Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Discussion Questions:
General:

• Explain the inspiration behind the composition of these poems.
• Which sonnet form does Browning employ?  Why is this form particularly appropriate or inappropriate?  Explain.

• Summarize the message of this poem.
• Explain the significance of the cuckoo.

• Summarize the argument of this poem.
• Explain the image of the two souls.

• Summarize the message of this poem.
• Explain the image of the worn viol.

• Explain the question in the first line.
• Explain the final two lines.

• According to the editors, what characterizes Barrett Browning's poetry?

• How did Barrett Browning's views on poetry differ from Arnold's and Tennyson's?

• Explain what the speaker wants her beloved to do in the final line.

• Why is the Earth a better place than Heaven for their souls?

• Explain the final four lines.

• Published in The Liberty Bell, an American abolitionist gift book.
• Barrett Browning had sent "The Runaway Slave" to America by February 8, 1847, on which date she wrote to Mary Russell Mitford, : "just finished my rough sketch of an antislavery ballad & sent it off to America, where nobody will print it, I am certain, because I could not help making it bitter. If they do print it, I shall think them more boldly in earnest, than I fancy now."

• What is Pilgrim's Point? Why has the speaker come there?
• Explain stanza IV.
• Explain stanza VI.

• Why does the speaker sing her lover's name the way she does (78-83)?

585:

• Explain the image of God sitting behind the sun (89).
• Explain what happens in stanzas XIV and XV.

• What does the speaker do with her child? Why?

• Explain stanza XXVIII.

588:

• Explain stanza XXXII.

• Explain stanza XXXV.