Sonnet 29 – 'I think of thee!' — AQA GCSE English Literature 8702
AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702
Sonnet 29 – 'I think of thee!'
The poems
What you need to know
Sonnet 29 – 'I think of thee!' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: what it is about, its context, and how Browning uses language, form and structure.
Key quotations and how to analyse them, and the poems in the cluster it compares well with, with similarities and differences.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'my thoughts do twine and bud', 'as wild vines, about a tree', 'Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood', 'I will not have my thoughts instead of thee', 'Renew thy presence', 'Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare', 'Drop heavily down', 'I am too near thee'.
Form: a Petrarchan sonnet with an unusually early turn at 'Yet, O my palm-tree', and the extended metaphor of the vine and the tree.
Context: Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barrett's courtship with Robert Browning and her father's opposition.
Comparisons with Love's Philosophy, Singh Song! and Letters from Yorkshire.
