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Summary GCSE English Literature 0475 Sonnet 29 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Review
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A concise review of Sonnet 29 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning for GCSE English Literature [0475] Poetry
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SONNET 29 NOTES: ENGLISH LITERATUREstructure:
- Shakespearean sonnet - 14 lines, octave, sestet, Volta. Iambic parameter with the rhyme scheme of
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Break in Iambic Pentameter
- Volta is the turning point in a sonnet - Line 9 after the first full stop in the poem. „This I have known
always: Love is no more“.
- In the octave of the sonnet, the poet focuses on the passing of time and the fading of love but takes
a drastic turn and discusses how love FEELS in the sestet.
The significance of Volta is to show the turn of thought or argument. In Sonnet 29, the speaker’s
pessimistic view on love comes out in full force in the Volta, as it starts what appears to be the
es
speaker’s entire argument on why love is fickle and how it is something that leads only to pain and
sadness.
Literary features in Sonnet 29ot
- juxtaposition - comparing love’s feebleness to cycles like the sun and moon and tides etc.
Personal reply: Perhaps this shows that love is always doomed to fail, but like the sunrise of a new
day, it is possible to find love again.
N
- alliteration - no longer looked with love my way
- imagery - all the images
- symbolism - sea to loves inconstancy - tides always changing- tides change with the moon and sun;
AJ
plants and flowers - USUALLY symbolic of joy or love or fertility, in the poem, it is the flowers that
wrinkle and wither away, the same way love eventually fades from the heart; moon - moon
represents the fickleness of love, and how it changes with all its phases, before eventually
disappearing- it IS a cycle though, so could be thought of as a chance for new love.
- Contrast - talking about how love ends, whereas the sun rises again, and the season returns with
every year, however love may not.
- THEMES: heartbreak - emotion, the result of fickle love; capricious nature of love- it is fleeting and
fickle, and always fades after time; conflict between mind and heart- the speaker is aware of love’s
ambivalence.
- Speaker: Unknown woman, speaking about love. We assume that it is an unknown woman since we
thought that the poem was not as specific as we would have thought it to be if the poet was the
persona- the speaker is speaking of the nature of love itself, and not how her heart was broken, or
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