Beauty Of Tension In Mrs. Browning’s Sonnets From The Portuguese

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), also known as Mrs. Browning, is aBritish poetess in the Victorian age of Britain. Her masterpiece, Sonnets from thePortuguese (1850), a collection of44poems, is renowned for its sincerity andexquisiteness. Her sonnets are captivating and impressive, some of which areconsidered by some scholars as great as Shakespeare’s sonnets. Whereas the domesticresearch on her Sonnets from the Portuguese is chiefly from Mrs. Browning andRobert Browning’s love story. Concerning the characteristics from the text itself,there remains a lot of space to explore. Allan Tate（1938）, a representative of the NewCriticism, put forward that “all good poetry have some common characteristics, it isthe overall effect, a product of meaning structure, making a name for it, is called‘tension’”. Then with the development of tension theory, it has become a “surveyor’srod” to judge whether it is a good poem or not. So this paper focuses on how tensiontheory in New Criticism is displayed in Mrs. Browning’s poetry.This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter One is an introduction to theauthor Mrs. Browning and the sonnet sequence Sonnets from the Portuguese as wellas the sonnet. Chapter Two gives a general review on the studies of Sonnets from thePortuguese made by international and domestic critics from various perspectives andthen presents new statements of this thesis. Chapter Three introduces the definition oftension theory, which involves the definition, background, development andsignificance of “tension”. Chapter Four centers on three aspects of tension in sound,tension in images and tension in syntax to illustrate the beauty of tension embodied inher Sonnets from the Portuguese. First of all, tension in sound includes regularity andvariations in meter, regularity of end-rhyme and abruptness of internal rhyme. Theanalysis involves tension in meter and rhyme, in which the regular and standard Iambic Pentameter Meter is glutted with variation. Nevertheless, every variation hasits intention and its connotation. It does not undermine the effect of a sonnet; on thecontrary, it beautifies it, for those conflicts of regularity and variation make our meterdiverse. In addition, the abruptness of internal rhyme in each strict meter andend-rhyme is like a placid lake permeated with passion and wonder. Multiple internalrhyme such as assonance aims to change the rhyme naturally and enhance the senseof rhythm, in the meantime, it forms the fixed end rhyme.Secondly, there is tension in images, mainly the images of “thou” and “I” as wellas the images of death and life. Regarding images of characters in “thou” and “I”, itprovides two clues of interpretation as the speaker addressing to the object and theother as the theme of love. Life and death are the most visualized as well as theimaginary figures in the sonnets. The topic of life and death enhances the depth ofthis forever topic.Thirdly, tension in syntax includes tension in the imperative sentence and tensionin the interrogative sentence. The tension in syntax is a noteworthy study point in theclose reading of Sonnets from the Portuguese. It mainly includes tension in theimperative sentence, in which the direct and sincere request with assertiveness andforcefulness has become sentences with connotative meaning, and all this impairs thefunction of the imperative sentence and intensifies the feelings. Tension in theinterrogative sentence is filled with mental conflicts of the poetess. The use of theinterrogative sentence is an effective way to begin a topic or deepen the emotion.Chapter Five draws the conclusion that the beauty of tension illustrated abovemakes this collection of poems successful. The artistic success is unfolded in theprocess of close reading based on the Victorian background and artistic thought. Thevariation, internal rhyme, opposite images and syntax bring about conflicts intobalance as to form the beauty of tension.