Analyze the woman's position in "To George Sand: A Desire," "To George Sand: A Recognition," and "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett...

The two poems written in honor of George Sands (Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin) openly question the gender binary norms of the 19th century, while "Sonnets from the Portuguese" uses subtler means to achieve this objective.

In "George Sand: A Desire," Browning subverts the natural order of male and female identity from the very first lines of the poem:

Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,

Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions

Of thy tumultuous...

The two poems written in honor of George Sands (Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin) openly question the gender binary norms of the 19th century, while "Sonnets from the Portuguese" uses subtler means to achieve this objective.

In "George Sand: A Desire," Browning subverts the natural order of male and female identity from the very first lines of the poem:

Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,

Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions

Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance

And answers roar for roar....

The woman assumes a cerebral persona typically associated with the masculine nature, while the man is imbued with the conventional feminine attributes of compassion or emotionalism. George Sands is portrayed as a courageous iconoclastic figure in a den of lions. She challenges the conventions of her time, answering "roar for roar." Browning's hope is that history will regard George Sands as "a pure genius sanctified from blame" for subverting the natural order of gender identity.

The poem "George Sands: A Recognition" is equally bold. Browning commends George Sands for being a "true woman" and "true genius" who denies her "woman's nature with a manly scorn." Later in the poem, Browning ponders the paradox of discarding "the gauds and armlets worn / By weaker women in captivity" while keeping one's hair "unshorn." Browning's poetry exposes the innate strength of feminine proclivities in even the most vocal of rebels. She ends her poem with a prayer that her heroine will burn ever brighter in heaven, where God will "unsex" her on the heavenly shores. 

Browning's exhortation parallels her call for her heroine to be "sanctified from blame" beside the "angel's grace" in "George Sands: A Desire." In these two poems, Browning subverts the patriarchy by arguing that since both men and women are equal in the heavenly realms, they should be equals on earth as well. Browning uses this analogy to draw attention to the plight of female poets and authors, who she felt were largely marginalized in the 19th century.

Meanwhile, "Sonnets from the Portuguese" is more subtle in tone. In her article "Regendering Petrarch," Marianne Van Remoortel explains why this subtlety works:

• "Sonnets from the Portuguese" is a collection of 44 poems. In these poems, Browning transposes male love-sickness onto a female psyche. The female protagonist in the poems takes on the previous deprecatory stance of the male supplicant in a romantic courtship. Browning proclaims that it is her lover who now has the ultimate "power" and "grace" to unmask her true self. 

• In the anthology, Browning does not resort to the use of synecdoche to reduce a woman to the sum of her body parts (as Petrarch did in his poems). Browning presents the woman in love as a whole person who has a passionate nature and who does not need to resort to artifice to keep her lover's interest.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. 

• In her anthology, Browning chooses not to focus on the state of a typically emotional 19th century male lover. Instead, she highlights the idealized femininity of the Victorian era, when women were largely confined to the domestic sphere.

• In Petrarchan sonnets, the focus is often on the male response to unrequited love. In a Victorian anthology such as Browning's however, the focus is on the frail, sickly woman, who is the object of a male lover's affections. Browning cleverly exposed 19th-century gender issues by calling attention to the woman's position in society.

• Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese" delighted Victorian sensibilities (with its erotic portrayal of a refined and modest female protagonist) while it simultaneously drew attention to the plight of middle-class Victorian women, who were largely confined to "fashionable" indoor living. With little exercise and few outlets to channel their physical and emotional energies, women eventually became pale and sickly.

• Browning's submission to her lover's courtship also illuminates the reality of 19th-century life for women. Remoortel contends that this submission was an economic and social necessity on Browning's part. However, she also acknowledges the fact that Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law of England emphasized the responsibility of husbands to provide for and to protect their wives.

• In the 44th sonnet, Browning mentions eglantine and ivy. Remoortel points out that the eglantine is a symbol of poetic independence, while the ivy is a symbol of the objectifying forces that threaten female agency. At the same time, the eglantine is also a symbol of poetry, while the ivy is a symbol of marriage. Browning's mention of the two symbolic plants highlights her hope that harmonious and egalitarian relationships will flourish within the realm of marriage and the literary sphere. 

Source: (Re)gendering Petrarch: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by Marianne Van Remoortel, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Fall, 2006), pp. 247-266