![]() ![]() Profoundly religious, she taught herself Hebrew to better ground her study of Judeo-Christian wisdom literature. She relished Shakespeare and wrote a volume of original poems modeled after his sonnets when she was only 10. She read most of the writers of Antiquity (she completed a translation of several books of Homer’s Odyssey when she was only eight). Browning never received formal education, but early on she was a voracious reader, ransacking her father’s massive library. Browning was one of 12 children born to privilege, as her father owned a sugar plantation in Jamaica. On March 6, 1806, Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett was born at Cohnadatia Hall, an estate near Durham in northeastern England. ![]() ![]() This was unique (and controversial) for her era, High Victorian England, as these poems unapologetically reflected the yearnings and passions of a spirited and empowered woman. The poem established Browning’s reputation as a Romantic poet gifted in the lyrical expression of the power of love. The sonnet, grounded in Browning’s Protestant faith, reconciles the hungers of the human heart with the yearnings of the Christian soul. Although sometimes dismissed as a sentimental celebration of unconditional love, the poem works through a debate over the conflict between the heart and the soul, specifically the purpose and meaning of earthly love set against the wide promise of God’s transcendent spiritual love. ![]()
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