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Compare And Contrast Mee And Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1397 Words6 Pages

Dearest Mae, I have returned from Gatsby’s lavish party in West Egg, and am glad to be back where I belong, in the East. Over these sweltering hot summer days I have kept indoors and came across some beautiful sonnets titled, ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, and thought you might find them interesting. I did some research on the Victorian era and found that, surprisingly it is not so different to our own society, the themes Barrett-Browning writes about seem to mirror many of our current troubles, and the values encapsulate many of the ones we hold most sacred today, although some differ and it has given me a great insight into Victorian life, including, an idealism and realism of love, gender society and isolation, and death and religion. The sonnets trace Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s raw …show more content…

She openly confesses her love for Robert Browning in Sonnet XLIII pondering “How do I love thee?” Before continuing to launch into an overwhelming exegesis of the bounds of her love for him and finally concludes “If God choose, I shall but love thee better after death” demonstrating the strong belief in religion during the Victorian era as opposed to the worship of material possession we see in society today. She believes that God’s power over the body and soul of a person in death is the only thing that is stronger than the love she exudes for Robert, but she still hopes that her love will only grow in the afterlife as she believes true love lasts forever and never changes in sonnet XIV “Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity” the repetition of love highlights the significance of love to Barrett-Browning and refers the timelessness of love in which she believes, a life after death, she uses this to demonstrate her devotion to love and her belief in faith, which was key to the Victorian

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