My teacher wants us to analyze a poem.
I was given EBB.
Sonnett III

Unlike We are Unlike Oh Pricely Heart...

As many times I've read this poem, by the time I get a third through it, I have no idea what she is trying to say or mean.
It seems like sentences just thrown together from many sources.

I am clueless on this


Can someone help me or point me in the right direction?

winger, use an online dictionary if the language is confusing you.

Basically what EBB is saying here is that the two people are very different and won't be equal until they're dead.

The first person is high class. She on the other hand, is very common. Even their guardian angels won't associate with each other.

Sonnet III
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart !
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree ?
The chrism is on thine head,--on mine, the dew,--
And Death must dig the level where these agree.

Les



Post Edited (05-20-04 11:16)

I DID LOOK UP SOME OF THE WORDS YET IT DID NOT HELP

WHAT YOU SAY NOW SEEMS TO MAKE SENSE TO ME.
READING LINE BY LINE STILL CONFUSES ME BUT SCANNING THE LINES I CAN SEE YOUR MEANING.

THANKS

Rather than line-by-line, try going sentence-by-sentence.

pam

Here is an interesting, though flawed, interpretation:

[tinyurl.com]

Hugh, from the site you list:

"This is very beautiful. Elizabeth was a rare lover of God. She
mentions that her Master is the annointed one. He is her spiritual
King. She again, emphasizes that she is here on the physical plane.
The last line is short, but carries a powerful meaning. At death, a
lover, a Gurmukh, will merge into his/her Master. Christ said, "I go
to my Father."

Where in the poem does it say any of this?


Les

Flawed, as I say. I believe ALL the Portuguese sonnets were to or about Robert Browning, so he would be the princely heart.

Les:

Thanks for your help with the EBB sonnett III
Pushed me in the right direction.

Here's another for you.

I need to find a song that I can play in school that mirrors sonnett III by EBB

My thoughts were towards some disney movies.
eg.
Cinderella (common girl and prince)
beauty and the beast is good also but the beast thing seems to throw it off a bit.
others would be lady and the tramp, Aladdin except the roles are reversed with the woman being high class.

do you have any thoughts?

thanks & regards

oh, well I'm cluless with sonnet Xvi real meaning because english is not my native language first, second it its the first time i analyze a poem and third, it is in old english. i believe she is speaking about true love. telling lovers not to love for a reason and not to look for resaons to love. i think is just a way to expose her vision about her husband love for her. I'm also confused with versification anlysis I'm not sure if there is any personification or methaphor. would you be so kind to give me a help here? thank you so much from a Venezuelan student.

Here is the poem, I'm driving myself crazy, so if there is any help you can give mereal quick I'll be truly thankful Sonnet XIV
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby !
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

beatriz,

She's personifying love- love's sake, love's eternity. I would say that your analysis above is correct.

pam

Beatriz, the poem is a dramatic dialogue, or a dramatic narrative. The most obvious figures of speech are alliteration, and assonance. There are no metaphors or similies.

Les

I just wanted to say thank you. I really apreciate our help. have a great day.