Emotions in “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Robert Frost said: “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” (Robert Frost) Emotions is the basis of poetry, which describe the main message of it and the authors purpose. In “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the author expresses her tremulous feelings to her husband Robert Browning by using strong emotions that allows her to produce a surprisingly passionate poem.
Starting with the title “How Do I Love Thee,” the reader can already guess that a poem is about a big love. (Barret Browning 509) The title also shows that an author loves a significant person in many different
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She has this feeling by her own free will, by decision of her heart: “I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.” (Barret Browning 509) The simile makes this poetry more interesting and lyrical. As a strong emotional instrument, the simile emphasizes the power of author’s love without a benefit or advantage. Comparison her feelings shows to the audience her uncompromising devoting herself to her lovely husband no matter what happens.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning gained a love that instinctively felt long before the meeting with her future husband. The ninth and tenth lines described the author as a passionate flower blossoming in marriage with her husband: “I love thee with the passion put to use, In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.” (Barret Browning 509) She did not know about such a deep and strong love before she met Mr. Browning. The connection between the spouses is so reliable, that a wife fully trusts him herself and her life. With the childhood faith, she is ready to open her soul for him.
The author is confessing her greatest love as her mission. The line “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints” providing her emotional condition. (Barret Browning 509) She will live as long as she loves him and she is ready to sacrifice herself for their holy love. In the last two lines, Mrs. Barrett Browning exhibits a verdict that she wants to get from God: “Smiles, tears, of all my life; and,
communicates two interpretations concerning Both poems describe the behavior of people who are in loving, romantic relationships. There are several aspects common in both poems. Using the literary technique of dramatic dialogue, the author reveals the plot and central idea of each poem. Robert Browning tells each poetic story through a single speaker. Both poems reveal an account in which the admirer kills the object of his love. This paper will compare and contrast the following characteristics: the setting, the speaker, the mood and tone, and theme found "My
Hardy initially uses similes to illustrate the bleak landscape, referring to the “sun [as] white” and leaves as “grey”, to emphasise his sorrowful opinion of love. Specific diction of bleak words strongly communicates his message of love being hopeless and sorrowful. He also uses personification of “starving sod”, to allude that the earth is frozen and desiring nutrients which it lacks. This creates an undesirable setting and mood of despair and sorrow expressing how he perceives love. In contrast, Browning orientates an inviting, cheerful setting through the use of similes. The scene is vibrant with “little waves that leap” and “warm sea-scented beach[es]”, allowing the reader to perceive it as joyful. This illustrates how he regards love as an uplifting experience, which brings people together. He structures his poem with no stanzas, allowing for the reader to follow the radiant journey of love. In contrast, Hardy includes stanzas allowing him to express his message though new topics. They consist of the bleak setting, his former partners eyes, her bitter smile and his message of how all love disappoints. He includes an enclosed rhyme scheme, presenting the entrapment of love, expressing no freedom and joy in relationships. In opposition, Browning uses anaphora of “and” to express how the speaker’s mind is not in the moment, looking ahead to the future where they reunite with their lover. It is evident that Hardy conveys his message of love as sorrowful and full of despair, in contrast Browning message reveals love as gracious and
Love is not always an easy adventure to take part in. As a result, thousands of poems and sonnets have been written about love bonds that are either praised and happily blessed or love bonds that undergo struggle and pain to cling on to their forbidden love. Gwendolyn Brooks sonnet "A Lovely Love," explores the emotions and thoughts between two lovers who are striving for their natural human right to love while delicately revealing society 's crime in vilifying a couples right to love. Gwendolyn Brooks uses several examples of imagery and metaphors to convey a dark and hopeless mood that emphasizes the hardships that the two lovers must endure to prevail their love that society has condemned.
The Sonnet sequence also involves the idea of identity with Barrett Browning coming to terms with her emerging sexuality and realisation of love. The sequence was written by Barrett Browning thus providing a personal voice to the sonnets allowing a portrayal of the sequence of events of her personal identity and expression of love. Throughout the sonnet sequence Browning develops a stronger sense and realisation of her love for Robert, hence shaping her identity. By sonnet 43 a series of elements introduced by the simple phrase “I love thee” where the repetition intensifies the affirmation, she declares that her love is free and pure and possesses passion. Most importantly Browning now holds a sense of identity as she has achieved her idealized type of love.
A significantly powerful emotion, love, possessing the ability to transform a live to the greatest but also destroy. The concepts of idealised love have been expressed in texts throughout history, and each is relevant to their specific periods and specific value systems. This can be seen in both, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s (EBB) poetry ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’, 1845 and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby’, 1925 which explore in depth the similar perspectives of ideal love, although the context that surrounds each text reshapes the composer’s viewpoint. Barrett Browning explores a romantic vision of love and enhances our perception of this interpersonal human emotion through a rebellion of the unbending principles of the Victorian
Robert Browning uses descriptive details to portray a theme of how darkness rises from warmth and happiness by showing us on how a man’s love for someone makes him turn to savagery. The narrator of the poem has very deep feelings for his lover, but he only thinks of himself and he never wants the girl to leave his side so he does the unthinkable. In the times that the girl was not home or was not with the narrator then there was coldness and darkness, but when she was with the man then the house would “blaze up, and all the cottage warm”. She created hope and the narrator needed that constantly, so he realized that his love was too strong to put on hold everyday when she would leave. The fact that the narrator had to watch his lover leave everyday
To Browning, a rose still holds beauty even when it is unable to function in nature. By comparing the fairness of a rose after death and giving it more love “than to such roses bold” (30), Browning indicates that the rose is more deserving of praise than living roses because it is underappreciated. The passing of a rose does not mean that the beauty is gone, in fact, the heart “doth view [the rose] fair, doth judge [it] most complete” (24). Similarly, the departure of a loved one is devastating, however, there is peace in
Unlike other forms of literature, poetry can be so complex that everyone who reads it may see something different. Two poets who are world renowned for their ability to transform reader’s perceptions with the mere use of words, are TS Eliot and Walt Whitman. “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot, tells the story of a man who is in love and contemplating confessing his emotions, but his debilitating fear of rejection stops him from going through with it. This poem skews the reader’s expectations of a love song and takes a critical perspective of love while showing all the damaging emotions that come with it. “Song of myself”, by Walt Whitman provokes a different emotion, one of joy and self-discovery. This poem focuses more on the soul and how it relates to the body. “Song of myself” and “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” both explore the common theme of how the different perceptions of the soul and body can affect the way the speaker views themselves, others, and the world around them.
us stay Rather on earth, Beloved,—where the unfit Contrarious moods of men recoil away, And isolate pure spirits”. Barrett-Browning’s scandalous elopement with Robert undid the world by breaching social mores and challenged the suffocating values of her
During the 19th century Elizabeth Barrett Browning, unlike many other women of her time, was known for being both experimental and controversial. Due to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s courage to voice her opinions on many of the social injustices happening during her time period, she was, and is greatly admired across the world (“Elizabeth Barrett Browning”). Throughout her life Elizabeth Barrett Browning experienced many events that shaped the woman and poet she was to become. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s passionate curiosity during her childhood, adolescence and adulthood along with her unlikely relationship with Robert Browning led her to create works of poetry that held themes of love, injustice and common sense that remain relevant to this
A poem is a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and that often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanza structure. In her poem, “Variations of the Word ‘“love”’,” Margaret Atwood introduces to her audience the word “love” from many different perspectives. Google defines “love” as “an intense feeling of deep affection”, or “having a deep feeling or sexual attachment to (someone).” But “love” is not something that can easily be described. Atwood goes on to present and portray the word through different illustrations, beginning with cliché examples and ending with her own personal scenarios. The author’s tone and metaphorical language effectively conveys her perspective of “love”.
She says that she loves him to the depth and breadth and height, which indicated that her love is long lasting. The image “by sun and candlelight” that Barrett Browning creates, is that her love may be ordinary like the sun, but its continuous since the light keeps shining day and night, which is why she uses the candlelight to represent the light she has for him is still on at night. Another image that Barrett Browning conveys is “I love thee freely, as men strive for Right, I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise”. This line shows that her love for him is of her own free choice and she compares it to the nationalists that fight for their countries, indicating that their love is as strong as a person’s love is to their country. Barrett Browning also says, “I love thee with the passion, put to use/In my old greifs… and with my childhood’s faith” here, the poet redirected her emotions from her past concerns onto her love. She states that her she loves him with her childhood’s faith, which could mean that she loves him with unquestioning confidence, just like a naïve child might.
The irony in his tone is used primarily when the Duke postulates how his wife behaved around other men. His sarcastic, demeaning speech shines through when he states “she had a heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad” (21-22). Not only does this line deliver verbal irony, it also gives insight on the Duke’s perception of his wife. Though he has no concrete evidence for her “suspicious” behavior, he does not hesitate to passively critique her. Browning additionally develops this critical personality when the Duke fantasizes about the gifts his wife received from other men.
The society around her attempted to suppress her creativity, yet she continued to fight against them through her words. In her poem “The Soul's Expression” she narrates her “struggle to deliver” what she believes to the extent that she has “stammering lips and [an] insufficient sound” (Browning “The Soul's Expression”). Through her poems she is able, to express her feelings of deprivation in regards to women’s basic human rights, which have been so intensely denied. Browning asserts herself as a strong, unconventional woman with a “right to work and be independent” (The British Library).
The poem “How Do I Love Thee”, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed”, by Edna Vincent Millay are both well-known poems that both have themes of love. (LIT, Kirszner & Mandell, Pg. 490). In both poems the poet helps the reader experience a lot of emotion with the use of certain words. There are speakers in both poems. In Mrs. Browning’s poem, the speaker is undefined, leaving open that the speaker could be a he or she. Millay’s poem which is written in first person, the speaker is more defined leading the reader to believe it is a she who is talking about love in the past tense. Both poems are sonnets written with fourteen lines, and written in Italian style. When comparing these poems we will be looking at the use of rhyme scheme and metaphors and how they were used to express emotions in these two sonnet poems.