How do I love thee?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When you think about how times have changed and the way writers used to be the comparison is quite significant. In a time where a gentleman would read poetry to his lady and never call unannounced, poets used their skills to enhance life and even help you fall in love. This still goes on of course, but the idea of reading a poem to someone in a garden is slightly cheesy and if there is poetry of any kind, it’s usually inside a greeting card purchased in February.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Born in the Victorian era in 1806, Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was the eldest of 12 children. A studious child, she read constantly and was clearly advanced for her age. Elizabeth was home schooled and spent her childhood at Hope End in Herefordshire. At the age of ten, Barrett Browning had already started writing her own poetry and her father called her the poet laureate of Hope End.

During her teenage years, this young poet read Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman and became a passionate supporter of Wollstonecraft’s views. Knowing that she had no chance of the type of education that was bestowed upon her brothers, she still persisted. She also opposed slavery and published two poems on the subject, although, much of her wealth came from slave labour and her father believed that the abolition of slavery would ruin his business. But it was in Wimpole Street in London that she wrote her best poetry and in 1844, her volume of poetry made one of the most popular writers in England.

The dedication in Wimpole Street London.

 

Robert Browning was an admirer of her work and wrote to her of it.  Thus began their relationship. After a secret courtship and a private marriage, they honeymooned in Paris where they probably spent hours reading poetry to each other.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning passed on in 1861. Her Sonnet XLIII or How do I Love Thee, is possibly one of the most romantic poems to date and the envy of greeting card poets everywhere. It came to light Once upon a time in an age where education was somewhat elusive to women and romantic poetry was a man’s forte. But this work will outshine others in its genre in many ways, you can count them if you like.