Let Me Count The Way By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How Deep Is Love?
Passion and love are contained within the heart. This exemplifies the declaration of love written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. “How Do I Love Thee? Let me Count the Ways” is a poem including rhyme and sentimental meaning. This sonnet, in iambic pentameter, portrays the love that Browning felt for her husband and how that love will never be destroyed by any power. Answering the simple question, “how do I love thee?” sets the basis of the poem.
The narrator of the poem is that of first person. This helps draw the reader in and feel the same deep love that is expressed. Powerful emotions emerge from within this classic poem of love as stated in Stade’s opinion, “Barrett Browning’s sonnets address love from a woman 's point of view and in a woman 's voice. Further, the poems exuberantly affirm the love between a man and a woman and include the familiar poem that begins, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."
The title shows the numbers of ways that Browning loves her husband, so many ways in fact that she must count them for the world. The poetess focuses on the reality of her love and its broadening outreach. The mood of the poem is open and happy. Browning uses anaphora as she repeats the sounds found in …show more content…
“thee” and “the”. Repetition of “I love thee” also helps to build a rhythm thought the piece.
Her love is three dimensional and real, in the sense that any real or physical object in the universe is three-dimensional. Breadth is width, measuring how far across her love is. Height and depth represent how far down and how far up her love reaches. Depth and breadth is also an internal rhyme inserted to create the essence of the sonnet. She is best know for having “themes range from the intensely personal to affairs of state, from loss and love…” Taylor. This is done with the use of alliteration and rhythm throughout the poem. Browning continues explaining how her adoration is incomprehensible even in the most spiritual of senses. Browning puts emphases on the words “Being”, “Grace”, and “Praise” by capitalizing each to show the divinity those words hold in regards to her love. “I love thee to the level of every day’s/Most quite need, by sun and candlelight”, she continues to use anaphora with the repeating of “thee” and “the”. The work explains how her love is continuing throughout every second of every day, even in the simplest of needs.
Browning likens her deep feelings to religious, spiritual, emotional desire and goes on to employ repetition using the metaphor of religious faith with a musical metrical and rhyme scheme. This is used to develop and convey her ideas beautifully. She addresses her love with simplicity and innocence: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. /I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/my soul can reach" is simple and is repeated many times in many different ways. To express her wild and unrestricted emotions in a restricted sonnet form, repetition helps fit in with the stresses and unstressed of the sonnet pattern. The iambic meter dictates strict obedience. Throughout the rest of the work, Browning continues using metaphors and internal rhymes. She employs the use of a metaphor as she explains that the love she holds is of her own free will, just as a soldier fights for his countries freedom by the grace of his independence and not orders.
Love is the definite theme that is sensed through the piece. Nevertheless, it is not until the last six lines of the poem that the reader completely grasps this theme in its entirety. True love conquers all and is eternal in nature. This theme is reflected in the many depths of her love through hyperbole, metaphors and anaphora’s.
The final lines of the piece discuss a more mature love, a love that surpasses all, even death. In the first line she expresses her desire to "count the ways" she loves. Out of the 14-line sonnet, she only mentions six ways. Nonetheless, the intensity of her love should not be measured in the quantity but in the quality and understanding of expression, a depth which equals "the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach” "to the level of every day 's / Most quiet need”. Browning feels that her love is one that will continue even after death.
Captivated by the true and deep-seated emotions, the reader is engrossed by same spell Browning was rapt by. Elizabeth Barrett Browning embodies the typical stereotype that women are creatures of emotion. I love, therefore I am. This is Browning’s root of existence and is etched in the love she holds. She completely defines herself totally through the ways in which she loves. Love for another becomes the foundation of her existence. The work portrays men as equals to women, for a love this strong cannot be one-sided. Since the beginning of time, women have been regarded as emotional beings that base decisions on sentiment. This poem contains the essence of a woman’s emotions.
Finally, Browning loves her husband freely, without force; she loves him purely, without expectation of personal gain. A love of sacrifice, trials and tribulations will never change only make it stronger. Numerous poetic devices are used throughout, including metaphors and alliterations, to amplify the implications with the intention for the reader to feel her emotion. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” is a fairy tale going beyond any reality. Love knows no reason but yet defies all reason even Berliner states a similar thought of “The controlling idea for the entire sequence is that love is, in fact, stronger than death”. The title is the core of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem. In the end, she “shall but love thee better after death.”
Works Cited
Berliner, Donna G.
"Sonnets from the Portuguese." MagillOnLiterature Plus. Salem Press, Mar. 1995. Web. 16 June 2013.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. "How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways." The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. 10th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin 's, 2002. 1243. Print.
Stade, George, and Karen Karbiener. "Browning, Elizabeth Barrett." Encyclopedia of British Writers, 1800 to the Present, (2009): n. page. Bloom 's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 16 June 2013.
Taylor, Beverly. Dictionary of Literary Biography: Victorian Women Poets. Vol. 199. Chapel Hill: Gale Group, 1999. 79-99. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Web. 16 June
2013.
Passion and love are contained within the heart. This exemplifies the declaration of love written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. “How Do I Love Thee? Let me Count the Ways” is a poem including rhyme and sentimental meaning. This sonnet, in iambic pentameter, portrays the love that Browning felt for her husband and how that love will never be destroyed by any power. Answering the simple question, “how do I love thee?” sets the basis of the poem.
The narrator of the poem is that of first person. This helps draw the reader in and feel the same deep love that is expressed. Powerful emotions emerge from within this classic poem of love as stated in Stade’s opinion, “Barrett Browning’s sonnets address love from a woman 's point of view and in a woman 's voice. Further, the poems exuberantly affirm the love between a man and a woman and include the familiar poem that begins, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."
The title shows the numbers of ways that Browning loves her husband, so many ways in fact that she must count them for the world. The poetess focuses on the reality of her love and its broadening outreach. The mood of the poem is open and happy. Browning uses anaphora as she repeats the sounds found in …show more content…
“thee” and “the”. Repetition of “I love thee” also helps to build a rhythm thought the piece.
Her love is three dimensional and real, in the sense that any real or physical object in the universe is three-dimensional. Breadth is width, measuring how far across her love is. Height and depth represent how far down and how far up her love reaches. Depth and breadth is also an internal rhyme inserted to create the essence of the sonnet. She is best know for having “themes range from the intensely personal to affairs of state, from loss and love…” Taylor. This is done with the use of alliteration and rhythm throughout the poem. Browning continues explaining how her adoration is incomprehensible even in the most spiritual of senses. Browning puts emphases on the words “Being”, “Grace”, and “Praise” by capitalizing each to show the divinity those words hold in regards to her love. “I love thee to the level of every day’s/Most quite need, by sun and candlelight”, she continues to use anaphora with the repeating of “thee” and “the”. The work explains how her love is continuing throughout every second of every day, even in the simplest of needs.
Browning likens her deep feelings to religious, spiritual, emotional desire and goes on to employ repetition using the metaphor of religious faith with a musical metrical and rhyme scheme. This is used to develop and convey her ideas beautifully. She addresses her love with simplicity and innocence: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. /I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/my soul can reach" is simple and is repeated many times in many different ways. To express her wild and unrestricted emotions in a restricted sonnet form, repetition helps fit in with the stresses and unstressed of the sonnet pattern. The iambic meter dictates strict obedience. Throughout the rest of the work, Browning continues using metaphors and internal rhymes. She employs the use of a metaphor as she explains that the love she holds is of her own free will, just as a soldier fights for his countries freedom by the grace of his independence and not orders.
Love is the definite theme that is sensed through the piece. Nevertheless, it is not until the last six lines of the poem that the reader completely grasps this theme in its entirety. True love conquers all and is eternal in nature. This theme is reflected in the many depths of her love through hyperbole, metaphors and anaphora’s.
The final lines of the piece discuss a more mature love, a love that surpasses all, even death. In the first line she expresses her desire to "count the ways" she loves. Out of the 14-line sonnet, she only mentions six ways. Nonetheless, the intensity of her love should not be measured in the quantity but in the quality and understanding of expression, a depth which equals "the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach” "to the level of every day 's / Most quiet need”. Browning feels that her love is one that will continue even after death.
Captivated by the true and deep-seated emotions, the reader is engrossed by same spell Browning was rapt by. Elizabeth Barrett Browning embodies the typical stereotype that women are creatures of emotion. I love, therefore I am. This is Browning’s root of existence and is etched in the love she holds. She completely defines herself totally through the ways in which she loves. Love for another becomes the foundation of her existence. The work portrays men as equals to women, for a love this strong cannot be one-sided. Since the beginning of time, women have been regarded as emotional beings that base decisions on sentiment. This poem contains the essence of a woman’s emotions.
Finally, Browning loves her husband freely, without force; she loves him purely, without expectation of personal gain. A love of sacrifice, trials and tribulations will never change only make it stronger. Numerous poetic devices are used throughout, including metaphors and alliterations, to amplify the implications with the intention for the reader to feel her emotion. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” is a fairy tale going beyond any reality. Love knows no reason but yet defies all reason even Berliner states a similar thought of “The controlling idea for the entire sequence is that love is, in fact, stronger than death”. The title is the core of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem. In the end, she “shall but love thee better after death.”
Works Cited
Berliner, Donna G.
"Sonnets from the Portuguese." MagillOnLiterature Plus. Salem Press, Mar. 1995. Web. 16 June 2013.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. "How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways." The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. 10th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin 's, 2002. 1243. Print.
Stade, George, and Karen Karbiener. "Browning, Elizabeth Barrett." Encyclopedia of British Writers, 1800 to the Present, (2009): n. page. Bloom 's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 16 June 2013.
Taylor, Beverly. Dictionary of Literary Biography: Victorian Women Poets. Vol. 199. Chapel Hill: Gale Group, 1999. 79-99. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Web. 16 June
2013.