How do Barret Browning and Wordsworth use the sonnet form to portray strong feelings and emotions?

   The sonnets were written in different time eras. Wordsworth wrote ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ in the Romantic era.  At that time, people were naturalistic.  This could explain why his poem has so much nature in it.  So much, that there seems to be an absence of humanity.  ‘In the smokeless air.’  Wordsworth’s feelings and emotions are expressed in conjunction with nature.  He blends images of the city and his own reactions to them in one whole.  ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’.  He effortlessly shifts from nature to structure without losing the central theme of the beauty around him.

   Elizabeth Barret Browning wrote ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese XLIII’ in the Victorian era. She uses the three tenses in the poem – past, present and future.  This makes it seem like everything is included in the poem.  The poem is simple.  Instead of using language in a clever way, Barret Browning uses language in a clever way, knowing she only has a short space to say what she wants to say.  She also uses caesura through the poem.  This balances the structure making it seem she has a balanced love.

  It seems like Barret Browning is using hyperbolae through out the poem, ‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height’, but she is being honest.  This is because of the restrictive structure of a sonnet.  She would have had been selective and only chosen the important things to put into it.  So, it sounds over exaggerated, but it is just because she has a limited amount of space to put down all her feelings.

   It could also be said that Wordsworth uses hyperbolae.  ‘All bright and glittering’.  It would again only seem to be exaggerated because of the restrictive structure of the sonnet form.  So Wordsworth also had to carefully choose what he included in the poem.

   Overall Wordsworth and Barret Browning use the sonnet form to portray feelings and emotions because of the restricted structure a sonnet provides.  This means they had to be selective in choosing which points to put into the poem and so only chose the important ones which would most show their feelings and emotions.