Sonnet 29 - 'I think of thee!' by Elizabeth Barett Browning
Study online at https://quizlet.com/_f4pebe
1. OVERALL - mostly iambic pentameter mimics a heartbeat
- Petrarchan sonnet, traditional sonnet for unrequited love
yet doesn't have the last rhyming couplet to reveal some-
thing uneasy in her obsession
- continued enjambment through alot of the poem
- Italian sonnet. This means it has 14 lines made up of an
octave (an 8-line stanza) and a sestet (a 6-line stanza).
The octave here can further be broken into two quatrains
(each with a rhyme scheme of ABBA), and the sestet can
be broken into two tercets (with the rhyme scheme CBC
BCB).
-
Italian sonnet. This means it has 14 lines made up of an
octave (an 8-line stanza) and a sestet (a 6-line stanza).
The octave here can further be broken into two quatrains
(each with a rhyme scheme of ABBA), and the sestet can
be broken into two tercets (with the rhyme scheme CBC
BCB).
Browning's sonnet is rather unconventional, however,
—particularly in the placement of the volta, or "turn." Tra-
ditionally, the octave introduces and muses on some sort
of problem or situation that the speaker feels invested
in, while the sestet is then used to offer a solution to or
comment on what was introduced in the octave. Together,
then, the octave and the sestet usually form a kind of
argument.
While it's true that Browning's sonnet makes an argument
(namely that the reality of love surpasses the fantasy of it,
and that real love requires vulnerability and passion, and
as offers freedom to those who experience it), the arrival
of the "turn" comes quite early in the poem: the speaker
presents the problem within the first quatrain, and the shift
in tone occurs in lines 5-6, when the speaker exclaims,
"Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood / I will not have my
thoughts instead of thee."
1/6
Study online at https://quizlet.com/_f4pebe
1. OVERALL - mostly iambic pentameter mimics a heartbeat
- Petrarchan sonnet, traditional sonnet for unrequited love
yet doesn't have the last rhyming couplet to reveal some-
thing uneasy in her obsession
- continued enjambment through alot of the poem
- Italian sonnet. This means it has 14 lines made up of an
octave (an 8-line stanza) and a sestet (a 6-line stanza).
The octave here can further be broken into two quatrains
(each with a rhyme scheme of ABBA), and the sestet can
be broken into two tercets (with the rhyme scheme CBC
BCB).
-
Italian sonnet. This means it has 14 lines made up of an
octave (an 8-line stanza) and a sestet (a 6-line stanza).
The octave here can further be broken into two quatrains
(each with a rhyme scheme of ABBA), and the sestet can
be broken into two tercets (with the rhyme scheme CBC
BCB).
Browning's sonnet is rather unconventional, however,
—particularly in the placement of the volta, or "turn." Tra-
ditionally, the octave introduces and muses on some sort
of problem or situation that the speaker feels invested
in, while the sestet is then used to offer a solution to or
comment on what was introduced in the octave. Together,
then, the octave and the sestet usually form a kind of
argument.
While it's true that Browning's sonnet makes an argument
(namely that the reality of love surpasses the fantasy of it,
and that real love requires vulnerability and passion, and
as offers freedom to those who experience it), the arrival
of the "turn" comes quite early in the poem: the speaker
presents the problem within the first quatrain, and the shift
in tone occurs in lines 5-6, when the speaker exclaims,
"Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood / I will not have my
thoughts instead of thee."
1/6
