The Great Gatsby & Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Through exploring intertextual connections connections between texts, individuals are able to examine the ways in which differing social, cultural and historical contexts can influence a composer’s choice of language forms and features, and the ideas, values and attitudes conveyed in each text. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby explore similar perspectives of ideal love, influenced by their contexts. Both texts explore similar themes of love and human values however only to a small extent due to being composed in different times as their context influences their perspective on the concept of love however this is manifested in different ways that illuminate the prevailing concerns of vastly different eras. Barrett Browning’s sonnets heighten our understandings of these human emotions through a subversion of the rigid principles of the Victorian Period. Her poemsShe aims to address expectations of female behaviour in her time such as female expectations and Petrarchan form, as well as the significance of genuine love. In contrast, Fitzgerald’s novel similarly examines the concept of love. However, being written in the Jazz Age, he critiques the demoralised world of the 1920’s, a world obsessed with materialism. Thus, a comparison of these texts ensures responders gain better understanding of a contrast of contexts and how differing contexts can shape meaning and alter perspectives.

Both Barrett Browning’s sonnets and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel deal with the themes of ideal love as they were composed in different time periods. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnets take onare written in the Petrarchan form, a male dominated form of romantic expression. Barrett Browning’s structural manipulation of the traditional sonnet line ending relies on enjambment to connote a confident identity.

EXAMPLE. This challenges the traditional notion of courtly love in the Victorian period as she steps outside the expected intellectual sphere for women. Thus, it highlights how a female can challenge the traditional patriarchal values to express an alternate love which is firmly spiritual, culminating in a spiritual love that transcends the physical world. Sonnet XIII accentuates the distinctive context of 1840’s England as it explores the notion that when one values authentic love, it will ultimately be fulfilling. Through this Barrett Browning challenges the value placed on female obedience in a patriarchal society as she developsthrough her development of a passionate female voice. She strengthens her argument for authentic love by subverting the traditional sonnet form by dissenting from the expectations of her context, “Wilt thou have me fashioned into speech the love I bear thee?”. The Rhetorical question and the challenging tone argument confronts demonstrates Browning’s desire to express her love through her literature. The connotation