Sonnet 43

Question 1

How do i love thee? Let me count the ways

Answer 1

• Hypophora = assertive/ energetic – Browning asserts her desire to be allowed to articulate her own feelings, but PERHAPS juvenile
• “Thee” used to signify familiarity and intimacy with her lover
• Innocent, almost puerile beginning as if to ease the reader gently into something which will develop into a declaration of adult passion
• Also, simple beginning in contrast to highly intelligent and cleverly written following text
• Through “count the ways”, speaker sounds intense + methodical – suggests love can be measured

Question 2

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

Answer 2

• Spatial metaphor for the multi dimensional and all consuming love that she has for her partner - love must be enjoyed in al dimensions: physical/spiritual
• “Depth” “breadth” “height” – stressed syllables, due to iambic pentameter
• Boundless and infinite
• Repetition of “th” adds softness to tone of the poem
• Hyperbole – she loves to the maximum potential of her soul, her love is limitless; also mystical and inexplicable

Question 3

I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and candlelight

Answer 3

• After the three grand claims of the previous three lines, the poet adds that her love is also quiet and persistent; something that will stand the test of time and everyday living
• “Sun”and “candlelight” reference the day and night, both times that Browning will continue to love her partner — even in the most insignificant aspects of the day, her love fills those moments
• “Sun”/“candlelight” = brightest moments of her life are with Robert// guiding or benign light in darkness – or the most emotionally challenging moments in life
• “Sun” = positive connotations of life and warmth – source nutrition, life and warmth
• “Quiet” contrasts the previous lines, emphasises the power and passion of simple moments of the day

Question 4

I love thee purely, as they (men) turn from Praise

Answer 4

• Syntactic parallelism (with previous line)
• Her love is modest/humble, not the product of narcissism/vanity (therefore “pure”)
• Again, lack of “praise” may refer to fathers disapproval
• Browning does not desire “praise” or recognition for loving so purely – her love exists on its own merit

Question 5

in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith

Answer 5

• Old griefs” = deaths of mother and brother – the love she had reserved for them are now exhibited on her husband
• Childhood faith” – deeply religious/pious/devoutly Catholic woman – her love for Robert is as strong as her “passion” for the divine – perhaps her lover has replaced her faith
“Childhood” – her love is pure and innocent/ wholesome and untainted by immorality

Question 6

If God choose, i shall but love thee better after death

Answer 6

• Browning expresses the wish that herself and her beloved will ascend to heaven “after death” which signifies her love is eternal/perpetual/interminable/incessant/ceaseless, and transcends the physical world
• Eternal, as opposed to earthly /ephemeral – inverts the wedding vow “til death do us part”
• Ultimately, God is omnipotent and holds the fate of the lovers ‘ Or God’s love for humanity, mirrored in Browning’s love for Robert
•

Question 7

Context

Answer 7

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning = 1806 – 1861, Victorian poet
• Sonnet 43 = 1850
• Her poetry caught the attention of Robert Browning, whom she secretly married due to her fathers disapproval. Once her father found our, she was disinherited by him, and rejected by her brothers.
• Elizabeth = devout Christian Congregationalist; Robert = atheist (unconfirmed??)— forbidden/taboo nature to this relationship
• Reclusive persona, with suffering from long-term (respiratory) illnesses
• Deaths of mother and brother (“old griefs”)
• Personal poem from a collection of 44 sonnets that Browning wrote for her husband shortly before their wedding as a declaration of her intense love for him — published in collection “Sonnets from the Portuguese” –
o title = misleading, as they were not in fact translations from Portuguese originals.
o This was a deliberate attempt to mask the poems’ intimate content: they were composed before her marriage to Robert Browning in 1846, and the suggestion that they were translations allowed her to express her feelings without embarrassment
o her husbands nickname for her = ‘my little Portuguese’

Question 8

Form and structure

Answer 8

• Petrarchan sonnet, subverts tradition as Petrarchan sonnets were usually focussed on male desire, but Browning writes as a female
• ABBA ABBA CDCDCD
• Iambic pentameter = euphonic, lyrical, musical— fitting theme of love
• Octave = love for husband, sestet – mentions death and grief