Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
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.
644:
# 21:
Summarize the message of this poem.
Explain the significance of the cuckoo.
# 22:
Summarize the argument of this poem.
Explain the image of the two souls.
644-45:
# 32:
Summarize the message of this poem.
Explain the image of the worn viol.
645:
# 43:
Explain the question in the first line.
Explain the final two lines.
Other Discussion Questions:
639:
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?
644:
#21:
Explain what the speaker wants her beloved to do in the
final line.
#22:
Why is Earth a better place than Heaven for their souls?
644-45:
#32:
Explain the final four lines.
"The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's
Point" (1848)
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."
Discussion Questions:
645:
What is
Pilgrim's Point? Why has the speaker come there?
646:
Explain stanza IV.
Explain stanza VI.
647:
Why does the speaker sing her
lover's name the way she does (78-83)?
Explain
the image of God sitting behind the sun (89).
