I am a young woman interested in love. I see that it can be both cruel and life-saving. In other words, love can save one from insanity or take one to the grave. So, love for me is a very intriguing subject. When I first read the poems, I thought of Elizabeth Browning secluded in her room, smiling with delightful emotions about someone she loves. This is because most of the time when I am in love, I experience delightful emotions. The next time I read the poems, I was not feeling this love's delight, but rather the despair that was going on in my life. I thought to myself, "What if Elizabeth Browning wasn't feeling delighted but was crying in her room and feeling alone?" What else could this poem be about? I thought of God, because I know I should turn to God more and thank him for my good days. However, the only time I can think of God is during my bad times. There have been many claims that she is speaking to her husband, Robert Browning in her poems. It was true that she was married to Robert Browning in 1846 and was very much in love with him. My paper will examine the theory of critics who have clearly stated that Sonnets from the Portuguese, which are a sequence of poems, tell a story of no one else but Robert Browning himself. However there is some evidence in her poems that suggest she is speaking to God, rather than to a human lover.
             Despite what many critics such as Magil has stated "...this sequence of love poems is not a translation, but a very personal telling of the love story of Elizabeth Barrett and the poet Robert Browning" (1). To understand what critics and I will say, we have to know a few things about Browning's life. Growing up, she had many illnesses that made her alienated so she was very withdrawn. Some say she went through stages of anorexia, and she had other unusual symptoms, as well as lung problems and nervousness. Some say she had developed a life o...