8/2/2019 Analysis of Sonnet 43

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Analysis of Sonnet 43

A poetry analysis of Sonnet 43, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning will always end up talking about

love, for this is one of the most famous and loved romantic poems in the world and is written as

a sonnet. A sonnet usually has fourteen lines and an iambic pentameter rhyme. Sonnets are

nearly always written about the theme of love, almost like a love song. This sonnet, like many

others shows how the poet, in this case Elizabeth Barrett Browning, must be disciplined in

confining her thoughts to a particular structure.

The first eight lines of this Petrarchan sonnet, the octave, present the theme of love and the

degree of the depth of love felt by Elizabeth for her husband. Here she compares her deep

feelings to religious, spiritual and even political aspirations:

How do I love thee? Let me

count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and

breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For one ends of Being and Grace.

I love thee to the level of the every days

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

The last six lines compare the feelings she has at the moment to those emotions of love she

experienced as a child. Concluding the poem, she hopes that she will go on to love her husband

even more in the future if God permits. If not, then there is always Heaven!

I love with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhoods faith.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.

8/2/2019 Analysis of Sonnet 43

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At the beginning of the poem, Elizabeth Barrett Browning discusses her own personal

experience of love in terms of its intensity. She loves Robert Browning of her own freewill in a

very pure way expecting nothing more of it than the joy of love itself, comparing to suffering-

perhaps similar to that of Christ on the Cross. She is reminded of the childlike love she had for

Christian saints in her girlhood- although she does not describe these as gifts! Passion she

says, is much better put to use in love than grief.

She uses repetition to reinforce the strength of her love (I love thee) and for its alliterative

powers (th).

The poet aligns her love with life itself and its laughters and sorrows and breathing and

concludes on a metaphysical note, believing their love as a couple will cross through the grave

to the other side- to heaven.