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''Sonnets from the Portuguese'', written ca. 1845–1846 and published first in 1850, is a collection of 44 love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The collection was acclaimed and popular during the poet's lifetime and it remains so.


Title

Barrett Browning was initially hesitant to publish the poems, believing they were too personal. However, her husband Robert Browning insisted they were the best sequence of English-language sonnets since
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's time and urged her to publish them. To offer the couple some privacy, she decided to publish them as if they were translations of foreign sonnets. She initially planned to title the collection "''Sonnets translated from the Bosnian''", but Browning proposed that she claim their source was Portuguese, probably because of her admiration for Camões and Robert's nickname for her: "my little Portuguese". The title is also a reference to '' Les Lettres Portugaises'' (1669).


Numbers 33 and 43

The most famous poems from this collection are numbers 33 and 43:


Number 33


Number 43


See also

*
Thomas James Wise Thomas James Wise (7 October 1859 – 13 May 1937) was a bibliophile and thief who collected the Ashley Library, now housed by the British Library, and later became known for the literary forgeries he printed and sold. Collecting career Wise be ...
, who authenticated a forged edition.


References


External links

* * * *
Elizabeth Barrett Browning profile and sonnets at Poets.org
Hear Sonnets 43 and 33

a photo-illustration of ''The Sonnets from the Portuguese'', includes select photo-illustrations. {{Authority control British poems Sonnets 1850 poems Poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning English poetry collections Love poems