Sonnets from the Portuguese
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Before analyzing these sonnets, I’d like to share with you some background knowledge about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband, which can help you to understand these sonnets  better.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning，a famous and influential poet, has a tortuous and legendary life path. she became ill at 15years old，suffering intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life．She was struck with illness at 31 years old again, with symptoms today suggesting tuberculous ulceration of the lungs. Soon after, her brother Samuel died of a fever and her favorite brother Edward was drowned in a sailing accident. She developed an almost morbid terror of meeting anyone apart from a small circle of intimates. However, she was well known in literary circles. Her talent drew attention to another famous poet— Robert Browning. When Robert expressed his love，she was full of suspect，hesitation and struggle，because she clearly knew there was a huge gap between them．She was weak and disabled，but Robert
was healthy, energetic and enthusiastic．In her mind, Robert was so good that she didn’t deserve Robert. Therefore, she was very inferior at the beginning. After a long hesitation, she finally decided to love bravely because of her pure and passionate desire for love and got a happy ending. She recorded her thoughts of the love course with Robert in Sonnets from the Portuguese, from the hesitation at the very beginning to the praise of love in the end.
After knowing the background, I don’t think Mrs. Browning wants her readers to identify her as the speaker. Firstly, the emotions in these sonnets are so strong, personal and private, recording the whole process from her initial hesitation to her final decision to love bravely. For example, sonnet 28 describes the emotions when she reads the letters from Robert. In sonnet 28, when Robert says he wants to come and touch her hand, she weeps for it; when Robert says he loves her, she “sank and quailed, as if God’s future thundered on my past”. To some degree, it is more like her love diary than literary works. The repeated use of the first person doesn’t mean Mrs. Browning wants her readers to identify her as the speaker, it is more reasonable that she has never thought to publish these sonnets. It is sai
d that Mrs. Browning begins to write these sonnets after Robert Browning’s courtship but keeps them in a notebook for many years. She even does not show them to her husband until the third year of their marriage. In fact, the reason that these sonnets can be published is Robert’s insistence. After read these sonnets, Robert was so impressed with their beauty that he insists on their appearing in her forthcoming new edition of Poems. Secondly, from the title, Sonnets from the Portuguese, I think this suggests that Mrs. Browning expects to protect the privacy of her love and published the sonnets as if they were translations of foreign sonnets．It is said that in order to make it appear that these sonnets have no biographical significance, the Brownings select the ambiguous title Sonnets from the Portuguese, as if they are translations. 
After reading these sonnets, I think Mrs. Browning is a master of metaphor and she truly uses some symbols especially effective． The vivid images bring readers enough poetic space of imagination. In these sonnets, she mainly uses two images to symbolize death and love and shows us how love conquered death. For example, in sonnet 28, she uses“all dead” “mute” and “white” to describe her paper. These adjectives imply her negative attitud
e towards life. However, with Robert’s words, these papers become “ alive and quivering”. Robert’s love give Mrs. Browning’s courage to live. In sonnet 37, Mrs. Browning uses sand to describe Robert, because sand was fit to shift and break. That showed she is very inferior and not confident about their relationship. Then she says “As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port; His guardian sea-god to commemorate; Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort; And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.” Mrs. Browning compares herself as a shipwrecked pagan, saving by her guardian sea-god——Robert. “Pagan” suggests Mrs. Browning didn’t believed love in the past, but when Robert comes, she begins to believe love and gets a chance of new life. These images are closely related to her low self-esteem and show us how love conquers death. There are still a lot of images to symbolize her desire for love，which representing huge contrast with her inferiority，generating the beauty of images．For example, in sonnet 29, she compares Robert to “wild vines” and “palm-tree”; in sonnet 26, she uses “river-water” to describe her love with Robert. All of these imagines are very energetic and lively, and vividly illustrate the vitality of love. These imagines not only can show her desire for love, but also her optimistic attitud
e to life, giving the readers of the impression of life，the vigor and passion of life. As far as the images concerned，the poetess employed creative images in her sonnets，which is full of imagination and creation．All the images directly represent the theme of whole sonnets——death and love．The images enrich the contents of the sonnets and depict a vivid picture in a poetic language．
I think the “strange, heavy crown” is an apt metaphor, which is from the praise of his wife. When Sonnets from the Portuguese are published, it gets a great success. Mrs. Browning’s reputation rests largely upon these sonnets, which constituting one of the best-known series of English love poems. All of people know these sonnets are written to Robert. In her sonnets, Robert is described as a perfect man who wins a talented woman’s heart totally. For example, in the sonnet 29，the poetess uses the metaphor of “wild vines” and “palm-tree” to express her love and thoughtsportuguese，which is full of vitality．“I think of thee! my thoughts do twine and bud about thee，as wild vines，about a tree．"Then she emphasizes that she doesn’t want to affect the growing up of the“tree”．She hopes that Robert would grow up to be strong tree．She even encourages him to “drop the bands of g
reenery heavily down”， meaning that she totally centeres on him．Therefore, it is not strange that Robert wears a “strange, heavy crown” after Sonnets from the Portuguese are published.
In conclusion, Mrs. Browning is a famous poetess in the history of Victorian poetry. Her masterpiece，The Portuguese Sonnets，has been widely circulated from generation to generation. It is ingenious，beautiful and appealing. Her creative and new metaphors make readers feel fresh and soul. The bursting of their imagination wandered around the lines of the sonnets．The metaphors were always unexpected and unimaginable．It’s definitely a feast of communication with the readers．Some of her sonnets are even comparable to Shakespeare, making people believe love and encourage people to love bravely.

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