In the poem, sonnet 43 and the letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, it talks about love in one story. In the other, it talks about how her life affected her writing. Due to this, she was not as happy as others would normally be. Her husband Robert Brown was a fellow, loyal craftsman. It was dedicated to her husband, poet Robert Browning. Elizabeth felt as if he had rescued her from her desperate lifestyle she had in London. She was very sick and spent most of her life upstairs. Her only method to solve the pain was writing poetry.
In sonnet 43, the speaker tells us many things in this poem clearly. The speaker confesses how big her love is and tells about her husband. The phrase “I love thee” is repeated many times throughout the poem which emphasizes the idea that Browning’s love is true. In terms of death, Elizabeth is determined to carry her "love for thee" beyond the grave, if God allows her. In the sonnet she says, “I love thee to the level of every day’s / most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.” This means that she wants to be with her love at all hours of the day.
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When Robert Browning read her work he was so impressed he wrote asking to meet her.
In the poem she suggests that this love has now returned and will be given to her husband. In the beginning of the poem, Elizabeth captures the reader's attention by asking, "How do I Love Thee? The poet takes us back to that childhood of hers after falling in love with her soul-mate. In the poem she is trying to describe the abstract feeling of love by measuring how much her love means to her. In the second line she says, “I love thee to the depth & breath & height”, she tries to measure something that cannot be measured. However, no one can really tell you the true meaning of love, because everyone has different points of views about
love. In the sonnet, browning comments, “Let me count the ways!” which means that there are too many ways in which she loves her husband. The speaker’s love for “thee” is she had for her childhood heroes and other people she admired. The speaker tells us many things in this poem. The speaker tells us how much love she has for him and how it is sincere. Toward the end of the poem it also states that she loves this man with her childhood’s faith. I think what she means is that she loves him like a child would.
...onsidered to be a huge romantic gesture; it allowed the writers thoughts and feelings to be spoken through words. It was a way to tell their lovers how they truly felt, in what was at the time one of the most romantic ways to do so. It allowed both poets to create dramatic effects when needed, explore their emotions and declare their love as everlasting. This was all done in 14 lines, usually following the structure of an iambic pentameter. The structure of Sonnet 43 can be differentiated from the more traditional Shakespearean sonnet as it follows the structure of an Italian sonnet (also known as the Petrarchan sonnet) rather than the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet. The first 8 lines which are known as the octave imposes a problem of some sort, the first four lines (quatrain) typically introduce the problem; the next quatrain is where the problem is developed.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning is an English Poet of the Romantic Movement who read various number of Shakespeare’s plays and many different passages from Paradise Lost before the age of 10. As a child, Elizabeth suffered from lung ailment and spinal injury that had plagued her for the rest of her life, but that didn’t stop her from completing her education, and writing numerous amount of sonnets and poems. When she was living under her father’s tyrannical rule, she bitterly opposed slavery and her siblings being sent away to Jamaica by writing the poem, The Seraphim and Other Poems, that expresses the Christian sentiments in the form of Greek tragedy. In 1846, the couple, Elizabeth and Robert, eloped and settled in Florence, Italy, in which helped
It speaks about not allowing anything to break the marital bond not even old age or sickness. The united couple must stand together and not allow their hearts to wander. In the beginning of the poem, the first question asked of the bride and groom is if there are any admitted impediment that would hinder or corrupt this union. Shakespeare even allows the reader to understand that he truly believes the words that he writes by stating, “If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved” (Sonnet 481). Shakespeare interjects his personal beliefs by telling the reader that if this poem is not true, then he was never was a writer, and that no man has ever
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. Although it often seems absent, people constantly strive for this ever-present force as a means of acceptance. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is an influential poet who describes the necessity of love in her book of poems Sonnets from the Portuguese. In her poems, she writes about love based on her relationship with her husband – a relationship shared by a pure, passionate love. Browning centers her life and happiness around her husband and her love for him. This life and pure happiness is dependent on their love, and she expresses this outpouring and reliance of her love through her poetry. She uses imaginative literary devices to strengthen her argument for the necessity of love in one’s life. The necessity of love is a major theme in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 43” and “Sonnet 29.”
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.
She talks about that love with a more realistic, relatable edge. The love she feels for whoever "thee" is, assuming it's Robert Browning, her husband, is passionate and beautiful, but she talks about her love only after she admits a group of less warm, loving feelings. It is very prevalent in each sonnet contained. It’s easy to see that loving her beloved, her husband, is the one of the ways she actually knows she exists. She tries to list the many different types of love that she so obviously feels, and also to figure out the many different types of relationships between these vast and different kinds of love.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 's "Sonnet XLIII" speaks of her love for her husband, Richard Browning, with rich and deeply insightful comparisons to many different intangible forms. These forms—from the soul to the afterlife—intensify the extent of her love, and because of this, upon first reading the sonnet, it is easy to be impressed and utterly overwhelmed by the descriptors of her love. However, when looking past this first reading, the sonnet is in fact quite ungraspable for readers, such as myself, who have not experienced what Browning has for her husband. As a result, the visual imagery, although descriptive, is difficult to visualize, because
In Sonnet I, Barrett Browning alludes to the Greek poet Theocritus and of how he “had sung... of the sweet years... the dear wished for years.” The use of the passive verb ‘sung’ demonstrates the overpowering restriction of emotion during the Victorian period. This comparison between the ‘sweet years’ of Theocritus and the ‘melancholy years’ of Barrett Browning is then followed by the sibilance of ‘sweet, sad years’. This emphasis of syllable is able to mirror the sound of a sigh, and hence, once more draw on the tone of doubt expressed by Barrett Browning in her early
"Was this what it all meant--utter, intact separateness, obscured by the heat of living?" Elizabeth is questioning the reason for living. Particularly, she is wondering at her own existence. Her life seems to have no meaning and she does not connect with any one, especially her husband.
A sonnet is a lyric poem of fourteen lines, following one of several set of rhyme-schemes. Critics of the sonnet have recognized varying classifications, but the two characteristic sonnet types are the Italian type (Petrarchan) and the English type (Shakespearean). Shakespeare is still nowadays seen as in idol in English literature. No one can read one of his works and be left indifferent. His way of writing is truly fascinating. His sonnets, which are his most popular work, reflect several strong themes. Several arguments attempt to find the full content of those themes.
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.
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.
Transformative power of love can cause a relationship to deepen and develop. Through the manipulation of her sonnets, EBB channels the contextual perspective of love being spiritually transformative. Within the Victorian era, women prior to marriage were considered ‘property’ of their fathers. Social expectation saw women obey their father’s rules and obligation. However, the introduction of her “lover” Robert Browning saw a decrease in the relationship with her father to the point he disowned her. Whilst a decay in her family relationships were present, a growth and development was seen through her love based relationship. The progression of EBB’s sonnets exemplifies her transforming perspective on love, further allowing her to understand and accept her emerging emotions. In sonnet I, the repetition “Spring” signifies her rebirth from a “melancholy past”. The symbolism season further represents the transformative nature of love as their relationships deepens. Within Sonnet XXXII, EBB utilizes an extended metaphor comparing herself to a debased musical instrument which can still play a beautiful tune if the musician is skillful “More like an out of tune worn viol… for perfect strains may float ‘neath master hands.” The changing tone is evident within the Volta, where EBB has progressed from
Shakespeare's sonnets are a romantic and charming series of poems. His use of rhyme and passionate, eloquent language serve to illuminate his strong feelings. These techniques were probably the most fluent way for such a writer as him to express the immeasurable love that he obviously felt for his mysterious lady. Examining the numerous ways Shakespeare found to describe it, the reader believes that this love was undoubtedly lasting and authentic. He often made heart-felt comments about his emotions that could also suit lovers in the present day. Because of this, and the fact that people read them yet, Shakespeare's sonnets are timeless and universal, just like the concept of love itself.
Sonnet 73 is about a speaker who is trying to break it gently to his beloved the news that he’s going to die, that he’s in the last stages of his life, the fall of his life, and that the beloved, the loved one, will have to go on alone. He starts out this way: