“I think of thee (Sonnet 29)” Introduction

• "I Think of Thee" is a sonnet written by the English Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Barrett Browning wrote the poem, along with the other sonnets published in her collection Sonnets from the Portuguese, during her courtship with the equally famous English Victorian poet Robert Barrett Browning from 1845-1846. The poem expresses the speaker's desire to see and be physically close to an absent lover. It argues that when it comes to love, reality is sweeter than fantasy, and suggests that true love requires deep vulnerability and passion—as well as a willingness to reject restrictive social conventions.

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“I think of thee (Sonnet 29)” Summary

• I think about you! My thoughts wind around you and sprout new thoughts, the way out-of-control vines grow wide leaves as they climb up a tree, until, soon enough, there's nothing to see except the untidy foliage that conceals the tree's bark. Still, you, whom I think of as my palm tree, have to understand that I don't want my thoughts instead of the actual you, who is dearer and sweeter than those thoughts. Instead, right now, come to me and make yourself known; just like a strong tree would do, shake your branches and strip away these vines concealing your trunk. Let these vines that enclose you fall down heavily—breaking apart into little pieces that scatter all around! Because, as it is so joyful just to see and hear you, and, while in your presence, to breathe in a way that didn't feel possible before, I do not think of you—I am too close to you.

“I think of thee (Sonnet 29)” Themes

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  Fantasy Vs. Reality

  “I Think of Thee” focuses on someone who fantasizes intensely about and longs to be physically close to an absent lover. Yet as the poem progresses, the speaker moves thinking about her beloved in his absence to the opposite: not thinking about him because he is now right there beside her. This movement from thinking to not thinking of the lover becomes a kind of argument: despite the boundless beauty and possibility of her fantasies, the poem suggests, the speaker prefers the reality of the lover to her idea of him, physically being with this person rather than just thinking about him. Fantasy, the poem implies, is a poor substitute for reality when it comes to love.

  The speaker begins the poem by describing her thoughts rather than describing her lover. In a sense, then, she is focusing on the fantasy (or memory, image) of this person rather than his reality. That these thoughts are imbued with a kind of fertile beauty—they “twine” and “bud” as “wild vines, about a tree”—also illuminates the speaker’s state of mind: she is fantasizing about the lover, in relation to whom she feels a sense of vitality, beauty, and wildness.

  In fact, her fantasy is so lush that it ends up obscuring the lover. She imagines him disappearing beneath her runaway thoughts the way a tree trunk may be hidden beneath “straggling green” vines that grow over it. This image suggests that the speaker’s thoughts actually get in the way of her seeing her lover clearly; the only direct way to the lover is through the lover himself, not through her thoughts of him, which pale in comparison.

  The speaker then shifts gears, saying to the lover, “Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood / I will not have my thoughts instead of thee.” In other words, she doesn’t want to just fantasize about the lover: she wants to experience the reality of being with him.

  By addressing the lover as a palm-tree, the speaker further illustrates her desire to see her lover clearly. Unlike other trees, the palm-tree has no branches, nowhere for vines to grow and flourish. Likewise, the speaker wishes her lover to be so clear, not hidden by absence and the fantasies that such absence provokes. The speaker thus admonishes the lover to “renew” his “presence,” indicating that she only fantasizes about him because he is not with her. The speaker longs for the lover to appear and “shatter” her daydreams—to “bare” the reality that fantasy obscures. For the speaker, the lover’s physical presence is so much more tangible and desired than anything she can imagine in his place.

  Finally, the speaker claims that in the presence of the lover, she is not thinking—she is just existing, fully alive in the moment, and that in this way reality is more beautiful than even the loveliest of fantasies. She describes the simple reality of seeing and hearing and breathing in the presence of the lover as “a deep joy.” The stark simplicity of the final lines accentuates her point: in the lover’s presence, she is too joyfully caught up in the moment to wax poetic about him. Reality has proved sweeter than fantasy.

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• 

  Love, Vulnerability, and Freedom

  The poem's speaker implores the lover to strip her of her thoughts, and to free himself from “the bands of greenery which insphere” (or contain) him. The speaker recognizes that anything that stands between her and her lover must “drop heavily down” and “shatter.” In this way, the poem suggests that to experience love one must be vulnerable and willing to give oneself over entirely to passion—whether that means rejecting societal dictates of decorum and restraint, or simply one's own familiar ways of being. Only through this kind of vulnerability and passion, the poem implies, may the lovers experience the powerful freedom of real love.

  The speaker is vulnerable in admitting to the lush and ardent quality of her thoughts concerning the lover; in contrast to the restraint and decorum of Victorian England, the speaker of this poem is not holding back. Instead, her initial proclamation (“I think of thee!”) lends the opening a kind of rushed, flushed, and urgent feeling, as though the speaker simply cannot hold back what she's feeling.

  The poem then deepens in vulnerability as the speaker admits that the lover is more valuable to her—“dearer, better!”—than even her own thoughts. This is a particularly revealing statement when readers consider that Barrett Browning was one of the foremost poets and intellectuals of her time. By admitting that her lover is more valuable to her even than her thoughts, she is prioritizing her feelings of love and passion over her station and reputation (in fact, Barrett Browning herself knew she would be disinherited by her father if she married).

  One might even infer that when the speaker says, “I will not have my thoughts instead of thee,” she is saying that if she has to choose between being with the lover and her own intellectualism, she will choose the lover. This speaks to the power of her passion and what she is willing to risk to be with her lover: not only her reputation, but also the safety of her thoughts. In this way she is again committing herself to vulnerability, setting aside her own ego in the name of experiencing real love.

  The speaker also implores the lover to “rustle” his “boughs” and “shake” his “trunk all bare.” This image is again one of passion and vulnerability. The speaker wishes her lover to come boldly forward, to forcibly cast aside anything getting in the way of their union.

  Victorian society prized dignity and restraint, yet the speaker is nearly carried away by her desire and passion. There is innuendo in the image of the greenery dropping “heavily down,” as if all the trappings of polite society have been cast aside and the lovers are free to finally “bare” themselves to each other. This bareness speaks to the honesty and freedom the speaker wishes to experience in love—honesty and freedom that, the poem implies, can only be reached by way of vulnerability, a willingness to be real with each other.

  This sense of vulnerability and passion crescendos with the phrase “burst, shattered, everywhere!” There is a sense here of something having been cast aside in order for the lovers to embrace each other. As such, the lovers are characterized now by a sense of having rejected the oppressively polite society to which they belong, or the trappings of their reputations, or the illusions they might have had about themselves or one another. There are many possible interpretations for what they’re giving up, but it’s clear that the speaker feels they are breaking free of something.

  Finally, the speaker is free to breathe “new air” in simply being with her lover. The “new air” might speak to just how restrictive the customs of Victorian England were, or to how oppressive the speaker’s own thoughts had become during her lover’s absence; either way, it illustrates how joyful she feels in having rid herself of what was standing in the way of her experiencing real love. The final line reveals just what the speaker has gained in giving herself over to vulnerability and passion, in breaking free of decorum and restraint: she is feeling and savoring the lover’s nearness. There is freedom in the simplicity and sweetness of that.

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “I think of thee (Sonnet 29)”

• Lines 1-2

  I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud
  About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,

  The poem packs a lot of information into its first four words. First, the use of apostrophe—the speaker directly addressing someone who isn't there—immediately signals the speaker's private longing and desire. The choice to use the word "thee," an informal version of "you," lends an increased intimacy from the very beginning of the poem. It also suggests a lack of convention, since "thee" was already an old-fashioned term in Browning's time. Finally, the clear caesura after "thee"—in the form of an exclamation point followed by an em dash—provides the reader with a sense of the speaker's passion: her admission seems to tumble forth in a burst of emotion.

  On the other side of that caesura, the speaker describes not her lover, of whom she thinks, but rather her own thoughts themselves. Her thoughts, she claims using a simile, "twine and bud" around her lover like vines wrapping around a tree.

  Here the poet uses consonance (/d/, /b/, and /th/ sounds) and assonance (long /i/ and /ee/ sounds) to create euphony. In other words, the lines are very pleasurable, musical:

  I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud
  About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,

  The euphony in these opening lines signals the pleasure that the speaker takes in thinking about her lover, and also imbues the thoughts themselves with a kind of lushness and vitality: the speaker is fantasizing, daydreaming, maybe even obsessing.

  The poem's meter also plays a part in the musicality of these opening lines. The first line is in perfect iambic pentameter (meaning there are five feet, each foot comprised of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable):

  I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud

  This which might lead the reader to believe they are in for a conventional sonnet. However, the second line already disrupts this assumption, adding stressed beats where they don't belong:

  About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,

  Caesura, too, lends to the second line an almost physical sense of the vines coiling around the tree; without the presence of the commas, the line would still make sense but have a much breezier, open feel to it. The pauses created by the commas almost create a sense of restrictiveness, a foreshadowing that perhaps the vines—which are representative of the speaker's thoughts—are not entirely a good thing, despite the pleasure the speaker takes in them.

• Lines 3-4

  Put out broad leaves, and soon there 's nought to see
  Except the straggling green which hides the wood.

  

  

• Lines 5-7

  Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
  I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
  Who art dearer, better!

  

  

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• Lines 7-9

  Rather, instantly
  Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,
  Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,

  

  

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• Lines 10-11

  And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee
  Drop heavily down,—burst, shattered, everywhere!

  

  

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• Lines 12-13

  Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
  And breathe within thy shadow a new air,

  

  

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• Line 14

  I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.

  

  

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“I think of thee (Sonnet 29)” Symbols

• 

  The Palm-Tree

  The palm-tree in this poem reflects the speaker's desire to see her lover clearly, and for anything that might stand in the way of her seeing him clearly to be cast aside. The speaker uses the metaphor of a tree covered in vines to describe the way her thoughts obscure her absent lover. In addressing the lover as a palm-tree, she turns the metaphor on its head: the lover is not just any tree, but a tree which is notable for its lack of branches, its clearly visible trunk. The tree here thus represents, in part, the naked truth of the lover himself.

  The palm-tree is also associated with the Christian religious tradition. It is linked with Palm Sunday, when Jesus knowingly entered Jerusalem on the eve of what is known in Christianity as his "Passion"—the last week of his life which involved his torture, death by crucifixion, and resurrection. When he arrived in Jerusalem he was met with people waving palm branches, and as such, the palm has come to represent a kind of triumph of the spirit over the flesh, as Jesus knew that he was going to sacrifice his life for the eternal salvation of humankind.

  The appearance of the palm-tree in this poem suggests a nearly devotional love on the part of the speaker, who is similarly willing to make great sacrifices on account of being united with her lover. Like Jesus, she feels that whatever sacrifices she must make (her old life, her reputation, the surrendering of ego) is worth the boundless joy she will experience in the arms of her lover.

  The religious symbolism also lends the poem some added ambiguity. Although Elizabeth Barrett Browning was undoubtedly inspired by her own courtship with Robert Browning while writing this poem (as well as other intimate sonnets from this time period), she was also a congregationalist Christian and was deeply influenced by both Christian and Hebrew theology, as well as religious literature such as Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno. She believed the most important art has a religious aspect to it, and most of her poems can and should be read with that in mind. The beloved in this poem could easily be interpreted as a religious savior.

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• 

  Vines and Greenery

  The speaker describes her thoughts concerning her beloved as "straggling green" and "wild vines" that ultimately distance her from the beloved. As such, this "greenery" comes to be a symbol of just about anything that stands in the way of her seeing the lover clearly, and/or anything that prevents the lovers from being vulnerable, honest, and present with each other.

  Greenery in this poem doesn't evoke the beauty of nature so much as the clingy, suffocating quality of vines wrapping themselves around something until it cannot be seen or touched. The vines are described as "straggling" (i.e., untidy and hiding the trunk of the tree) and they "insphere" (or wrap around) the beloved. It is only through the act of letting this greenery—these distractions or obstacles—fall away ("heavily," almost like chains) that the speaker is free to "breathe [...] a new air." In this way the vines also symbolize the opposite of this freedom: restraint.

  In line eleven, the speaker imagines the greenery "bursting" and "shattering." Note that literal vines cannot burst or shatter, another indication that the vines are symbolic of something more abstract, such as illusions about the other person or societal expectations. In the absence of greenery then comes a "deep joy," again pointing to the oppressive nature of the vines, from which the speaker longs to free the beloved and, by extension, herself.

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“I think of thee (Sonnet 29)” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Apostrophe

  "I Think of Thee" is addressed to an absent lover. The speaker beings by proclaiming that she thinks of an unnamed "thee" and then goes on to describe the intensity of her thoughts. However, the use of apostrophe is most apparent in lines 5-6, when the speaker sets aside her description of her own thoughts to proclaim:

  Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
  I will not have my thoughts instead of thee

  In poetry, "O" is used to directly address someone or something; it is clear that the someone in this case is absent because the speaker urges him to "renew [his] presence."

  The use of apostrophe works in harmony with Browning's choice to use the intimate "thee," a word that was out of fashion even by the time she was writing. "Thee" had once been used in spoken English, but was gradually replaced by the more informal "you"; in written English, it continued to be used in literature and ecclesiastical writings until finally falling into disuse around the time Browning was born.

  Browning, being a student of literature as well as Christian and Hebrew religious texts, would have been familiar with the word, and undoubtedly chose it not only for its unconventionality at the time she was writing, but for the way it lent an increased sense of reverence and devotion to the poem. She is addressing not only an absent lover but an absent lover whom she has imbued with such reverence and devotion; the use of apostrophe is thus not only filled with longing and desire, but also a kind of spiritual yearning—as if being in the presence of her lover is not only pleasurable, but transformative.

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• Alliteration

  

  
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• Imagery

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

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• End-Stopped Line

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

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• Euphony

  

  

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• Asyndeton

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

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"I think of thee (Sonnet 29)" Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Thee
• twine
• Bud
• Nought
• Straggling
• Palm-tree
• Art
• Thy
• Boughs
• Insphere

• An old-fashioned form of "you."

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “I think of thee (Sonnet 29)”

• Form

  "I Think of Thee" is an 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." Traditionally, 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."

  The next five lines then expand on this declaration, while the final three lines of the poem are a kind of summation of the speaker's point: that in being present with the beloved, she finds freedom. Rather than having one tonal shift in the poem, there are really two.

• Meter

  Broadly speaking, "I Think of Thee" uses iambic pentameter—as is traditionally the case for sonnets. This means each line has five iambs, poetic feet comprised of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (for a total of 10 syllables per line—five da-DUMs). Take line 1:

  I think | of thee!—| my thoughts | do twine | and bud

  Browning is not strict in her use of meter, however, and few lines of the poem adhere to perfect iambic pentameter. Instead, Browning varies the meter in order to keep things interesting, both rhythmically and in terms of not letting the reader get too comfortable.

  Sometimes this variation means adding an extra syllable to a line, and other times it means using different kinds of feet other than iambs (and sometimes a combination of extra syllables and different kinds of feet!).

  For example, in lines 8, 9, and 11, Browning uses a combination of different kinds of feet to create a sense of the speaker's boldness as she passionately swipes away convention in favor of honesty and vulnerability. These lines can be scanned a few different ways, but it's clear that this is not perfect iambic pentameter:

  Renew | thy pres- | ence; as | a strong | tree should,
  Rustle | thy boughs | and set | thy trunk | all bare,
  [...]
  Drop hea- | vily | down,—burst, | shattered, | everywhere!

  Line 8 closes with a spondee (stressed-stressed), a strong, insistent foot that appropriately creates an emphatic cluster of stresses as the speaker describes a "strong tree." Line 9 then opens with a trochee (stressed-unstressed), again adding a sense of emphasis as she demands that her beloved reveal himself. Similarly, line 11 is overwhelmingly comprised of stressed syllables; the result is a forceful line in which the sound of the poem crescendos alongside the emotional climax. The speaker, it seems, is heating up—becoming more passionate as she brushes aside anything that stands in the way of her and her lover being reunited.

  Notably, the poem does not return to perfect iambic pentameter after the climax in line 11. The last three lines of the poem may not be as bold or forceful as the ones prior, but there is still variation in the meter. In other words, something has shifted for the speaker. Not only is the speaker's frame of mind changed from the first line of the poem; so too has the meter—having gone from perfect iambic pentameter in the beginning to imperfect in the last line, almost suggesting that imperfect reality wins over perfect fantasy, or expectations of perfection, every time.

• Rhyme Scheme

  "I Think of Thee" roughly follows a traditional rhyme scheme for an Italian sonnet:

  ABBAABBACBCBCB

  While the rhyme scheme for the octave (the first eight lines of the poem) in an Italian sonnet is always the same (following that ABBAABBA pattern), the sestet (the last six lines) is more flexible; most commonly it will use CDECDE or CDCDCD. In this case, Browning's choice to use CBCBCB, and therefore carrying the "B" rhyme throughout the poem, allows for the repetition of the word "thee"—emphasizing the speaker's devotion to her lover, and increasing the lover's presence in the poem.

  Additionally, because the "B" rhyme is present throughout the entirety of the poem, there is a somewhat softer division between the octave and the sestet. This makes sense, given that the volta, or "turn," in this poem comes quite early, and therefore the traditional division between octave and sestet is not as necessary to the movement of the poem (see "Form" for more on this).

  The first "A" rhyme—"bud" and "wood"—is not a perfect rhyme, but instead is a slant rhyme and the result of consonance. The /d/ sounds at the end of each word echo each other enough to be felt as part of the overall rhyme scheme. The effect of this imperfect rhyme is that it softens the overall effect of the rhyme scheme, again allowing a kind of "imperfection" into the poem that mirrors the imperfect use of iambic pentameter (see "Meter" for more on this).

  This imperfection is a reminder of the speaker's search for vulnerability and honesty in love, rather than the illusion or fantasy she has built in her mind. It also speaks to the rigidity of convention and how one must make room for variation, difference, and other markers of reality if one is going to experience real love.

“I think of thee (Sonnet 29)” Speaker

• The speaker of "I Think of Thee" is someone who desires a deep, vulnerable, passionate love—a love that involves both parties "baring" their true selves. Although the poem need not be read as strictly autobiographical, there is undoubtedly an overlap between the speaker of the poem and the poet (which is why this guide uses female pronouns for the speaker and male pronouns for the speaker's beloved; it's entirely possibly to read differently!).

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote this sonnet, along with many other love poems, following her courtship and marriage to Robert Browning, of whom her strict, controlling father disapproved. Barrett Browning ultimately had to run away from home and get married in secret; she knew she would be disinherited for this act, and was—in fact, she never spoke to her father again.

  Barrett Browning's biography certainly lends a richness to the poem. It speaks to the oppressiveness of her upbringing, and in fact much of her adult life was spent under her father's thumb, as she didn't elope with Robert Browning until she was in her forties. Consequently, the poem is invested in love as a form of freedom—the speaker finds herself able to breathe "a new air" in her lover's presence. Furthermore, she prizes her lover's presence even above her own thoughts. This is particularly telling when considering Barrett Browning's reputation as a poet and an intellectual, and the risk she was taking in marrying someone who was considered "beneath" her by her wealthy family.

  Of course this poem has much to offer beyond its author's biography; there are many ways to interpret what exactly the speaker is willing to sacrifice on account of love—be it fantasy, or obsessive, burdensome thoughts, or her intellectualism, or the rigid expectations of Victorian society—and it has not lost its resonance with contemporary audiences. The speaker of this poem easily stands in for anyone willing to take a risk in making themselves vulnerable with someone else—and the passion such a risk requires.

“I think of thee (Sonnet 29)” Setting

• This poem contains no real physical setting. Everything that happens here happens internally, within the speaker's thoughts. Even when the speaker does mention the physical world—things like vines and trees—it only appears metaphorically: the vines are meant to signify her thoughts, the tree her lover.

  All the action of the poem is metaphorical and therefore it exists only in the speaker's imagination. When she urges the lover to "let these bands of greenery which insphere thee / Drop heavily down," she is again speaking of the unseen things which stand between her and the lover: her own thoughts, the oppressiveness of the society to which they belong. When she describes the vines as "wild" or "straggling," she is describing her own state of mind.

  The poem only enters the physical, external world—the world outside the speaker's mind—in the last three lines. Here, readers know that the speaker is breathing in proximity to her lover, close enough to see him and hear him. The speaker goes from existing completely in her head to being embodied; she is a breathing, seeing, hearing, feeling human being.

  This, the poem suggests, is what love can do: free the speaker from her thoughts, bring her into the present moment. The setting of this poem thus goes from an imaginative realm to a physical one, but just as it becomes physical, the poem ends—as if to say that poetry is the province of the imagination, but being alive and in love, well, that happens somewhere else altogether.

Literary and Historical Context of “I think of thee (Sonnet 29)”

• Literary Context

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived and wrote in England during Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901), a historic and literary era that followed the Romantics (1770s-1830s). This poem is from her collection Sonnets from the Portuguese, which was published in 1850 and would go on to become her most well-loved and enduring work. Poetry was widely read in Victorian England, and Barrett Browning received much praise and recognition for her work during her lifetime—and was in fact much more famous than her husband, fellow poet Robert Browning, at the time.

  Romantic poetry was a response to industrialization and characterized by an intense, almost spiritual love of nature and spontaneous, individual expression. It was idealistic in nature, featuring heroes who might spur in its readers a sense of responsibility and action. The Victorian era, on the other hand, as a result of industrialization, saw an enormous increase in wealth discrepancy between classes and was therefore largely concerned with exposing and commenting on the horrors of poverty. Additionally, due to advances in scientific inquiry and the continued move away from religion, writers in the Victorian era were less inclined to see nature or people in the idealistic light of the Romantics. As such, literature during Barrett Browning's time shifted from the idealistic to the realistic. There was less emphasis on feelings and emotions; Victorian writers, like Victorian society, valued restraint.

  In the midst of all this, Barrett Browning's work is notable for its contradictions: it contains deep currents of emotion while still being concerned with the material conditions and oppressiveness of Victorian society. She was clearly influenced by the Romantics and many of her choices are in direct opposition to what was in style at the time. She wrote some of the most famous love poems in the history of the English language during a time when marriage was being treated with more and more pragmatism. She was known for at times being critical of the women's movement, yet her work is also full of thoughtful criticisms of the domestic roles women were being forced to occupy. She was able to study and write prolifically from a young age because of her privilege as a wealthy white woman whose family profited off of slave labor, yet she very publicly decried the injustices of slavery and supported the American movement for abolition. She identified in herself a kind of fervent religiosity which courses through much of her poetry, yet her poetry was popular with a readership that was largely nonreligious.

  Historical Context

  Barrett Browning was born into an affluent English family in 1806; her family had made its fortune from Jamaican sugar plantations and slave labor. She began battling an undiagnosed illness at a young age, for which she took opiates (which are thought to have contributed to her frail health in later life). Barrett Browning was also a prolific reader and writer from a young age and was already well-known in literary circles by the time she met poet Robert Browning, who was an admirer of her work.

  The poems in Sonnets from the Portuguese were written following her courtship and elopement with Robert Browning, whom she married knowing it would mean being disinherited by her father. The poems from this collection chronicle the trajectory of their romance. Barrett Browning initially did not want to marry Browning due to their age difference and her poor health; she believed she would become a burden for him. Eventually she came to accept that his love for her was real and that she herself did not have to be defined by illness and the oppressive rules of her father's household. She accepted his offer, and they eloped, and by all accounts had a happy marriage until her death in 1861.

  In addition to her own personal circumstances, Barrett Browning's poetry also gave voice to many of the pressing concerns of Victorian society: she wrote in support of women's rights, child labor rights (her work impacted legislation in England, helping to reform child labor laws), and the abolition of slavery in the United States. The English empire was at the pinnacle of its reach, and while many writers were still invested in imperialism and colonialism, many others were critical of the material conditions of the working class and the enslaved, of the predicament of women who were expected to be morally pure yet had very little autonomy, and of the dangers and pitfalls of a more mechanized world. Browning fell into this latter camp, while also remaining true to her influences—running through her work always was a fierce spirituality, a devotion to art as a means of expressing the divine.

More “I think of thee (Sonnet 29)” Resources

• External Resources

  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning — An article detailing the courtship and marriage of two of the most influential poets in English literature. 

  • The Role of Women — An article about the traditional role of middle-class white women in Victorian society, and the ways in which Barrett Browning's poetry confronted and challenged these expectations. 

  • A Reading of the Poem — Listen to "I Think of Thee" read aloud.

  • The Victorian Era — An introduction to the important social and literary changes that were taking place during Browning's lifetime.

  • Barrett Browning's Biography — Learn more about the poet's life and work courtesy of the Poetry Foundation.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  • How do I love thee? Let me count the ways (Sonnets from the Portuguese 43)

  • If thou must love me, let it be for nought (Sonnets from the Portuguese 14)

  • The Cry of the Children