3 quotations linked to Sonnets from the Portuguese by or associated with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Love, earlier bereavements, fear, trust, grief, emotional strength and the difficulty of receiving a new attachment after loss.
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
The question opens a deliberate accounting of love, suggesting that affection becomes clearer when its different forms, depths, and expressions are named.
Sonnet 43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese; the poem proceeds by describing multiple dimensions of love.
“For grief indeed is love and grief beside.”
The sonnet treats grief as attachment plus the pain attached to what has been lost, refusing to separate sorrow cleanly from love.
Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sonnet XXXV, Project Gutenberg #2002. “For grief indeed is love and grief beside” occurs as the lyric speaker asks whether a new beloved can fill a place still occupied by family memory and bereavement. It remains intimate Victorian love poetry, not a clinical model or universal definition of grief.
“And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear.”
The speaker recognizes real growth in serenity and strength while admitting that earlier sorrow still leaves a fear that can return.
Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sonnet XXXVI; Project Gutenberg #2002. The growth is emotional and relational within the poem, not a clinical recovery benchmark.
