Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Sonnet 29: ‘I think of thee!’ - Elizabeth
Barrett Browning
- Context
- Part of a series of
sonnets about her
future husband
- Married to Robert
Browning, poet of
Porphyria’s Lover
- Feelings & Attitudes
- The narrator tells her
lover how much she thinks
about him when they’re
not together
- She’s worried
that her
thoughts will
obscure the
reality of what
he’s actually
like
- She wants him
to be a strong
presence in
her life
- Narrator longs to
be with her lover
instead of just
thinking about
him
- She takes pleasure in her
feelings of love for him She
enjoys the way her thoughts
envelop him But she takes
even greater joy in the thought
of him being a physical
presence in her life
- Key Themes
- Fulfilment
- Nature
- Distance
- Longing
- Sensuality
- Form
- Sonnets are
traditionally used for
love poetry Loosely
written in the
Petrarchan form
- 8 lines
(octave)
followed by
6 lines
(sestet)
- Octave usually
presents a problem
and the sestet
provides a solution
- However, in this poem, the solution
arrives in the middle on line 7
Having it come early and in the
middle of a line reflects the
narrator’s impatience to see her
lover
- ‘thee’
- Repetition
- This shows her
obsession with him
The narrator
addresses her lover
directly, which
makes it more
personal
- Iambic
pentameter
Human
heartbeat
- Genuine feelings
Speaking from
the heart
- Extended Metaphor of Nature
- Narrator’s lover is
a tree and her
thoughts are ‘wild
vines’ which
cover him
- This shows how her thoughts are
constantly growing and
unrestrained
- The image of the tree casting of the vines
reflects how she wants her lover to be a
strong, permanent part of her life.
- ‘my
thoughts do
twine and
bud’
- ‘as wild
vines,
about a
tree’
- ‘renew thy presence; as a
strong tree should’
- Lexical field of
natural verbs
- ‘twine’ ‘bud’ ‘rustle’ ‘burst
- Personified imagery
- Nature coming closer and linking
as one Underlying intimacy and
sensuality
- Connotations of her desire to close the distance
between their love Their love is so overwhelming
for her; they must intertwine as a tree does
- Excited Language
- ‘I think of thee!
- The use of
exclamation marks
show how the
narrator takes joy in
thinking about her
lover She feels
excitement at the
thought of being
with him
- Plosive sounds
and dynamic verbs
Emphasise how
much she wants to
be with him
- ‘Renew’ and ‘Rustle’
- Imperatives and alliteration
- Emphasise how much she
wants him to act Her language
is forceful She uses imperatives
which almost order him to be
with her
- ‘- burst, shattered,
everywhere!’
- Use of different words to describe
the way his presence replaces
her thoughts Exclamation mark
emphasises her excitement
Caesura contributes to the
dramatic effect