![]() ![]() By the sonnet's end, the poet appears overly possessive of the youth: "Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain / Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. The image of the poet and the youth exchanging hearts is expressed in highly intimate language: The poet assures the youth that he will keep the youth's heart "As tender nurse her babe from faring ill." Such language assumes an exchange of affection, but it also reveals the problem of an older lover trying to dismiss the age difference between himself and his much younger lover. Last modified on Thu 08.11 EDT Sonnet Six from Sonnets from the Portuguese Go from me. So long as the youth remains young, so will the poet. He declares that the youth's beauty "Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, / Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me." To reconcile himself to his physical decline caused by aging, the poet argues that so long as he holds the youth's affection, he and the youth are one and the same he can defy time and his own mortality because he measures his physical decline by how the young man ages. This wonderful illustrated edition includes 22 additional works as well. Until now, the poet's feelings have soared to the level of rapture in Sonnet 22, he suggests - perhaps deluding himself - that his affections are being returned by the youth. First published in 1850 and considered some of the finest love lyrics in the English language, Sonnets from the Portuguese comprise 44 interlocking poems that Elizabeth Barrett Browning composed for her husband, Robert Browning. Full Glossary for Shakespeare's Sonnets. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |