Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Introduction to poetry analysis
Introduction to poetry analysis
Introduction to poetry analysis
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In both of the selections, the author includes the ways in which they love the person they are talking about. In “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”, the author explains, “I love thee with the passion put to use” (Browning 9). This quote can be paraphrased to mean “I love you passionately”. In “Beloved, my Beloved, when I think”, the author says,”No moment at thy voice...but, link by link, / Went counting all my chains” (Browning 5-6). This quote can mean “ When i would think of my love, it would hold me back”, this quote shows the love that the author has for their past loved one. The quotes both show a love relationship, the difference is, is that in “Beloved, my Beloved, when I think”, the poem does not take a direct approach to say “I love you”, instead, the author tells about how much they miss their loved one. …show more content…
In “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”, the author says,”I love thee to the level of every day’s / Most quiet need” (Browning 5-6). This quote explains how the author’s love would take care of her little needs. In “Beloved, my Beloved, when I think”, the author writes, ”That thou wast in the world a year ago”(Browning 2). This quote explains how the author will proceed to talk about their love, they go on to talk about how they feel about their lost love. The differences between the two poems is that “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” explicitly says the theme( I will love you forever) and it shows a simpler way of getting to the overall theme than “Beloved, my Beloved, when I
These poems have quite a few similarities, as well as their differences. Mariam Waddington’s, “Thou Didst Say Me,” displays love being overly joyous but also heart-breaking and despondent. On the other hand Alfred Tennyson’s, “Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal,” depicts a sugary love story all calm and beautiful. Both offered their end of the bargain: conflicting sentiments toward love relations to the table and ultimately delivering a unique testimony about the subject of, love. And as always love may have its golden tragedies but one always has a hold of their own feelings of love.
Both poems represent the despairs and failures of the love they hone for their beloved, with brings a touch of sadness to the poems. From this the reader can feel almost sympathetic to the unrequited lovers, and gain an understanding of the perils and repercussions of love.
As Edgar Allan Poe once stated, “I would define, in brief the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty.” The two poems, “Birthday,” and “The Secret Life of Books” use different diction, theme, and perspective to give them a unique identity. Each author uses different literary devices to portray a different meaning.
on: April 10th 1864. He was born in 1809 and died at the age of 83 in
Robert Browning was poet during the Victorian Age, his wrote about love and established this through his characters. His works explore the nature of love, as shown in “Porphria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess.” Throughout both poems, Robert Browning uses multiple literary devices to help establish the theme of the nature of love.
Both, the poem “Reluctance” by Robert Frost and “Time Does Not Bring Relief” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, revolved around the theme of lost love. Each poet used a similar array of poetic devices to express this theme. Visual imagery was one of the illustrative poetic devices used in the compositions. Another poetic device incorporated by both poets in order to convey the mood of the poems was personification. And by the same token, metaphors were also used to help express the gist of both poems. Ergo, similar poetic devices were used in both poems to communicate the theme of grieving the loss of a loved one.
Browning’s “Sonnet 43” vividly depicts the human dependency of love. She uses irony to emphasize that love overpowers everything. Browning starts the poem with “How do I love thee” (Browning). Ironically, she answers the very question she presents the reader by describing her love and the extent to which she loves (Kelly 244). The ironic question proposes a challenge to the reader. Browning insinuates how love overpowers so that one may overcome the challenge. People must find the path of love in life to become successful and complete. Also, the diction in “Sonnet 43” supports the idea that love is an all-encompassing force. The line, “if God choose, I shall love thee better after death” means that love is so powerful that even after someone passes away lov...
The word choice in Sonnet 43 and Sonnet 116 can be compared as well as contrasted, based on the way the words are used, and also the types of words the authors both Browning, as well as Shakespeare have chosen. In Sonnet 43, Browning uses words similar to the words Shakespeare chose. For example in line two "I love Thee to the depth and breadth and height" the words "Thee" and "breadth" are not common words used in everyday English. "Thee" used here seems to mean 'you', and "breadth" to mean 'width'. This would make the line translate to "I love you to the depth and width and height." The words Browning chooses to use help express exactly how deep and long the love is. In sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare the word choice, as in Browning's Sonnet 43, also uses words that are not common to everyday conversations in the English language. For example Shakespeare uses "impediments" and "tempests" in place of the common words "obstructions" and "disturbances" or "flaws" his choice or words for his sonnet help to show the serious tone, and show that his lesson on love is important.
Moreover, this scenario also reappears at the end of the sonnet, where Browning says, ". . . if God choose, / I shall but love thee better after death" (13-14). In this comparison, Browning 's love is stretched past death to the afterlife, where death becomes a physical and visual reference point, however, the afterlife is not something the reader can visualize. Therefore, the relationship between Browning 's love and the afterlife could not be more ungraspable for the reader, as the reader has no insight into what Browning 's particular afterlife looks like, with respect to her sonnet. Furthermore, Browning 's ending verse, and the aforementioned two verses, all have a common idea: Browning 's comparisons all revolve around contradictions. The sonnet is essentially about the great, vast love Browning feels for her husband, however, that great, vast love is restricted by each comparison, as each comparison has an unwavering finality. For example, in the first verse mentioned, Browning 's love is being compared to a measureable quantity, "the depth and breadth and height[,]" (2) the volume, of her soul. In this case, how much her soul can contain is limited by the measureable quantity of volume. In addition, the second verse, at lines 5
There is also a standard structure in this poem, with the second and last line of each stanza shorter than the other two. It uses half-rhyme, creating an "a, b, a, b" rhyme scheme which adds speed to the entire poem. This, in turn, re-emphasises the fact that time is ticking away and we need to make the best out of our youth and regret not in the future. I find this second poem easier to grasp, mainly due to the references and comparisons to tangible things. I guess the subject matter also appeals more to me, as the subject matter in "Song" gives me an impression that from the physical love he is looking for in the girl, he is not serious about her. As for "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time", it is purer, warning readers to be more careful in what one does with his youth.
The types of love in a poem can be reflected in many ways. One of
Browning's amazing command of words and their effects makes this poem infinitely more pleasurable to the reader. Through simple, brief imagery, he is able to depict the lovers' passion, the speaker's impatience in reaching his love, and the stealth and secrecy of their meeting. He accomplishes this feat within twelve lines of specific rhyme scheme and beautiful language, never forsaking aesthetic quality for his higher purposes.
In the poem "How do I Love Thee", Elizabeth Barret Browning expresses her everlasting nature of love and its power to overcome all, including death. In the introduction of the poem Line 1 starts off and captures the reader’s attention. It asks the simple question, "How do I Love Thee?" Throughout the rest of the poem repetition occurs. Repetition of how she would love thee is a constant reminder in her poem. However, the reader will quickly realize it is not the quantity of love, but its quality of love; this is what gives the poem its power. For example she says, “I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” She is expressing how and what she would love with, and after death her love only grows stronger. Metaphors that the poet use spreads throughout the poem expressing the poets love for her significant other.
...madness, and jealousy. In his poem he used imagery and wordplay Browning links with unit 5 because in his poem he put out a symbol for the urban modern life he writes this poem to influence the generation. I believe he is a symbolic author and a master at writing dramatic monologues. In conclusion, Browning is a modest author and he was one of the most important poets in the Victorian period. Browning lived a great life and his poems live on too I believe Browning work was just misunderstood back in the day and his most important poem would be ‘’ The Ring And The Book’ it is not often looked at today but the poem did bring him a lot of success before he passed away. The descriptions Browning gave off in his poems brought his readers close with the characters Browning made them relate in some shape of form with his unique techniques in his dramatic monologue.
By using references of her grief or her losses, Browning creates a more realistic view of her love suggesting that her love is sincere as it comes from a grieved person, which differs to the positive and idealistic feelings portray in the first octave. The poet then talks about her fondness of her love, revealing that her she lives for her love “ I love thee with the breath, / smiles, tears, of all my life;” (line 12-13), the asyndetic listings of the verbs ‘breath’, ‘smiles’ and ‘tears’, implying that her love can stem from different emotions she feels such as happiness and sadness, suggesting to her beloved that her love comes from good and sad points of her life.