Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

Sonnets from the Portuguese, written c. 1845–1846 and published first in 1850, is a collection of 44 love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The collection was acclaimed and popular during the poet's lifetime and it remains so today. Despite what the title implies, the sonnets are entirely Browning's own, and not translated from Portuguese.

The first line of Sonnet 43 has become one of the most famous in English poetry: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."

Title

Barrett Browning was initially hesitant to publish the poems, believing they were too personal. However, her husband Robert Browning insisted they were the best sequence of English-language sonnets since Shakespeare's time and urged her to publish them. To offer the couple some privacy, she decided to publish them as if they were translations of foreign sonnets. She initially planned to title the collection "Sonnets translated from the Bosnian", but Robert Browning proposed that she claim their source was Portuguese, probably because of her admiration for Camões and Robert's nickname for her: "my little Portuguese". The title is also a reference to Les Lettres Portugaises (1669).

Numbers 33 and 43

The most famous poems from the collection are numbers 33 and 43, especially 43:

In popular culture

The first line of Sonnet 43 has been used in a number of titles and works.

Music

"Let Me Count the Ways" (Yoko Ono song), 1980 song from Milk and Honey

"Let Me Count the Ways" (Natural song), 2002

"Let Me Count the Ways (I Love You)", a 1976 song by The Temptations from The Temptations Do the Temptations

"Let Me Count the Ways", a 1980 song by Tanya Tucker from Dreamlovers

"How Do I Love Thee", a 1984 instrumental by The Shadows from Guardian Angel

"Let Me Count the Ways", a 1984 song by Steve Hackett from Till We Have Faces

"Let Me Count the Ways", a 1996 song by Dave Koz from Off the Beaten Path

"How do I love thee?", from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Libby Larsen (1990)

Literature

Let Me Count the Ways, a 1965 work by Peter De Vries

Let Me Count the Ways, a 1988 novel by Leigh Michaels

Let Me Count the Ways: Discovering Great Sex Without Intercourse, a 1999 book by Marty Klein

"Let Me Count the Ways", a 2007 poem by Matthew Byrne, also appearing in The Best American Poetry 2007

Television

"Let Me Count the Ways", an episode of Knots Landing

"Let Me Count the Ways", an episode of Cheers

"Let Me Count the Ways", an episode of The Red Green Show

"How Do I Love Thee", a fictional gameshow for newly-weds on Married... with Children

The collection also appears in the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when it is gifted to Buffy by a love interest.