Cobridme de flores: (Un)Covering Flowers of Portuguese and Spanish Poets in Sonnets from the Portuguese

Abstract

small bound book that Elizabeth Barrett Browning used for Part II of her diary (1832), contains unpublished notes in her hand that give us more information on what she read, translated, and studied around time of her diary entries. (1) Like many of her precursors, she was engaged in a rigorous and disciplined study of ancients that would lead to her major contribution to poetry and addition of her voice to great poetic discourses that had preceded her. note EBB recorded on these unpublished journal pages attests to her ambitions: Ordinary talent is a low sound; & to hear it one must listen--but genius, like thunder does not require our attention--it exacts it. (2) On page three recto she begins a seven-page list of Spanish and Portuguese poets. (3) Exploring fifty-eight poets she lists is an exhaustive education in history of Spanish and Portuguese literature; it includes representatives of medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods and many genres thereof. EBB made her list from John Bowring's 1824 Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain, recording name of every poet and all titles of their poems in order they are listed in Bowring's book. (4) Scholars have long accepted that title EBB chose for her forty-four love sonnets, Sonnets from Portuguese, was a cover to hide their personal nature. Dorothy Mermin tells us that EBB's Sonnets were named from Robert Browning's delight in 'Catarina to Camoens,' and further explains in an endnote that the title was a disguise agreed on by Brownings together; it suggests without actually saying so that poem is a translation. (5) EBB wrote to her sister Arabella on January 12, 1851, poems' publication, that title was chosen after much consideration and that it did not mean (as we understood double-meaning) 'from Portuguese language'... though public (who are very little versed in Portuguese literature) might take it as they pleased. (6) While Mermin and others have recognized title's reference to Portuguese poet de via EBB's poem to Camoens, exploration of Portuguese literature and the double-meaning has ended there. In a previous article I explored EBB's knowledge of and Portuguese literature and argued that this context is critical to our understanding of her Sonnets from Portuguese and her lineage as a love poet (7) Discovery of EBB's seven-page journal list further substantiates her knowledge of and interest in Portuguese and Spanish literature. Not only can we assume that EBB read Bowring's entire collection, but also, given our knowledge of EBB's intellectual pursuits at time she made this list, we can surmise that his anthology probably represents only part of her study of Portuguese and Spanish poets. That she knew more than she could learn from reading Bowring's anthology is evidenced by presence of poet Luis de Camoes on her list, though two poems in Bowring's book that EBB noted make no mention of his beloved Catarina or his epic poem Os Lusiads. (8) EBB made her first draft of to Camoens in November 1831, during time she was writing her diary, revealing that she knew more about his life and work than Bowring's anthology could give her. (9) In addition, EBB mentions and his Lusiads in her poem A Vision of Poets (Poems, 1844), followed by De Vega (Lope Felix de Vega Carpio, 1562-1635) and Calderon (Pedro Calderon de la Barca, 1600-1681), two giants in Spanish literature who are not in Bowring's anthology. EBB had a scholarly and an artistic interest in making her own translations throughout her career and probably would have recognized that Bowring's translations into English verse of Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain might not give her sufficiently direct experience of these poets. Armed with her knowledge of Latin, French, and Italian, she could easily have made her own translations. …