![]() The courting has involved the gift of ‘many flowers’ – flowers, of course, are often associated with poetry, as the etymology of the term anthology demonstrates. But unlike Petrarch’s medieval sonnets in the courtly love tradition, the relationship between the man and woman has been consummated in Barrett Browning’s poem. In terms of its form, ‘Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers’ is a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet. And although Barrett Browning’s title sounds as though she is translating poems written by some Portuguese sonneteer, that title Sonnets from the Portuguese was in fact a little in-joke: ‘Portuguese’ was Robert Browning’s affectionate nickname for Elizabeth, so these sonnets are from her and her alone: sonnets from Robert’s beloved ‘Portuguese’. It contains end rhymes and follows iambic pentameter, following a natural rhythmic pattern. The poem follows a traditional rhyme scheme for this type of sonnet: ABBAABBACDCDCD. It contains 14 lines: one octet (eight lines) followed by a sestet (six lines). It’s a little-known fact that the first ever sonnet sequence in English was written by a woman, and throughout history the sonnet sequence has tended to be associated with male poets: Petrarch, Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, George Meredith. The sonnet follows the Italian form as established by Petrarch. ‘Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers’ was first published in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet sequence, Sonnets from the Portuguese, in 1850, although the poems that make up the sequence were written around five years earlier. ![]()
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