AQA GCSE English Literature Paper 2 Love and Relationships Poetry Anthology

Desire

How is the theme of desire presented in Sonnet 29 – I think of thee! and one other poem?

In Sonnet 29 – I think of thee! by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a poem written in the sonnet form describing the speaker's endeavours with love and desire, and The Farmer's Bride by Charlotte Mew, a dramatic monologue of the speaker's relationship with his wife, both present the recurring theme of desire to be rather overpowering, bordering on violence.

In both poems, a sense of desire is ever present in the speakers. In Sonnet 29, the speaker's desire to be close to her lover makes her rather impatient: this is seen in lines 8-9, where Barrett Browning makes use of the imperatives "Renew" and "Rustle" to order the speaker's lover to come to her "instantly". This gives the speaker a tone of desperation, as if life cannot go on for her without the "presence" of her lover. In addition to the use of imperatives, Barrett Browning makes use of an early Volta at line 7, showing how desperate the speaker is for her lover since she is eagerly providing the resolution for her 'problem' mentioned in the earlier lines.

While the speaker in Sonnet 29 is presented to be impatient due to her desire to be with her lover, this is quite the opposite for the speaker in The Farmer's Bride, where the speaker is able to exercise control over himself, although he, too, gives into his desire to be near his wife by the end of the poem. The speaker's restraint is shown in the fact that it has been "Three summers" (three years) since he got married, during which time he has clearly not violated his wife's sexual boundaries, but it is also obvious to see that the farmer's resolve is crumbling as he expresses his frustration at the end of stanzas 3-5. The rhetorical question "But what to me?", although it makes the reader feel pity for the farmer, makes it clear that he is getting more impatient and is not willing to wait any longer for his wife.

As both poems progress, the desire of each speaker to be with the one they love seems to get stronger until what is meant to be a sweet and simple love turns into something violent, almost sinister. This is especially true in Sonnet 29, where the speaker's love becomes so overwhelming that it completely overpowers her lover, like the "wild vines, about a tree". The fact that the speaker describes her desire as "wild" shows the uncontrollable nature of it, in addition to the fact that they "insphere" her lover "until there's nought to see", almost choking him. This problem is fixed when "these bands of greenery" are "burst, shattered, everywhere!" towards the end of the sonnet. The powerful verbs "burst" and "shattered" are rather violent, depicting an explosion of love that the speaker feels towards her lover, which ends with the calmer afterthought of breathing within his "shadow a new air".

This build-up of tension until a sudden explosion is consistent even in The Farmer's Bride, where the speaker can no longer stand the distance, or rather the "stair betwixt" (between) them. This need to be near her is expressed by Mew in the speaker's exclamation "Oh! my God!", with the exclamation marks showing his heightened emotions and unstable state of mind, further reinforced by his repetition of "down", "brown" and "hair", which are all the climax of his desire for her, albeit sexual. Here, the Mew's sexualising of the speaker's wife and therefore the presentation of him, makes the reader question who the 'wild' one is, since he often associates her with the "frightened fay" and the "first wild violets"; the speaker's inability to hold back for longer makes him seem like an animal, rather than his wife.

Overall, the theme of desire, be it sexual desire or the desire to be near the lover physically and emotionally, is presented to be overpowering and even violent, showing these relationships to be unhealthy due to the mere obsession each of the speakers have with their respective lovers.