WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: Episode 2

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

In this episode of The Poetry Fix, we explore Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous "Sonnet 43."

Welcome to the Poetry Fix. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43. This is arguably the quintessential love poem. It's a Petrarchan sonnet, which means it has an octave followed by a cestad. The cestad, the six lines at the end, are where you get a volta or a turn. Basically, the octave sets up a problem or an idea, and in the voltae, the poem takes a takes a turn into new territory. In Sonnet 43, the octave sets up exactly how much Browning

loves her husband, co-opting biblical language. She says she loves him to the depth and breadth and height her soul can reach, which immediately calls to mind the way Ephesians describes God's love for us. She goes from that maximum scale of divine love to saying that she also loves him to the level of every day's most quiet need, in the smallest ways, as well as the big ones. this picture of pure joy in the octave, and then we get the Volta. As it turns out, Browning also loves with the passion put to use in her old griefs, with a childhood faith that was all but lost. It really seems like the Volta is about the redemptive side of this love. Between ailing health and an overprotective father that went on to disown her for getting married,

Barrett Browning is someone who suffered a lot in her earlier life. Instead of dwelling on the past, though, Barrett Browning takes that passion and invests it in her marriage. Now exactly what does this poem have to say about God. We get the Ephesians reference right out of the gate, but then we get a mention of Lost Saints in the Volta, right after Barrett Browning mentions her childhood's faith. Who are these lost saints? It's possible that this line refers to friends or family

that Barrett Browning once idolized, but that have either passed away or let her down in a major way as her father did. It's also possible that there's a religious connotation here, where Barrett Browning feels like she loses access to the saints the same way she sometimes feels, quote, out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace. One way or another, though, Browning ends by acknowledging God as the center point of her relationship with her husband, the one who will permit them to love each other even better after death. I think Barrett Browning is setting up love as a way to have a mediated encounter with the divine. After all, the human mind is limited, and God is infinite. We can love God without knowing exactly what that means. As Barrett Browning puts it, the ends of being an ideal grace

can be difficult for us to wrap our heads around. But we can't understand what it means to love another person, and maybe that's where we're supposed to find God. With all that said, let's dive in. Sonnet 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely as men strive for right. I love thee purely as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I see. to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life, and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. So even death, that ultimate obstacle, can be redeemed by love. Sonnet 43 surpasses the sentimentalism that can kill love poetry. This isn't

a poem about warm and fuzzy feelings. It's about a bond strong enough to defy death itself. to the poetry fix with Erica Kaiba. Join me next week and we'll be jumping across the channel to read a great French poet.