Analysing "Sonnet 43".

Hello and welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Mr. Young and it is great to see you on another lesson in this poetry sequence.

Today's lesson is going to be all about analysing one of my favourites in the collection, and that's "Sonnet 43".

So shall we get started? So today's lesson will have a very clear learning outcome, and that is that by the end of today's lesson, everybody should be able to understand how Barrett Browning uses language, form, and structure to present her love as bountiful.

And just as in any lesson, we have some very important words, our keywords.

So I do always encourage you just to pause the video, jot these down and their definitions, particularly if they are new to you because we're gonna be using them quite a bit.

So let's see what they are.

To liberate is to set something free.

Unquantifiable, impossible to measure.

So if something can't be counted, can't be measured, it is unquantifiable.

We can also describe abstract feelings as unquantifiable as well.

Maybe someone's love for somebody else.

Bountiful, abundant, and endless.

To evoke, to make someone imagine or feel something.

So poets are very good at evoking certain feelings within us as an audience.

And finally, defiant, a refusal to obey somebody or something.

So today's lesson has two very clear learning cycles.

Learning cycle one is going to be all about the power of love.

So really kind of honing in on how Elizabeth Barrett Browning focuses on love in the poem, "Sonnet 43".

And then we're gonna move on to some of my favourite aspects of the poem in learning cycle two, which is all about looking at the imagery, that beautiful imagery in the poem in a lot more depth.

So let's get started with learning cycle one.

So quick discussion question for me then please, try and remember the ways in which Barrett Browning says she loves her husband.

She says, "I love thee", how many can you remember? So hit that pause button, complete the task, and then do push play when you'd like to proceed.

Okay, my goodness, what a fantastic start to this lesson, it is really, really great to hear how much of that poem you remember.

I'm hearing lots of different things, about all the different ways that Barrett Browning says that she loves her husband.

Okay then with that in mind, I would now like us to reread this fantastic poem.

In fact, I would like us to reread it twice.

So on your first readthrough, I would like you just to read the poem again, uninterrupted, just read it through.

And on your second reading, I would like you to compare your list of the ways in which Barrett Browning loves her future husband with the poem to see how many you picked up on.

So hit that pause button, complete the two readings, and then push play when you'd like to continue.

Okay, fantastic work on that and really well done for identifying all those different ways of which Barrett Browning loves her husband.

I saw lots of different people kind of identifying them from their memories.

So it's really, really that you have such a fantastic knowledge of this poem.

So some discussion questions for me then please, really, really key questions here.

First one, why did Barrett Browning write this poem? Number two, what was she trying to express? And finally, what do we know about her life that might have made this message even more significant and important? Some really, really interesting contextual questions there, and I'm really excited to see how you approach these ones.

So hit that pause button, discuss them or jot down some ideas if you're working independently.

And then do push play when you'd like to see a little bit of feedback.

Okay, once again, some fantastic work taking place on these.

Those are really challenging questions, but I'm hearing some really fantastic, really high level answers, which is absolutely fantastic.

So some things we could have said are as follows.

So for the first one we could have said, well, why did she write this poem? Well, Barrett Browning wrote this poem to her future husband to express her deep love for him.

And I think that really just comes across again and again and again in the poem, doesn't it? The second one, what was she trying to express? Well, her father's disapproval of the match threatened to keep them apart and she wanted to kind of challenge that and be a bit defiant to that.

And finally, what do we know about her life that might have made this message even more significant and important? Well, we could have said Barrett Browning struggled with chronic health issues her whole life.

So perhaps she worried about death separating the couple.

Perhaps that became a kind of preoccupation for her and hence her need to kind of express her love for her husband in such a kind of vivid and rich poem.

Well done if you picked up on anything similar in your own discussions.

Okay, here are a list of statements Barrett Browning makes.

She says, I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, the ends of being an ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of day's most quiet need by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely as men strive for rights.

I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life.

And finally, I shall love thee better after death.

So it's some really nice interesting sentiments there.

But my question for you is, how do Barrett Browning's expressions of love change as the poem progresses? Do they become more or less abstract? Do they become more or less specific? So what kind of shift do we see in these statements? Really keen to see how you go with this one.

So hit that pause button, complete the task, and then do push play when you'd like to proceed.

Okay, superb work on that task.

And I totally agree there is a real shift here, isn't there? So we could have said that Barrett Browning begins the poem by expressing her love in a more abstract and unquantifiable way.

However, she moves through the poem, finding more personal and specific ways to express and measure her love.

So really well done if you picked up on that in your own work.

Okay, check for understanding for me then please.

So my question for you is as follows, which structure best represents Barrett Browning's expression of her feelings? Is it A, in this kind of regular triangle? Does it start off specific and personal, ends with more abstract and cosmic expressions? Or is it B, the upside down triangle where it begins with more abstract and cosmic expressions and ends more specific and personal? As always, hit that pause button, complete the task, and then do push play when you'd like to see which is right.

Okay, great job to everybody who identified it as B, it is of course B, isn't it? It begins with more abstract and cosmic expressions before it ends a lot more specific, a lot more personal about her love for her husband.

Great job if you picked up on that.

Okay, we have reached our first practise task of today's lesson.

So let's take a look at what it is.

So we asked three Oak pupils why the poem might be structured in this way, that kind of abstract beginning and that more specific ending.

Which people do you most agree with, and can you find evidence to support that idea? Let's take a look at what they said.

Lucas said the structure represents Barrett Browning trying herself to understand the depth of her love.

She begins by making quite general and abstract statements and then explores what the love means to her specifically.

Really interesting comment there from Lucas.

Also got Laura's comment.

Laura says, the structure represents the liberating quality of love.

Barrett Browning becomes more emotionally liberated and expressive as the poem progresses.

Again, another really nice comment there from Laura.

And finally we have got a comment from Sam and Sam says the structure is reflective of the Petrarchan sonnet form.

The octet introduces a question and a problem which Barrett Browning then tries to answer in the sestet.

So really nice comment there from Sam, using kind of structure and form terminology.

So my task for you then is which one do you agree most with and can you find some evidence to support it? Really excited to see how you get on with this one.

So pause the video, complete the task, and then do push play when you'd like to move on to a little bit of feedback.

Okay, fantastic work on that.

That is by no means an easy task.

That is a really, really challenging task and it's absolutely brilliant to see you embracing it in such a kind of effective way and producing some really, really nice work.

So the first thing we could say is that all of the students' ideas are excellent.

They are all really high level comments and they could all form the part of really, really high level analysis.

So here's what you might have said for Sam's idea.

So the structure is reflective of the Petrarchan sonnet form.

The octet introduces a question and a problem which Barrett Browning then tries to answer in the sestet.

So again, really nice comment, like we said, really based in really key terminology of form and structure.

So this is what we could have said for Sam's idea, well a Petrarchan sonnet begins with an octet, eight lines.

The octet introduces an idea problem, question, or argument.

So that would support Sam's comment.

So we could say the problem or the question that Barrett Browning introduces is, how do I love thee? She's asking how she can explain or quantify her love for her future husband.

She acknowledges that she feels it is immeasurable because it fills the depth and breadth and height of her being.

So how can she explain it in more measurable terms? So a really, really nice way of how we could justify Sam's comment.

We could also move on, the sestet, six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet responds to the argument or idea introduced in the octet.

Again, we could say here the volta brings a more specific and personal insight into the speaker's love.

Barrett Browning considers how her love affects her life, specifically.

She begins referring to herself using personal pronouns, such as I and my, to explain how love has emotionally liberated her and healed her past pain.

She articulates how her love has enriched her life specifically, but ends defiantly by stating that even death cannot stop love.

It is bountiful and unstoppable.

So again, some really nice ideas of how we could support Sam's fantastic statement.

So what she seems to be struggling to express in the beginning of the poem is clarified and emphasise at the end, that's how we could bring that to a close.

Well done if you picked up on anything similar in your own pieces of work.

Okay, we have reached learning cycle two already.

My goodness, you are working incredibly hard today.

So let's keep that going throughout this learning cycle.

So this learning cycle is going to be all about the fantastic imagery in the poem of sonnet 43.

In fact, that is one of the reasons why I love this poem so much is that rich and vivid imagery that Barrett Browning uses throughout.

So what we're gonna focus on today is exploring that imagery in a bit more detail.

So let's get started.

So here are some of the images Barrett Browning evokes in the poem.

Let's take a look at what they are.

She speaks about the sun, she speaks about candlelight, and she speaks about childhood's faith, this idea of childhood's faith, the kind of faiths and beliefs we have in childhood.

So my question for you is as follows.

So analyse the image of the sun.

Thinking about how this represents the speaker's love for her future husband or her future husband himself.

So what I would like you to consider are the following.

So what does the sun remind you of or what does it represent and what is the role of the sun? And potentially could you even link these to some of the key central ideas of Barrett Browning's poem? So take that image of the sun, complete those tasks and then do push play when you'd like to see how you could have approached this task.

Okay, fantastic work on that.

Really, really well done.

And I totally agree.

You know the sun is such a rich vivid image, isn't it? We can almost interpret this in lots of different ways.

So in the poem she says, "I love thee by sun".

So let's see what we could have said.

Well, we could have said the sun is reminiscent of warmth and happiness, suggesting that the speaker's love brings warmth and happiness to her life.

You know, people generally have a very positive interpretation, don't they, of the sun and bright sunny days.

And it certainly links to warmth and happiness and the warmth and happiness that is present throughout the poem.

Well done if he picks up on that.

We could also focused on the idea that the sun gives life and provides sustenance to all other organisms. You know, in some ways, in many ways the sun is essential to life.

So we could link that to the poem, couldn't we? We could say that perhaps love has given new life to Barrett Browning, particularly given that she was so unwell.

So making a kind of nice little contextual link there as well.

And our final point we could say is that the sun is the centre of the universe.

Everything revolves around the sun, doesn't it? In our universe.

So again, we could link that to the poem by saying perhaps Barrett Browning is comparing her future husband to the sun to suggest that he's the centre of her world.

So really different ideas there, but three really high level ways that we could link our analysis of the sun to key ideas in the poem.

So great job if you picked up on anything similar in your own analysis.

Okay, check for understanding for me then please.

So which of the following uses the key word evokes correctly? Is it A, Barrett Browning evokes a sense of peace from the reader? Is it B, Barrett Browning evokes a metaphor to create.

Is it C, this metaphor evokes feelings of sadness and pain? Or is it D, Barrett Browning evokes the poem in many ways? Really excited to see how you go on this one.

So hit that pause button, complete the task, and then do push play when you'd like to see which is correct.

Okay, fantastic work to everybody who identified A and C, it was a trick question really.

There was more than one correct answer.

So we could say that A, Barrett Browning evokes a sense of peace from the reader.

And C, this metaphor evokes feelings of sadness and pain can be absolutely correct.

Evoking is all about inspiring a certain feeling in your audience.

And these are correct uses of that word.

Great job if you picked up on that.

Okay, so we have reached our final practise task of today's lesson.

So let's make it count.

So your task is as follows, I would like you to analyse the remaining images that Barrett Browning evokes and those ones we didn't cover in the lesson are candle lights and childhood's faith.

And your task is as follows, I would like you to consider the following things and that is, what does the image remind you of or represent? How does the image represent the speaker's love for her future husband or his role in her life? And finally, here's a tip to get you started.

Some of these images evoke innocence, guidance, hope, and purity.

A really nice tip there from Lucas that I think can really help us understand some of these pieces of evidence and what feelings they evoke amongst us as a reader.

So super excited to see how you get on with this one.

So hit that pause button, complete the task, and then do push play when you'd like to move on to some feedback.

Okay, fantastic work on that task.

You are working incredibly well and it is lovely to see you analysing these key moments, these key quotes from the poem in such a high level way.

So let's take a look at how we could have approached this one.

So, "I love thee by candlelight." What could we have said about this? Well, we could have said the speaker is expressing how she loves her future husband through day and night.

You know, candlelight is used particularly in this time period to to light rooms in darkness at night.

So it's kind of suggesting that her love is extended throughout the day, which is a really nice idea.

We've also got the idea that Barrett Browning evokes the image of a candle in the dark.

Perhaps this is how she views her future husband as a guiding light in dark times.

So just you can imagine that kind of candle just kind of flickering in a dark environment, linking to her love for her husband.

And remember, Barrett Browning struggled with her health and was disowned by her father.

So perhaps she views him as a light in dark times.

So another really nice contextual link there using kind of evidence from the poem to make a really high level contextual point.

Well done if you picked up on anything similar in your own analysis.

And we could also look at this other really brilliant idea, this idea of childhood's faith.

So let's see what we could have said about this one.

Well, we could have spoken about the idea of childhood itself.

Childhood reminds us of innocence and youth.

You know, people generally tend to associate their childhood as a happy time, as an innocent time.

And this could reflect the purity of Barrett Browning's love for her future husband.

You know, it's not kind of polluted or darkened by any negativity, the kind of negativities we get as we enter into adulthood.

So we could definitely link just on the idea of childhood there and well done if you did that in your own work.

We've also got this idea of faith.

So faith could illustrate that Barrett Browning is losing her spiritual faith, but that this faith is being replaced by the love she feels for her future husband.

It's a really interesting word choice there by Barrett Browning.

And I think we can make some really high level comments like the one we've just done on the board about it.

And finally, we could also speak about the idea that children are very passionate and strong minded.

Perhaps Barrett Browning is trying to illustrate that she loves her future husband with the passion and conviction of a young child.

So when we are young, we have lots of hobbies, don't we? And we become kind of obsessed with them.

We have like a childhood engagement, a childhood love of them that's very kind of naive and pure.

And Barrett Browning is almost suggesting that she has the same kind of feeling for her husband or her future husband.

Once again, great job if you focused on anything similar or picked up on any similar ideas in your own work.

Okay, we have reached the end of today's lesson.

It has been an absolute pleasure to teach you on one of my favourite poems, which is "Sonnet 43".

So let's recap all of the things that we have looked at today.

So firstly, Barrett Browning wrote this poem for her future husband to express her deep love for him.

Barrett Browning begins the poem by expressing her love in a more abstract and unquantifiable way.

In the sestet Barrett Browning finds more personal and specific ways to express and measure her love.

Barrett Browning uses the image of a sun, arguably, to represent the idea that her husband brings warmth, light, sustenance, and purpose to her life.

And finally, Barrett Browning's use of imagery conveys admiration for and adoration of her future husband.

It's been absolutely fantastic to teach you on this lesson, and I really look forward to teaching you on another lesson in this sequence.

So thank you very much and goodbye.