how-do-i-love-thee
DESCRIPTION
How-do-I-love-theeTRANSCRIPT
BY E L I Z A B E T H B A R R E T B R O W N I N G ( 1 8 0 6 - 1 8 1 6 )
HOW DO I LOVE THEE?
BACKGROUND
• Born in Durham, England, was the oldest of twelve children and daughter of a strict father, Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett, who owned sugar plantations in Jamaica. • When fifteen, Elizabeth suffered a spinal injury
caused by saddling a pony, and became addicted to pain relievers. • Being weak, she was sent with her brother
Edward to the sea of Torquay, where her brother drowned to death, causing her to be emotionally broken.
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• All the while she had been deep in reading and writing poetry, and she had published some anonymous works which received much unexpected praise. She continued to write, despite her depressed state, but refused to leave her house for the next five years.• During this time, she produced a collection known
as Poems, which caught the eye of a poet who she had mentioned in her poems, Robert Browning.
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• The two privately exchanged over 500 love letters in the subsequent months, Elizabeth’s poems being classified as “Sonnets from the Portuguese,” ranked among the most famous collections of love lyrics in English history. One of these poems was known as “How Do I Love Thee?”
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• It is addressed to her husband, who used to call her 'My little Portuguese" as she was dark.
HOW DO I LOVE THEE?BY ELIZABETH BARRET BROWNING
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of everyday’sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.I love thee freely, as men strive for Right.I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith 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.
STRUCTURE
• Sonnet • Petrarchan (but does not follow normal
structure)• There is no clear break between octave
and sestet.• Begins with a rhetorical
question.• Rest of the poem answers
the question.
Petrarchan sonnet structure
ABBA
ABBA
CDE
CDE
STATEMENT
COUNTER – STATEMENT
First quatrain (4 lines)
SecondQuatrain(4 lines)
First tercet
First tercet
Turn/volta – a change in direction of argument or narrative
TITLE
• The question in the title and the first line: 'How do I love thee?' The poet dedicates the rest of the
poem to answering her own question and expressing the ways in which she loves her partner.
THEMES
• True love overcomes all and is eternal in nature.
• True love can be profound, deep and moving; a spiritual experience.
• The expression of love for anotherperson can lift life above the mundane.
• There is hope that great love existsbeyond the grave; that a truly great love can never die.
TONE AND MOOD
• Sincere, passionate, idealistic. She shares her feelings honestly and openly.
ANALYSIS OCTAVE
LINE 1 -2
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
Repeated; (anaphora) builds rhythm, emphasises love/infatuation with partner
Hyperboleexaggeration reinforces the poet’s intense belief in the extent of her love
Enjambment (increases pace)– love reaches far and wide
Rhetorical QDoes not expect answer – speaker lists the ways
LINE 3 - 4
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
• Personification and Apostrophe
- spiritual/religious words 'grace', 'praise', 'saint' and 'God‘ - woman's love is deep and true, compares with God’s grace
• Finds the goal of being alive
• Capital letters – strong feelings toward religion.
• Not trapped by limits of body
has feelings of love beyond her scope of vision (spiritual realm)- beyond what she can see or perceive.
LINE 5 - 6
I love thee to the level of everyday’sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
• Metonymy• connotation of night and
day - loves her partner not only during the day but during the dark hours of the night too
• Love is continuous
Entire day is spent with partner in mind
Merely breathing – needs to love him like need to breathe
Alliteration of “l” sound
LINE 7 - 8
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right.I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
Alliteration of “p” spoundnot compelled or forced to
love, own intention.
• slavery occurring during the 19th century, not all men have equal rights.
• Strife for justice and fairnessNot corrupt, does not
expect praise
“Right” and “Praise = Personification and Apostrophe
ANALYSIS SESTET
LINE 9 - 10
I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
Jesus’s suffering is referred to in Christian faith as The Passion
intensity equal to that experienced during suffering or mourning
sense of love is idealistic and unchallenged, blind faith like a child
LINE 11 - 12
I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints, – I love thee with the breath,
• Alliteration of “l” sound
• She loves her husband the same as she loved her dead mother and brother.
Euphemism- Reference to speaker’s dead mother and brother Edward
LINE 13 - 14
Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.
No matter what, love will always be strong
• If God wills to put both in Heaven, or both in Hell, at least they will be able to be with each other in order to love after death.
• After death, if it is even physically possible and if God chooses her to have the ability, then she will choose to love Robert more after her death.
ANSWERS
1. The poet loves with her whole soul. She loves him for fulfilling her completely, every hour of the day. She loves him honourably. She loves him without asking for flattery or “praise”. She loves him with all the emotion she experienced when she lost people se loved. She loves him with a love she believes , with God’s will, will last for all eternity.
2. a Metonymy b Sun implies day – sunlight being associated with and representing day. Candlelight implies night - a need for artificial light.
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3. “Depth” ; “breadth”; “height”4. The word suggests the higher ideals of human
beings; the belief in things that are honourable; acting according to one’s conscience.
5. False, she knows exactly because she says “let me count the ways” and she then goes on to list them.
6. B