The study of intertextual perspectives reveals differing explorations into the human heart reflective of each text’s context. To what extent are these insights further enhanced by the distinctive nature of their textual form? Despite their differences in context and form, Elizabeth Barret Browning’s (EBB) exploration of the human heart through the ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ (SFTP) is strikingly similar to that of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (TGG). This similarity is not only indicative of the consistency of the human heart, but also highlights how different perspectives on love can lead to different conclusions in relationships. On one hand, F. Scott Fitzgerald explores idealised love through corruption and materialism in post-World …show more content…
The beginning of the sonnets hints towards her uncertainty towards the relationship due to her corrupt and unsettled past, from illness and injury to the death of family members. It could even be said that EBB was afraid to love due to her comparison of love to death in Sonnet I: “Not death, but love.” The use of a sonnet would have certainly been revolutionary for women in the late 1800s, where extravagant declarations of love were usually exclaimed by the male figure in the relationship. Sonnets were barely a source of medium for female poets, and obviously EBB felt the need to exclaim her love in this form. The beginning of Barret-Browning’s love toward Robert Browning is not indicative of the corruption and values of revolutionary pre-world war one, where EBB takes advantage of the notion that women should be quiet: “and wilt thou have me fashion into speech the love I bear thee” (sonnet XIII), and then goes on to reject the stereotype all together, repeating the word “Too” in sonnet XXI, fashioning this poem to exclaim that her love is too much: “Too many stars… Too many flowers”. This is the sonnet where the audience first sees EBB’s acceptance of Robert Browning’s love, and the rejection of the Victorian Era’s