Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Victorian Era Seduction

What Modern Women can Learn in the Art of Saying Less

“My letters! All dead paper, mute and white!

And yet they seem alive and quivering

Against my tremulous hands which loose the string

And let them drop down on my knee tonight.”

This is an excerpt from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s (EBB) sonnet 28 from the series Sonnets from the Portuguese. A sonnet is traditionally written from a man’s perspective, about a woman, but EBB has flipped this narrative to write about her love for Robert Browning (then only her pen pal lover).

EBB was the daughter of a wealthy plantation owning family in England, and was a published poet at the age of just eleven years old. However, after falling off her horse at age 15, she suffered from a variety of illnesses and was largely house-bound in her youth. After gaining notoriety for some of the poems she published, she received a letter from Robert Browning, a writer 6 years younger than her, and from 1845-46, they courted one another through letters. The sonnets she wrote are called Sonnets from the Portuguese, because “my little Portuguese” was Browning’s pet name for her.

Speaking about intimacy and sex openly was socially forbidden in Victorian England, especially for women. Some people may call this oppressive, however, this led to a greater reverence for sexual intimacy than we have today because it could not be spoken of flippantly. I believe a lot of our disrespect for it comes from the fact we can talk about it today like eating a sandwhich.

Some people, such as Nietzsche, perceive this reticence to speak about sex and eroticism openly as shamefulness. In reality, it is not shame, but rather a respect for sexuality that it is not spoken of openly. It is simply far more important and personal than the things we speak about publicly and with strangers. This intimacy is evident in EBB’s beautiful poetry.

The social restrictions of her time made EBB’s sonnets far more beautiful and powerful sensually and emotionally. When something is omitted, it leaves room for the imagination to fill in the blanks, and because the imagination is always imprecise & infinite, it is capable of grander images than language can ever articulate. EBB’s imagery draws negatives, shapes that circle around the main thing but never touch it—a kind of literary seduction. This makes sense for a house-bound invalid to seduce by the only means available to her—words.

In her sonnet, her letters are quivering like a body part, and strings dropping to her knees allude to getting undressed. But she never mentions any of these explicit details, they are left for the reader to imagine through allusion and euphemism. Eroticism engages the imagination, so sexuality that is implicit and inferred allows for eroticism to develop in writing, whereas it can never develop in writing that is too explicit and literal. This is why we call writing that explicitly talks about sex vulgar; it debases what should be intimate by making it public.

The Shape of Love —Sonnet 1

Another beautiful sonnet included by EBB spoke of her surprise that she should receive love at all when life had made it almost certain for her that she would lead a lonely and despondent existence.

“The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

A shadow across me.”

But then something pulls her by the hair and changes her life and thrusts it into every joy that she thought she could never have: love, romance, seduction and even (though she did not yet know it) motherhood.

“a mystic Shape did move

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair…

‘Guess now who holds thee?’— ‘Death’ I said. But, there,

The silver answer rang— ‘Not Death, but Love’”

Death and Love are juxtaposed as having the same ineluctable effect on the human life. We cannot escape illness just as we cannot escape Love. And Love, to EBB behaves not like a gentle and well-mannered visitor but a hair-pulling and vivacious spirit that takes her in his arms and sweeps her off her feet. Yet, she does not need to say anything explicitly, she draws a line around him—a Shape—and all is understood.

Elation —Sonet 22

The rapture of love, that combines both physical infatuation and spiritual adoration, is difficult for anyone to describe except a poet. We often hear about these feelings from the male perspective, but there is a paucity of truly good female poets that describe the feminine experience without being crass. EBB has accomplished this in her sonnet.

“When our two souls stand up erect and strong

Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,

Until the lengthening wings break into fire

…Think. In mounting higher,

The angels would press on us and aspire

To drop some golden orb of perfect song

Into our deep, dear silence”

Angst —Sonnet 24

EBB is known for her masterful images that are both visceral and sensual. She describes love like a hand that clasps the knife of the harshness of life, and prevents it from harming the lover. One cannot help but imagine this poem dripping with the sacrificial blood of the lover, an image that comes straight from gothic romances and angsty love stories. Of course this is not the “practical HR approved” expression of love that dorky couples today endorse. It is something much more fun and romantic.

This playful and melodramatic spirit is what makes young love more fun, and I believe a culture that did not speak of love and intimacy so openly, was able to hold on to it better than a culture where “love” has devolved to little more than a material contract with a therapist as the human resource manager. EBB also is not afraid to admit the romance and peace of not only being dependent on a man, but being possessed by him. The only modern artist who has been able to touch this level of eroticism and beauty in love songs, I think, is Lana Del Rey.

“Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife,

Shut in upon itself and do no harm

In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,

And let us hear no sound of human strife

After the click of the shutting, Life to life—

I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,

And feel as safe as guarded by a charm”

Surrender —Sonnet 13