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How Do I Love Thee": by Elizabeth Barret Browning
How Do I Love Thee": by Elizabeth Barret Browning
She was born on March 6th , 1806 in Durham, England - died on June 29th ,1861
in Florence, Italy
She is one of the best poets during the Victorian era
She was the oldest of twelve children,
Self- educated at home from age four
At 13 years old she had her first poem written
Elizabeth had health problems from an early age (lung illness)
She married Robert Browning in secret and moved to Italy with him, where
she had her son and lived happily
How do I love thee? Text of the poem
The speaker asks how she loves her beloved and tries to list
the different ways in which she loves him. Her love seems
continue loving him after her own death, if God lets her.
Technical Devices:
Structure: This poem is an Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet: with the following rhyme scheme: abba,
abba cde, cde OR cd,cd,cd sonnet, it has 14 lines. Also it is iambic pentameter.
Begins with a rhetorical question
Rest of the poem answers the question
Similes
In the 7th and 8th lines, similes is founded.
“I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.” Personification
The poet represents her love to her lover using simile. In the third line, personification appears in this
She uses ‘as’ to compare it. She compares her free love poem. From “My soul can reach, when feeling out
as men who strive for right. She also compares her of sight”,
pure love as those men who turn from praise. Soul is not human being and it can not reach
something, but it is given human attributes as if it
has ability to reach.