5 July 2022 – Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Womankind #5

Two Brownings, but “E” before “R”

Today’s post continues to showcase female poets who changed the literary, and in many cases, poetry that rocked not only the world of words, but also the literal world itself. As I noted in previous posts over the past five weeks, my selections for Monday’s poetry posts have been nearly all work by male writers. The percentage of posts by women over the past four years or so is an embarrassing 5.28% – about 11 posts. I’m making amends for that statistic by running a series of “womankind’s” poetry – at least twenty in total. Today’s post is number five in the series.

It is possible that out of your memories of some high school English class you have a dim memory of the poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It’s unlikely, but possible, that you may even remember the title of one of her poems, perhaps one of her numbered poems from Sonnets from the Portuguese (see below). “I don’t remember,” you say. Well then, try this: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Bingo! I’m betting. Like our very best writers – of any genre – phrases that were once fresh and original, have made their way into the vernacular – many are now cliches – used ubiquitously because of their descriptive and rhetorical appeal.

A Sidebar on Elizabeth’s Husband 

Even if you are not a fan of her work, it’s hard not to admire the encouragement that Elizabeth’s husband, Robert (1812–1889) consistently gave her. And high praise it was from this major poet of the Victorian era. He was gifted in social commentary, dramatic monologues, and especially well known for his expertise in the “science” of the language including demanding vocabulary and grammar and syntax “play.” His propensity for dark humor lent a gloomy tone to some of his work. Early on, he worked diligently to improve his – some say intentionally – obscure style. Transforming this style took him over ten years. In the end, his efforts made him a prominent poet based on such work as his epic poem, The Ring and the Book.

Please forgive the above digression into Robert Browning’s life and work; however, the love these two shared as well as their poetic vocations make it nearly impossible to discuss one party without the other. In any case, back to Elizabeth and a sample of her poems.

ELIZABETH’S POEMS

Sonnets from the Portuguese, written 1845–1846 and published first in 1850, is a collection of 44 love sonnets. The collection was acclaimed and popular during the poet's lifetime and it remains so.

Elizabeth was initially hesitant to publish the poems, believing they were too personal. However, Robert encouraged her and appraised the collection as the best integrated work of English-language sonnets since Shakespeare’s time and urged her to publish them. To offer the couple some privacy, she decided to publish them as if they were translations of foreign sonnets. She initially planned to title the collection "Sonnets translated from the Bosnian," but Robert proposed that she claim their source was Portuguese, probably because of her admiration for Luis Camoes, and Robert's nickname for her: "my little Portuguese". The most famous sonnets from this collection are numbers 33 and 43.

Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Grief

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;

That only men incredulous of despair,

Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air

Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access

Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,

In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare

Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare

Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express

Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—

Most like a monumental statue set

In everlasting watch and moveless woe

Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.

Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:

If it could weep, it could arise and go.

To Flush, My Dog

LOVING friend, the gift of one,

Who, her own true faith, hath run,

Through thy lower nature;

Be my benediction said

With my hand upon thy head,

Gentle fellow-creature!

Like a lady's ringlets brown,

Flow thy silken ears adown

Either side demurely,

Of thy silver-suited breast

Shining out from all the rest

Of thy body purely.

Darkly brown thy body is,

Till the sunshine, striking this,

Alchemize its dulness, —

When the sleek curls manifold

Flash all over into gold,

With a burnished fulness.

Underneath my stroking hand,

Startled eyes of hazel bland

Kindling, growing larger, —

Up thou leapest with a spring,

Full of prank and curvetting,

Leaping like a charger.

Leap! thy broad tail waves a light ;

Leap! thy slender feet are bright,

Canopied in fringes.

Leap — those tasseled ears of thine

Flicker strangely, fair and fine,

Down their golden inches

Yet, my pretty sportive friend,

Little is 't to such an end

That I praise thy rareness!

Other dogs may be thy peers

Haply in these drooping ears,

And this glossy fairness.

But of thee it shall be said,

This dog watched beside a bed

Day and night unweary, —

Watched within a curtained room,

Where no sunbeam brake the gloom

Round the sick and dreary.

Roses, gathered for a vase,

In that chamber died apace,

Beam and breeze resigning —

This dog only, waited on,

Knowing that when light is gone,

Love remains for shining.

Other dogs in thymy dew

Tracked the hares and followed through

Sunny moor or meadow —

This dog only, crept and crept

Next a languid cheek that slept,

Sharing in the shadow.

Other dogs of loyal cheer

Bounded at the whistle clear,

Up the woodside hieing —

This dog only, watched in reach

Of a faintly uttered speech,

Or a louder sighing.

And if one or two quick tears

Dropped upon his glossy ears,

Or a sigh came double, —

Up he sprang in eager haste,

Fawning, fondling, breathing fast,

In a tender trouble.

And this dog was satisfied,

If a pale thin hand would glide,

Down his dewlaps sloping, —

Which he pushed his nose within,

After, — platforming his chin

On the palm left open.

This dog, if a friendly voice

Call him now to blyther choice

Than such chamber-keeping,

Come out ! ' praying from the door, —

Presseth backward as before,

Up against me leaping.

Therefore to this dog will I,

Tenderly not scornfully,

Render praise and favour !

With my hand upon his head,

Is my benediction said

Therefore, and for ever.

And because he loves me so,

Better than his kind will do

Often, man or woman,

Give I back more love again

Than dogs often take of men, —

Leaning from my Human.

Blessings on thee, dog of mine,

Pretty collars make thee fine,

Sugared milk make fat thee !

Pleasures wag on in thy tail —

Hands of gentle motion fail

Nevermore, to pat thee !

Downy pillow take thy head,

Silken coverlid bestead,

Sunshine help thy sleeping !

No fly 's buzzing wake thee up —

No man break thy purple cup,

Set for drinking deep in.

Whiskered cats arointed flee —

Sturdy stoppers keep from thee

Cologne distillations ;

Nuts lie in thy path for stones,

And thy feast-day macaroons

Turn to daily rations !

Mock I thee, in wishing weal ? —

Tears are in my eyes to feel

Thou art made so straightly,

Blessing needs must straighten too, —

Little canst thou joy or do,

Thou who lovest greatly.

Yet be blessed to the height

Of all good and all delight

Pervious to thy nature, —

Only loved beyond that line,

With a love that answers thine,

Loving fellow-creature!

A Man's Requirements

I

Love me Sweet, with all thou art,

   Feeling, thinking, seeing;

Love me in the lightest part,

   Love me in full being.

II

Love me with thine open youth

   In its frank surrender;

With the vowing of thy mouth,

   With its silence tender.

III

Love me with thine azure eyes,

   Made for earnest granting;

Taking colour from the skies,

   Can Heaven’s truth be wanting?

IV

Love me with their lids, that fall

   Snow-like at first meeting;

Love me with thine heart, that all

   Neighbours then see beating.

V

Love me with thine hand stretched out

   Freely—open-minded:

Love me with thy loitering foot,—

   Hearing one behind it.

VI

Love me with thy voice, that turns

   Sudden faint above me;

Love me with thy blush that burns

   When I murmur Love me!

VII

Love me with thy thinking soul,

   Break it to love-sighing;

Love me with thy thoughts that roll

   On through living—dying.

VIII

Love me when in thy gorgeous airs,

   When the world has crowned thee;

Love me, kneeling at thy prayers,

   With the angels round thee.

IX

Love me pure, as musers do,

   Up the woodlands shady:

Love me gaily, fast and true

   As a winsome lady.

X

Through all hopes that keep us brave,

   Farther off or nigher,

Love me for the house and grave,

   And for something higher.

XI

Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear,

   Woman’s love no fable.

I will love thee—half a year—

   As a man is able.

Background

A Sidebar on the Browning’s’ marriage

Defying her tyrannical father and in spite of poor health due to lung disease, Elizabeth Barrett eloped and married poet-playwright Robert Browning in 1846 after a secret courtship. On September 12, 1846, they were secretly married at Marylebone Church. Elizabeth's father wasn't told, and she continued to live at the family home for a week after the wedding. Then, Elizabeth and Robert moved to Pisa, Italy to begin their life together. They spent the next 15 years in Italy until her death in 1861. Their marriage is one of the great romantic true stories of the 19th century, in which a dashing 34-year-old poet wooed an ailing poet of 40.

Back to Elizabeth – 1806 - 1861

Born in County Durham in far northern England, just one county away from Scotland, she was the eldest of 12 children. Elizabeth Barrett wrote poetry from the age of eleven. Her mother's collection of her poems forms one of the largest extant collections of juvenilia by any English writer. At 15, she became ill, suffering intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life. Later in life, she also developed lung problems, possibly tuberculosis. She took laudanum, a tincture of opium used as an analgesic in the 19th century, for the pain from an early age, which is likely to have contributed to her frail health.

She campaigned for the abolition of slavery, and her work helped influence reform in the child labor legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate of England on the death of Wordsworth.

Arguably one of the most highly regarded poets of the nineteenth century, Browning’s literary reputation eclipsed her husband’s. With a wide following in both England and the U.S., her work inspired even the iconic Emily Dickinson; Dickinson even had a photo of Browning framed in her room. Poet Edgar Allan Poe also borrowed the meter from her poem Lady Geraldine’s Courtship for his poem "The Raven". 

Elizabeth’s last words were, “It is beautiful!”

Exploration 1: Are you able to identify other phrases, from E.B. Browning that have become cliches? 

Exploration 2: Here is a short excerpt from “To Flush, My Dog.”

And because he loves me so,

Better than his kind will do

Often, man or woman,

Give I back more love again

Than dogs often take of men, —

Leaning from my Human.

a. Is it appropriate for Elizabeth to write a love poem to her dog? Would you do the same for your   favorite animal? 

b. What comparison/contrast is Elizabeth making in this excerpt?

c. How does death enter into the poem at large?

Exploration 3: If you know, or care to research the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, decide whether Elizabeth Barrett Browning should have been England’s poet laureate rather than Tennyson. Did her gender have anything to do with Tennyson being chosen, or was it more about the popularity of lawn tennis in this period of English history? (See list of England’s poet laureates.)