Dependency of Love

Love is the ubiquitous force that drives all people in life. If people did not want, give, or receive love, they would never experience life because it is the force that completes a person. People rely on this seemingly absent force although it is ever-present. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is an influential poet who describes the necessity of love in her poems from her book Sonnets from the Portuguese. She writes about love based on her relationship with her husband. Her life is dependent on him, and she expresses this same reliance of love in her poetry. She uses literary devices to strengthen her argument for the necessity of love. The necessity of love is a major theme in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 14,” “Sonnet 43,” and “Sonnet 29.”
Browning’s “Sonnet 14” exemplifies the theme of the dependency of love, through point of view. Browning uses first-person singular point of view to create an emotional connection between the speaker and the reader. However, “Sonnet 14” opens with “thou” which helps the reader connect to the speaker of the poem by directly addressing the reader (Biespiel 3521). The requirement that love must come from within made by the speaker, who is assumed to be a woman, are directed strictly towards the reader, an implied male. Browning harvests pity by addressing the reader directly as “thou.” The reader acknowledges that the speaker may not be receiving the love she needs to live. A critic affirms the necessity of love by his statement: “[Browning] wants the love to be lifted out of the realm of human passion into the realm of eternal heavenly passion” (Biespiel 3522). People live hoping to reach going to heaven by doing good deeds and living prosperously. Browning would like people to realize that by...

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...ection through the need of love.

Works Cited

Biespiel,David. “Sonnet14.” Masterplots II. Philip K. Jason. Vol. 7. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2002. 3521-3522. Print.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Sonnets from the Portuguese. Mount Vernon: Peter Pauper Press: 1998. Print.
Canfield Reisman, Rosemary M. “Sonnet 43.” Masterplots II. Philip K. Jason. Vol. 7. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2002. 3526-3528. Print.
Goodman, Brent. “Sonnet 43.” Poetry for Students. Ed. Napiekowski, Marie Rose. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 240-242. Print.
Kelly, David. “Sonnet 43.” Poetry for Students. Ed. Napiekowski, Marie Rose. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 242-244. Print.
Mermin, Dorothy. “Sonnet XXIX.” Poetry for Students. Ed. David Galens. Vol. 16. Detroit: Gale, 2002. 147-155. Print.
Moran, Daniel. “Sonnet XXIX.” Poetry for Students. Ed. David Galens. Vol. 16. Detroit: Gale, 2002. 146-147. Print.