Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 11” from Sonnets from the Portuguese features the continued philosophizing of the obsessed speaker as she falls in love while trying to justify that love to herself and to her belovèd.
First Quatrain: “And therefore if to love can be desert”
The speaker, who has so often berated her own value, now continues to evolve toward accepting the idea that she might, in fact, be “not all unworthy.” She contends that if the ability to love can be deserved, as an award for goodness or service, she feels that it just might be possible for her to have enough importance to accept the love of one so obviously above her.
Again, however, she begins her litany of flaws; she has pale cheeks, and her knees tremble so that she can hardly “bear the burden of a heavy heart.” She continues her string of self-deprecations into the second quatrain and first tercet.
Second Quatrain: “This weary minstrel-life that once was girt”
She has lived a “weary minstrel-life,” and while she once thought of accomplishing great things, as Alexander the Great had taken Aornus, she now finds herself barely able to compose a few melancholy poems.
She finds it difficult even to compete “’gainst the valley nightingale,” but she has also decided, while both thinking of and obsessing over these negative aspects of the life, to reconsider her possibilities. She realizes that she is merely distracting herself from more important issues.
First Tercet: “To these things? O Belovèd, it is plain”
Thus she asks herself, “why advert / / To these things?” Indeed, why concentrate on the past negativity, when such a glorious future has been heralded? She then directly addresses her suitor, claiming, “O Belovèd, it is plain / I am not of thy worth.” She still insists on making it known how aware she is that she is not of her suitor’s station. However, she is now willing to consider that they might be able to grow a relationship.
Second Tercet: “From that same love this vindicating grace”
She advances an odd philosophical position that because she loves the man, that love will offer her “vindicating grace.” Thus she can accept his love and love him while still allowing herself to believe that such a love is “in vain” and that she can still “bless” him with her love, while simultaneously she can “renounce [him] to [his] face.”
Her complex of accepting and rejecting allows her continue to believe she is both worthy yet somehow not quite worthy of this love. She cannot forsake the notion that she can never be equal to him, yet she can accept his love and the prospect that somehow, somewhere beyond her ability to grasp it is the possibility that despite all of her flaws, she ultimately is deserving of such a great and glorious love.
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