Composed during a romantic relationship with Robert Browning, Elizabeth wrote the emotionally intimate Sonnet 43. She clearly speaks of love, musing how and why she loves her partner, body and soul. As with the other poems on this site, Elizabeth Browning also made a few changes to her poem, which can be seen from the marks and scratch-outs on the digitized manuscript on the right of this text. The first notable change in the poem is in the 9th line: “I love thee with the pafs[ion,] put to use” (9). There’s another word underneath “passion,” one that begins with “pa,” but it’s very difficult to tell what lies beneath the new word. I’ve been considering it may have been “patience,” but of course I can’t be certain. However, “patience” would still fit into the context of the line when it’s considered (I love thee with the [patience] put to use.” Unlike with the Wordworth poems and the manuscript changes, Browning’s changes are harder to read and decipher. Yet, if the initial word was “patience,” the meaning of the line is less sexually suggestive than the changed “passion.” A word like “patience” suggests more emotional understanding and of the speaker’s relationship—the actual definition is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” Passion, as stated previously, is very suggestive of the more sensual and sexual aspects of a relationship and emotional fervor. I wanted to highlight this aspect of a manuscript of a work because Wordsworth’s works and changes within the manuscript are much clearer. When a document has illegible or unclear words, marks, smudges, etc., there’s something there we must uncover or at least attempt to. Further, the illegible scribbles may be subjective in interpretation: what do you see and interpret? |
Above: Browning's manuscript of the poem from British Library
Below: Today's text |
Photo used under Creative Commons from Maria Eklind