Audiobook · read by volunteers
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
Read by Kirsten Ferreri · 44 chapters · 47 min
About the book
These forty-four sonnets form one of the most celebrated sequences of love poems in English. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote them in the middle of the 1840s, during her courtship with the poet Robert Browning, and the early poems are full of doubt: how can she, a woman of fragile health who has lived behind closed doors, accept a love so bright? The later ones grow warmer and more confident, and some contain lines that readers know by heart, including the famous question about how she loves. The title suggests a translation, but the poems are her own. Kirsten Ferreri reads all forty-four sonnets in under an hour, giving each its own breath and pace. The poems are intimate, passionate and surprisingly direct, and they are short enough to hear in a single sitting.
Introduction
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in 1806 and died in 1861. She was among the most admired English poets of her day, so much so that she was considered a candidate for the post of poet laureate. She suffered from poor health for much of her life, and she lived quietly in her family's London home until her correspondence with Robert Browning led to a secret marriage in 1846. The couple then settled in Italy.
Sonnets from the Portuguese was written around 1845 and 1846 and published in 1850. The title is said to have been a way of disguising the personal nature of the poems, as though they were translations from another language, but the sequence follows her own path from hesitation to joy. Each sonnet follows the traditional Petrarchan form, with its turn of thought after the eighth line, and Barrett Browning uses it with great freedom and feeling. The collection was popular in her lifetime and remains so today.
This LibriVox recording has 44 tracks, one for each sonnet, and lasts about fifty minutes. It was read by one volunteer, Kirsten Ferreri. It is a fine introduction to Victorian love poetry, and a gentle companion for a quiet evening.
The sonnets are best heard in order, since they follow a progress of feeling, from caution to surrender. Hearing them read aloud brings out the rhythm of the lines and the plain, passionate directness that made them popular, and it is easy to see why many of them are still read at weddings.
Public domain
Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text