Elizabeth Barret Browing

911 Words2 Pages

Love does not have a fixed definition, and is described and expressed in different ways. Is an emotion, attraction to something or someone, and even unexplainable. It is so complex and well known that love has a national day, which is usually in February 14 to celebrate love. Love can be for a food, person, friend, item, it can be for anything. The same way láska is expressed in different way, is writing and pronounce differently. In French is written as amour, in Português is amar, in Irish language is Is breá, each language has its own way of writing it and expressing it. One of the most popular forms of expressing love from person to person is by poems or poetry. Elizabeth Bishop and Elizabeth Barret Browing are two poets who have shown …show more content…

Bishop’s poem is structured as a villanelle, which is composed of nineteen lines, and divided into six stanzas. The first five stanzas have three lines and last has four. The villanelle is a complicated form which limits the expression of love in the poem. Even though Bishop was restricted, it does not let the villanelle to interrupt her message about love and conversational flow. As we saw the poem progress and goes from simple and unimportant things that people love or gave value, to complex and important ones. Additionally, Bishop’s poem utilizes two rhymes, A or B which all the lines rhyme with either "master" or "intent". For example in the first stanza in line one is rhyme a, "master", second line is rhyme b, "intent" and third line rhyme a, "disaster".
On the other hand, Browing followed a sonnet for her poem, which is composed of fourteen lines. This format gives more space and freedom to Browing to express the love she fell for “thee” (). Browing’s poem is highly structured in the number of lines, the number of syllables in each line, and the rhyme scheme. Which is the literary tradition for sonnets. There are several different traditional rhyme schemes for sonnets such as is ABBA ABBA CDC DCD. These different in rhyme and structure give both authors an interesting way of presenting their …show more content…

It might have some similarities in ways of demonstrated or expressed but is not going to be the same way of expression or description from person to person. Bishop’s poem approaches loss in a rather sidelong manner; it doesn’t dive straight in and attack the big issues, like the loss of a home or a loved one, but instead begins with the little things that we lose here and there. This way Bishop aligns these unimportant possessions with the more significant things ones. As the poem goes on, the items mentioned become more and more meaningful, as does their loss. We see by the end that the loss of simple objects, like a key or a watch, becomes an extended metaphor for the loss of other things the poet loves, such as her past homes or lovers. While, Browing’s sonnet, love is everything. Loving the beloved is the way that the speaker actually knows she exists. Trying to list the different types of love that she feels, and to work out the relationships between these different kinds of love, becomes a new way of expressing her affection and admiration for

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