Elizabeth Barrett Browning. View poet page. Glossary Rhyme Sonnet. How do I Love Thee Sonnet If thou must love me Sonnet A Musical Instrument. By similar tags. Wordview Computer Generated Images. Wordview Watchmen. Wordview Chromosomes. Wordview New Cloth. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints.
I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. We will put it online as soon as possible. Something went wrong. Please contact info nationalpoetryday. Search for:. Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabeth Barrett wrote poetry from about the age of six.
At 15 she became ill, suffering intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life. I have come back to live a little for you. I love you - I bless God for you - you are too good for me, always I knew. Elizabeth was close to 40 years of age when she broke free from the control of her father.
You can imagine her pent up strength of feeling and sense of relief. She went on to give birth to a son and was happily married for 16 years, until her death in It has a female narrator, which was highly unusual for the time. This sonnet helped kick-start many more on the theme of modern Victorian love, from a woman's perspective.
Note the emphasis is on the repetition and reinforcement of the speaker's love for someone; there is no mention of a specific name or gender, giving the sonnet a universal appeal. The first line is unusual because it is a question asked in an almost conversational manner—the poet has challenged herself to compile reasons for her love, to define her intense feelings, the ways in which her love can be expressed.
There then follows a repetitive variation on a theme of love. To me this conjures up an image of a woman counting on her fingers, then compiling a list, which would be a very modern, 21st century thing for a female to do. This poem comes from another era however, a time when most women were expected to stay at home looking after all things domestic, not writing poems about love.
The second, third and fourth lines suggest that her love is all encompassing, stretching to the limits, even when she feels that her existence— Being— and God's divine help— Grace— might end, it's the love she has for her husband Robert that will sustain. Note the contrast between the attempt to measure her love with rational language—depth, breadth, height—and the use of the words Soul, Being and Grace, which imply something intangible and spiritual.
Her love goes beyond natural life and man-made theology. These are weighty concepts—the reader is made aware that this is no ordinary love early on in the sonnet.
The clause, lines 2—4, contains enjambment, a continuation of theme from one line to the next. Is she suggesting that the simple notion of love for a person can soon flow into something quite profound, yet out of reach of everyday language and speech?
The speaker, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, continues with her passionate need to differentiate the many ways her love for her husband manifests. In line five, she clearly tells the reader that, be it day or night, her love fills those quiet moments, those daily silences that occur between two people living together.
Her love is unconditional and therefore free; it is a force for good, consciously given because it feels like the right thing to do. She doesn't want any thanks for this freely given love; it is a humble kind of love, untainted by the ego.
The sestet starts at line nine. The speaker now looks to the past and compares her new found passions with those of the old griefs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning had plenty of negativity in her adult life—she was mostly ill and lived like a recluse, seeing only old family friends and family. Her father in particular oppressed her and wouldn't allow her to marry. There were no romantic relationships in her life by all accounts. She must have been driven to the point of willing herself dead.
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