of triadic structure marks a turning point in the poem

• ‘heavily’ - by mentioning weight she emphasises how much she thinks about him, and that the thoughts are a heavy burden.

• ‘burst shattered everywhere’ - By using three different words to describe the way her lover’s presence replaces her thoughts the poet emphasises the narrator’s excitement and demonstrates her intense longing, the caesura contributes to further the dramatic effect.

“I do not think of thee - I am too near thee.”

• She eventually breaks free of her obsessive thoughts and they are able to love each other

• The reversal of the first line emphasises the difference between simply thinking about her lover and actually being with him.

• ‘I am too near thee’ -
  → It demonstrates that she no longer has to think about him when she’s with him since he is better than anything she could ever imagine.

• Rhyming ‘thee’ with itself three times at the end of the poem - poet rhymes lover with himself, clearly demonstrating her obsession with him

form

• The poem is written as a Petrarchan sonnet, an octave followed by a sestet.

• The first 8 lines are meant to provide a problem and the next six to solve it.

• The poet instead comes to the solution at lin 7, having it come early reflects the narrator’s impatience to be with her lover.

perspective

• It is commonly assumed that Barrett Browning herself is the speaker of the poem.

• By being in the first person, the poem is made more personal. As only the speaker’s voice is heard, her obsessive nature is highlighted.

• Although it is a sonnet and directed at the speaker’s lover, the intimate personal nature of the poem gives the impression of it being written for herself rather than for him to read.

meter

• Though, by writing in a traditional format such a sonnet in iambic pentameter, she is suggesting the traditional nature of her love.

• At times she breaks from the constraints of iambic pentameter in the line “put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see”.

• This highlights the unconventionality of their love as well as implying that the love she feels is so intense that she must express it in any way rather than worrying about rigid guidelines.

• The pronouns “thee” and “thy” are repeated frequently throughout in order to reinforce the fact that the poem is directed to somebody

• Traditionally, the first stanza presents the speaker’s problem which in Sonnet 29 is Barrett Browning’s overwhelmingly intense feelings of love towards Robert.

• The poem then ends with a solution which here is her moving from thinking about him to being with him.

• Barrett Browning’s non conformist attitude is shown in her choice of form as originally the sonnet was intended to be written by a man to a woman

what is the rhyme scheme

• ABBCCBBCDBDBDB = Italian style of sonnet writing rather than English so shows the slight unconventionality of her affections.

• At her time of writing the English, Shakespearean style sonnet was more popular however, these generally focussed on physical affection whilst Petrarchan sonnets = prospective love from a distance.

language about natural imagery

• The active verbs “twine” and “bud” have wild connotations which allude to the untameable nature of the speaker’s love.

• By referring to the speaker’s lover as “palm-tree” and a “strong tree” Barrett Browning characterises him as stable and dependable.

• The parasitic connotations of a vine imply that her loving thoughts may have a negative impact on Browning; her love can topple even the strongest of trees.

• Flower imagery is also commonly used to symbolise female sexuality.

• flowers = beautified female appearance, yet in modern literature has been subverted to symbolise female empowerment through sexuality.

• expression of desire would be unexpected of a Victorian lady hence why this poem was not intended to be published when written. Intense emotions

• The intensity of Barrett Browning’s love is shown by her use of suffocating language.

• All description of her lover is put in the context of herself, showing how she is cannot fathom them existing separately.

themes

• secret love

• desire, longing

• nature

• joy, passion

compare to

• letters from Yorkshire

• love’s philosophy

• porphyria’s lover

• singh song