Final lessons EBB

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

EBB

Poet Laureate - a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special occasions. 

She was considered in 1850! 

The first female poet laureate was chosen in... what do you think? 

She experimented with style and subject - did not stay within conventions

Greatest love sequence since Shakespeare

Not impressed? How far did you get exactly with your latest love letter or love sonnet sequence? ;-)

What struck you (most) when you analysed your sonnet?

Feedback

• Discussion of meaning and effect is very important
• Rather brief at times 
• Some really elaborate analyses, good!
• Do not treat it as if it is self-explanatory, everything needs to be addressed in an analysis
• Do not underestimate the importance of vocabulary
• Even if the letter was meant for Robert Browning and he was the reader, you are expected to (actually) comment on the effect on the universal reader! - same as the novels we have discussed - you always work with the universal reader.

What has the (universal) reader, YOU,
to do with this?

Plan

Each pair summarises the message of the sonnet - or what the sonnet is about. 

Why? You have already practised analysis, now I want  you to have a better understanding of the whole BOW and her (changing) attitude towards her budding relationship. 

Do the following:

• Take notes
• Be prepared to comment on your sonnet
• Ask questions, whenever you have them!
• Pay attention to the first line - it often indicates her atittude in the particular sonnet 
• Pay attention to the short summary of the sonnet and the imagery you notice 

Sonnet 1 - class

1. I thought once how Theocritus had sung
2. Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
3. Who each one in a gracious hand appears
4. To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
5. And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
6. I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
7. The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
8. Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
9. A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,
10. So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
11. Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
12. And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—
13. “Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death,” I said, But, there,
14. The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”

Sonnet 3 - Tibor/Morris

1. Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
2. Unlike our uses and our destinies.
3. Our ministering two angels look surprise
4. On one another, as they strike athwart
5. Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
6. A guest for queens to social pageantries,
7. With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
8. Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
9. Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
10. With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
11. A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
12. The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
13. The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—
14. And Death must dig the level where these agree.

Sonnet 6 - Sara/Tim

1. Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
2. Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
3. Alone upon the threshold of my door
4. Of individual life, I shall command
5. The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
6. Serenely in the sunshine as before,
7. Without the sense of that which I forbore—
8. Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
9. Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
10. With pulses that beat double. What I do
11. And what I dream include thee, as the wine
12. Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
13. God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
14. And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

Sonnet 14 - class

1. If thou must love me, let it be for nought
2. Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
3. “I love her for her smile—her look—her way
4. Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
5. That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
6. A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—
7. For these things in themselves, Belovëd, may
8. Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
9. May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
10. Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
11. A creature might forget to weep, who bore
12. Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
13. But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
14. Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

Sonnet 22 - Julia/Babette

1. When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
2. Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
3. Until the lengthening wings break into fire
4. At either curvëd point,—what bitter wrong
5. Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
6. Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,
7. The angels would press on us and aspire
8. To drop some golden orb of perfect song
9. Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
10. Rather on earth, Belovëd,—where the unfit
11. Contrarious moods of men recoil away
12. And isolate pure spirits, and permit
13. A place to stand and love in for a day,
14. With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

Sonnet 23 - Stijn/Wessel

1. Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
2. Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
3. And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
4. Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
5. I marvelled, my Belovëd, when I read
6. Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine—
7. But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine
8. While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead
9. Of dreams of death, resumes life’s lower range.
10. Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me!
11. As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
12. For love, to give up acres and degree,
13. I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
14. My near sweet view of heaven, for earth with thee!

Sonnet 26 - Siebren/Duncan

1. I lived with visions for my company
2. Instead of men and women, years ago,
3. And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
4. A sweeter music than they played to me.
5. But soon their trailing purple was not free
6. Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,
7. And I myself grew faint and blind below
8. Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come—to be,
9. Belovëd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
10. Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,
11. As river-water hallowed into fonts)
12. Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
13. My soul with satisfaction of all wants:
14. Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.

Sonnet 27 - Tessa/Krizia

1. My own Beloved, who hast lifted me
2. From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,
3. And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown
4. A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully
5. Shines out again, as all the angels see,
6. Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,
7. Who camest to me when the world was gone,
8. And I who looked for only God, found thee!
9. I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.
10. As one who stands in dewless asphodel,
11. Looks backward on the tedious time he had
12. In the upper life,—so I, with bosom-swell,
13. Make witness, here, between the good and bad,
14. That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.

Sonnet 28 - Widhi/Flore

1. My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
2. And yet they seem alive and quivering
3. Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
4. And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
5. This said,—he wished to have me in his sight
6. Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
7. To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,
8. Yet I wept for it!—this, . . . the paper’s light . . .
9. Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed
10. As if God’s future thundered on my past.
11. This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
12. With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
13. And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed
14. If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

Sonnet 29 - Milan/Quinn/Melih

1. I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud
2. About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
3. Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see
4. Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
5. Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
6. I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
7. Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly
8. Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,
9. Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
10. And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee,
11. Drop heavily down,—burst, shattered everywhere!
12. Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
13. And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
14. I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.

Sonnet 32 - Roos/Elin/Tom

1. The first time that the sun rose on thine oath
2. To love me, I looked forward to the moon
3. To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon
4. And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.
5. Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;
6. And, looking on myself, I seemed not one
7. For such man’s love!—more like an out-of-tune
8. Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth
9. To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,
10. Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.
11. I did not wrong myself so, but I placed
12. A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float
13. ’Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,—
14. And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.

Sonnet 33 - not done

1. Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
2. The name I used to run at, when a child,
3. From innocent play, and leave the cowslips plied,
4. To glance up in some face that proved me dear
5. With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear
6. Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled
7. Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled,
8. Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,
9. While I call God—call God!—so let thy mouth
10. Be heir to those who are now exanimate.
11. Gather the north flowers to complete the south,
12. And catch the early love up in the late.
13. Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,
14. With the same heart, will answer and not wait.

Sonnet 38 - Roos/Elin/Tom

1. First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
2. The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
3. And ever since, it grew more clean and white.
4. Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “O, list,”
5. When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
6. I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
7. Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
8. The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
9. Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!
10. That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown,
11. With sanctifying sweetness, did precede
12. The third upon my lips was folded down
13. In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
14. I have been proud and said, “My love, my own."

Sonnet 42 (!) - not done

1. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
2. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
3. My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
4. For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
5. I love thee to the level of everyday’s
6. Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
7. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
8. I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
9. I love thee with the passion put to use
10. In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
11. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
12. With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
13. Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
14. I shall but love thee better after death.

Sonnet 43 - class

1. Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers
2. Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,
3. And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
4. In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.
5. So, in the like name of that love of ours,
6. Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,
7. And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
8. From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers
9. Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,
10. And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,
11. Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do
12. Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
13. Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
14. And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

EBB

"Life's a game made for everyone and love is the prize." 

Iambic pentameter

Why relevant? 

See clips! 

Questions?

Sonnets from the Portuguese

Either an emblem of romantic love or a testimony of women's sad fate under Victorian patriarchy.

Sonnets used to be a poetic genre governed by masculine principles that preserved the objectification of women as one of its essential parts.

How does she deviate?

Deviations

• Deprecating self-portrayal and stopping her beloved from focussing on her physical appearance, she manifests herself as an active participant in her fate as beloved and muse. 
• She appopriates some of the masculine conventions.

Petrarch - unrequited love

Victorian love sonnet - growth of a relationship into marriage

Victorian aspects

Exchange of letters, locks of hair, clumsy kisses, flowers conveying secret messages of love and devotion

Bouquet of ivy (wedded bliss) - promise of marriage

Middle-class ideal of domesticity 

Icon of female seclusion

What should you take away from this?

• 14 lines or 140 (literary or non-literary) - close reading is key
• 14 lines or 140 (literary or non-literary)- a text hardly ever has just one tone, so don't argue that!
• Poetry only comes alive with rhythm and passion
• Sonnets - short but they tell a complete narrative
• Importance of EBB's life and sonnets
• Read it as a narrative and then focus on the different stylistic aspects that make this narrative come alive
• Formal aspects of EBB's sonnets
• How to approach poetry in general (what you used here can be applied to any text)
• It is a BOW - just fifteen sonnets that tell you about her person and relationship - the ups and downs in their budding relationship - her growth
• Always bring in effect - nobody cares about an example of alliteration that doesn't add anything
• Focus on what you DO know