Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sonnet 43 Essay

In Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet number 43, the speaker is asking how he/she loves her/his significant other (1). The remainder of the sonnet, lists the ways the speaker loves him/ her (2-13). The final line of the sonnet even states that the speaker will love him /her even better after his/ her death (14). Browning’s 43rd of 44 poems within the Sonnets from the Portuguese is a sonnet written in iambic pentameter, with a Petrarchan pattern. The speaker asks a rhetorical question, “How do I love thee?” (1), yet answers it, “let me count the ways” (1), I will count the ways the speaker loves his/ her significant other throughout the poem. The first way the speaker loves his/ her significant other is through his/ her entire soul,

The second way the speaker loves his/ her significant other is in the little things, in the everyday going about their business things, "to the level of every day’s most quiet need" (5-6). I picture a married couple at the breakfast table drinking their coffee and reading the newspaper, enjoying each other's presence in just knowing they are there as they begin their day, "by sun" (6) and intimate pleasures shared amongst them, "candlelight" (6). The third way the speaker loves his/ her significant other is through the day to day decisions that he / she goes about choosing, "freely" (7). The fourth way the speaker loves his/ her significant other is in matrimony, this makes me believe this couple is married, "purely" (8). The fifth way the speaker loves his/her significant other is ”the passion put to use In my old griefs” (9-10), imagine all of the energy one puts into the feelings of something in one’s past is in the speakers love for their significant other. The sixth way the speaker loves his/her significant other is “with my childhood's faith” (10), similar to the innocence and beauty of a child who holds nothing