How Do I Love

Thee?
Study Guide by Course Hero

ABOUT THE TITLE

What's Inside This sonnet is the 43rd in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 44
Sonnets from the Portuguese, which she included in the 1850
edition of her collected Poems. The poem is not actually titled
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1 in the book, but since other poets have written numbered
sonnets, this one is commonly called "How Do I Love Thee?"
d In Context ..................................................................................................... 1
The question is asked by the speaker in the poem's first line.
a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 3

h Characters .................................................................................................. 4

k Plot Summary ............................................................................................. 6

d In Context
c Plot Analysis ............................................................................................... 6

g Quotes ........................................................................................................... 8
Variation on the Petrarchan
l Symbols ........................................................................................................ 9 Sonnet
m Themes ....................................................................................................... 10 Even though the word sonnet derives from "little song"
(sonetto) in Italian, sonnets are thought to be the first poetic
b Narrative Voice ......................................................................................... 11
form intended for silent reading. A sonnet is a 14-line poem
with a set meter (iambic pentameter, alternating five pairs of
unstressed and stressed syllables in a da-DUM pattern) and

j Book Basics
rhyme scheme. The form dates to the Middle Ages. It appears
to have been created by a 13th-century Italian poet named
Giacomo Da Lentini and refined by his countryman Petrarch
AUTHOR (1304–74), whose name became associated with the poem. A
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Petrarchan sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABBA ABBA in its
first eight lines (octave) and CDCDCD in the next six (sestet).
YEAR PUBLISHED
Its variant, the Shakespearean sonnet, has a slightly different
1850
rhyme scheme in the sestet. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 44
GENRE Sonnets from the Portuguese all use the Petrarchan form.
Romance
The other major sonnet form, the Shakespearean sonnet, is
PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR divided into three stanzas of four lines followed by a couplet.
This sonnet is recounted in the first person. The speaker The quatrains introduce and develop a premise to which the
addresses herself to her lover and describes her feelings. couplet responds, whether by reinterpreting, amplifying, or
even rebutting it. A traditional Petrarchan sonnet sets forth its
TENSE premise in the octave, and the sestet generally follows a "pivot
In "How Do I Love Thee?" the speaker uses the present tense. point" that occurs after the octave. The pivot is called the volta,
How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide In Context 2

or "turn," as it shifts the poem in a new direction. The poem years older than Browning. Perhaps, she frets, Robert
"How Do I Love Thee?" dispenses with this convention. Each of Browning only pities her, and even if he does love her, he might
the poems in Sonnets from the Portuguese consists of 14 lines soon tire of her. As the sonnet sequence progresses, Barrett
but just one stanza. Furthermore, "How Do I Love Thee?" does exults in the realization that her suitor is in earnest. Sonnet
not section evenly. The first line stands on its own. The next 43—"How Do I Love Thee?"—shows a woman entirely and
three lines set out a description of the speaker's love. Lines 4 confidently in love.
to 6 introduce another love comparison, and lines 7 to 8 yet
another. What's consistent in this octet is the positive way in Browning did not show her husband the sonnet sequence until

which the speaker's love is depicted. It fills her soul; it's free 1849. She was then preparing a second edition of her Poems,

and pure. and Robert Browning urged her to include the sonnets. Neither
wife nor husband wanted the poems to seem too revelatory.
The sestet does not follow a traditional volta. It neither They decided to call the sequence Sonnets from the
answers nor rebuts the preceding lines. Instead its first three Portuguese, which suggested that Elizabeth Barrett
and a half lines discuss childish love that the speaker has Browning—a celebrated translator—had translated them, not
either forgotten or abandoned. These feelings, she says, written them herself. Portuguese was chosen because
turned out to be weak and illusory compared with the love she Elizabeth Barrett Browning had earlier written a poem,
feels now. The final two and a half lines express the all- "Caterina to Camoens," about a Portuguese woman who loved
encompassing nature of the speaker's love and her wish for it a poet. One reviewer seemed to guess the sonnets' secret.
to continue after death. Elizabeth Barrett Browning freshened Writing in Fraser's magazine, he said that while the poems
and modernized an old form without abandoning its most might indeed come from Portugal, Browning must either be
important formal elements. "the most perfect of all known translators, or to have
quickened with her own spirit the framework of another's
thought." Though the sonnets were not especially popular
Sonnets from the Portuguese during Browning's life, they are now her most popular work,
and "How Do I Love Thee?" is by far the best-known in the
In 1845, Elizabeth Barrett was an invalid largely confined to her collection.
bedroom at her family's London house. She followed the
London literary scene with energy, however. When Robert
Browning's (1812–89) book Dramatic Lyrics was published in Literary Devices
1842, many critics reviewed it harshly, but Barrett praised it.
She also gave Browning a nod in one of her own poems, "Lady Elizabeth Barrett Browning once told a friend that she found
Geraldine's Courtship," by including him in a list of the era's the sonnet structure "imperious," but she manages to obey the
most important poets. "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" is the story rules without sounding stiff or pompous. "How Do I Love
of a noblewoman who is courted by a poet; the couple Thee?" is a traditional sonnet as far as its meter and rhyme
demonstrates their love by reading aloud to each other. scheme go, but Browning's use of literary devices gives it a
Though Barrett was not nobly born, other elements of the distinctive quality.
poem proved prophetic. When Barrett's own collection of
poems was published in 1844, Browning noticed the reference The poet's use of enjambment gives "How Do I Love Thee?" a

to himself and wrote to thank her. He asked if they could meet, sound more like spoken conversation than like a formally

but Barrett was unwilling at first. Her father wished to keep his structured poem. In poetry, enjambment is the technique in

adult children to himself and would not approve of a visit from which a thought or phrase in one line carries over into the next

Browning. line. There is no "terminal punctuation"—such as a comma or

period—at the end of an enjambed line. Within 14 lines,
Robert Browning persisted, however. He and Barrett began Browning uses enjambment five times.
exchanging dozens of letters, and he managed to visit from
time to time. As the two poets began to fall in love, Elizabeth The poem's speaker expresses her feelings through hyperbole:

started writing a series of 44 sonnets about their affair. The deliberate overstatement or exaggeration. Browning conveys

earliest sonnets reveal her insecurity about being sickly and six the grandeur of her love by giving it metaphorical "depth,

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How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide Author Biography 3

breadth, and height" that expands as far as her soul can reach. sustained him when he moved to England with his bride.
With the line "I love thee to the level of every day's / Most quiet Elizabeth and her 11 younger siblings were raised in great
need," Barrett switches from describing an ever-growing love comfort on a 500-acre estate named Hope End. From her
to describing one that is attentive to even the smallest details earliest childhood, it was clear that Elizabeth was brilliant. She
of everyday life. She puts similes, or direct comparisons often was writing poetry by age four. By age eight she could read
using "like" or "as," to work in lines 7 and 8, where she Homer in Greek and was soon learning Latin, French, and
compares her love to "men's" noblest feelings and finds that it Italian as well. In her teens she also learned Hebrew because
matches them in intensity. she wanted to read the Hebrew Bible in the original. By 14 she
had written an epic poem called "The Battle of Marathon," and
Anaphora—deliberate repetition at the beginning of multiple in 1826 she anonymously published a book titled An Essay on
statements, in this case of the phrase "I love thee"—is used Mind, with Other Poems.
eight times in "How Do I Love Thee?" The repetition isn't
surprising, given the poem's subject matter and the depth of Her body was not as strong as her spirit. In her mid-teens she
the speaker's feelings. What may surprise the attentive reader began to suffer from headaches, faintness, exhaustion, and
is the fact that reading the same clause over and over doesn't pain—symptoms of an illness that was never identified. Her
become obtrusive. This is because Browning offers a highly doctors prescribed opiates, to which she became addicted and
specific comparison after each clause, and each comparison is which she took for most of her life. Meanwhile, the family
highly inventive. fortune was dwindling. After Mrs. Barrett died in 1828,
Elizabeth's father moved the family several times, finally
The poem also uses alliteration, the repetition of beginning settling them in London in 1836. Elizabeth was by then in her
consonant sounds, which has the tendency to emphasize the 20s, but Mr. Barrett had not given permission for any of the 12
words with the repeated sounds. Examples are the frequent children to marry. That fact and a second bout of illness, which
repetition of thee and the within a line, along with soul and sight began in 1837, kept Elizabeth close to home. In 1838, however,
(Line 3), purely and praise (Line 8), love and lose (Line 11), and she traveled with her brother Edward to the seaside town of
but and better (Line 14). Torquay, where doctors hoped the sea air might help her.
Unfortunately, Edward drowned there in 1840, and Elizabeth
Finally, the rhyme scheme itself follows a pattern, but the
collapsed with grief. She returned to the family house in
rhymes are not traditional. In the first quatrain with the ABBA
London the following year and spent most of the next five
rhyme scheme, the "B" rhymes at the end of the lines are
years alone in her bedroom.
height/sight, but the "A" rhymes are ways and grace. The
words don't quite rhyme because of the pronunciation of the
/z/ and /s/ sounds. In her ending sestet, the CDCDCD pattern
includes the similar "near rhymes" (also called slant rhymes) Writing in Seclusion
faith and breath along with the more traditional death. Internal
rhymes within a line, too, can be imprecise. The pairing of level In 1833 Elizabeth Barrett had published, anonymously, a book

and every in line 5 is particularly subtle. called Prometheus Bound: Translated from the Greek of
Aeschylus, and Miscellaneous Poems. In Aeschylus's play, the
Greek god Zeus punishes Prometheus by having him chained

a Author Biography
to a rock. After the book's publication she decided that the
work was flawed by being too literal; she would later republish
it. Around this time, the poet began to correspond with other
writers, which may have emboldened her to write more poetry.
Early Life and Influences In 1838, Barrett's book The Seraphim and Other Poems was
published—this time under her name. The book, in which
When Elizabeth Barrett entered the world on March 6, 1806, Christian themes were presented in the form of Greek
she was the first Barrett child to have been born on British soil tragedies, received mixed reviews. "We are not at home in
for two centuries. Her father's family had made a fortune from speculating on the minds of angels," complained one reviewer.
their sugar plantations in Jamaica, and the family's wealth Still, The Seraphim solidified Elizabeth Barrett's reputation as a

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How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide Characters 4

poet. She continued writing after her brother's death, now

working mostly in seclusion in her bedroom, and sold many h Characters
poems to British and American magazines. In 1844 her book
Poems was published. It was a solid success with both critics
and the public. One of the book's most enthusiastic readers
was the poet Robert Browning (1812–89). In January 1845, he
Speaker
wrote Elizabeth to say, "I love your verses with all my heart,
The speaker reveals only one aspect of her character: her love
dear Miss Barrett." It was the first of nearly 600 letters, written
for "Thee." But readers can obtain a good sense of her
between January 1845 and their marriage in September 1846,
personality through the way she expresses herself. She seems
that would transform the lives of both poets.
to be tremendously imaginative but also an excellent self-
analyst. Her descriptions of various types of love are
meticulously observed. She sets down her past emotions
Writing and Romance calmly, without elaborating on them. She believes in God, but
she isn't sentimental about religious feelings she no longer
From the start their correspondence flourished, though
holds. Though the poem is exclusively about herself and the
Elizabeth was an invalid and six years older than Browning.
way she feels, it still revolves around "Thee." Readers can infer
"Don't let us have any constraint, any ceremony!" he wrote her
what the speaker is like, but they learn nothing concrete about
a month after his first letter. "I am inclined to look up to you in
her besides her feelings for Thee. Nor does she reveal
many things, and to learn as much of everything as you will
anything about Thee's character. In this poem she chooses to
teach me." Though Elizabeth warned him she had been "a
present herself solely as the conduit for an all-encompassing
confirmed invalid through months and years," they fell in love.
love.
She began writing the 44 sonnets she would later dedicate to
him. The affair had to be kept secret from Mr. Barrett, who
disinherited his daughter when she and Robert Browning
eloped and moved to Italy in 1846. Elizabeth's health improved
somewhat, and the couple had a son. She included her 44 love
sonnets as a sequence called Sonnets from the Portuguese in
the second edition of Poems, published in 1850. These love
sonnets would become Elizabeth Barrett Browning's best-
known work. Still, she considered her 11,000-line semi-
autobiographical verse novel Aurora Leigh (1857) to be "the
one into which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have
entered." It was certainly the most profitable of her books in
her own lifetime, though it was not praised by critics.

Death and Legacy

Thereafter, the poems Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote were
mostly political and less popular. She died in Italy on June 29,
1861. An obituary in the Edinburgh Review stated she had
embodied a combination of genius and learning that had "never
been seen before in any woman." Her love sonnets and
especially "How Do I Love Thee?" have far eclipsed in
popularity anything else she wrote.

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How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide Characters 5

Character Map

Speaker
Thee
The poet Elizabeth
Lovers The poet Robert Browning
Barrett Browning

Main Character

Other Major Character

Minor Character

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How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide Plot Summary 6

equates her love with an esteemed quality—humility.

Full Character List
Character Description Lines 9 to 14
The speaker is unnamed, but it is clearly With lines 9 to 14, the sonnet's sestet, the mood becomes
Elizabeth Barrett Browning herself. She slightly darker. Now the speaker recalls "old griefs" and love
Speaker dedicated this and 43 other sonnets to her
lost in the past and compares her love with those older
future husband, the poet Robert Browning
(1812–89). feelings. Once, she suffered passionate, all-consuming grief;
now, she loves with an equal amount of passionate energy. In
"Thee" is unnamed, but Browning is clearly childhood, she placed absolute trust—"faith"—in religion. As
Thee addressing poet Robert Browning, whom she matured, however, her faith seemed to weaken, and finally
she married in 1846. she lost it: "I love thee with a love I seemed to lose / With my
lost saints." That faith has returned, but now it's attached to
something and someone she trusts utterly. The speaker

k Plot Summary
concludes by saying she loves him with "the breath / Smiles,
tears, of all [her] life" and praying God will allow her to love him
"even better after death."

Lines 1 to 6
c Plot Analysis
An unnamed speaker addresses a lover who is referred to
throughout as "thee." She announces that she is going to
"count"—in the sense of listing—the many facets of her love. To
begin with, she says that her love is as voluminous as her soul. Focus on the Speaker
It reaches as far as her soul can reach when the soul tries to
discern the "limits of being," or purpose of life, and the limits of Neither the speaker nor "thee" is identified by name or gender,

"ideal grace." Presumably the soul's reach is infinite, since such but since it's well known that Browning wrote the 44 love

limits can't be ascertained; therefore, the speaker's love is also sonnets to the poet Robert Browning, it's safe to assume the

infinite. The speaker explains in lines 5 and 6 that her love is speaker is female.

also capable of perceiving and meeting "every day's most quiet

A more conventional love sonnet might list the reasons the
(trivial) need" both day and night.
speaker loves someone—the beloved's beauty, brilliance, and
so on. In that case, the poem would revolve around the beloved
object. Shakespeare's sonnet "Shall I Compare Thee to a
Lines 7 and 8 Summer's Day?" is a good example of this phenomenon. In it
the poet praises his beloved's beauty and declares time cannot
Lines 7 and 8 complete the octave of the sonnet. In these two diminish it. In contrast, "How Do I Love Thee?" places the
lines, the speaker measures her emotion against some of speaker herself front and center. The poem's point is not "You
humanity's worthiest qualities. "I love thee freely, as men strive are loveable" but "These are the kinds of love I feel for you."
for right. / I love thee purely, as they turn from praise." The Throughout history, sonnets have dealt with the subject of
concept of loving someone "freely, as men strive for right," may love—but before Elizabeth Barrett Browning, not many women
not be immediately understandable. What the speaker means wrote sonnets. As one scholar has noted, the poet turned to
is that she loves without fear or constraint; she loves because sonnet-writing partly to address "the absence of women's
it's the right thing to do, and people should strive to do right. voices in the British lyric tradition." Positioning herself as the
When she loves "purely, as [men] turn from praise," she means poem's speaker is doubly groundbreaking.
she loves without the need for anyone's approval. This love is
pure because it's untainted; it does not seek gain. Again, she Earlier sonnets in this sequence express the speaker's doubt

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How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide Plot Analysis 7

that she is worthy of anyone's love. In Sonnet 8, "What Can I

Give Thee Back, O Liberal?," she wonders if she has anything Enjambment
of value to give her lover. "Frequent tears have run / The colors
from my life," she says, and left it nearly dead. "How Do I Love "How Do I Love Thee?" is a traditional sonnet as far as its

Thee?" betrays none of this insecurity. There is no question but meter and rhyme scheme go. But Browning's extensive use of

that the speaker deserves love. A woman confident enough to enjambment contributes significantly to its sound and impact.

compare her feelings with "the passion put to use / In my old Enjambment comes from the French for "stepping over." In

griefs" needs no reassurance from a lover. poetry, enjambment is the technique in which a thought or
phrase in one line carries over into the next line. One line runs
to the next, usually without "terminal punctuation"—a comma or

Multifaceted Love period—at the end of the first line.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" is not

In "How Do I Love Thee?" the speaker discourses on the many enjambment; "Let me count the ways" is a complete sentence
ways she loves her unnamed partner. The sonnet has three that ends when the line does. In the next five lines, however,
distinct parts marked by the kinds of love she describes. Its Browning uses enjambment three times. "I love thee to the
first part, lines 1 to 6, expresses pure rapture: the love she depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach" is the first
feels has infinite volume. It is assiduous enough to meet any of example. The clause in line 2 does not end until the middle of
daily life's obligations, no matter how insignificant. line 3. "When feeling out of sight / For the ends of being and
ideal grace" is the next use of enjambment. The third is "I love
In the center of the poem, lines 7 and 8 call attention to
thee to the level of every day's / Most quiet need." Two more
themselves because, unlike most of the other lines, they do not
examples of enjambment follow these three. This means that
end in enjambments. They are "I love thee freely, as men strive
more than a third of the lines in the poem use the technique.
for right. / I love thee purely, as they turn from praise." These
two lines stand out. They do so not only because they are end- In some poems, enjambment is used to create a sense of
stopped—that is, ending with punctuation—but also because anticipation or to emphasize a word that might otherwise be
these lines are the only ones in the poem in which the ignored. Here there are so many enjambments that the
speaker's love is compared with other people's emotions. They ordinary lines stand out. This is particularly true with the two
form a bridge between the poem's first section and the last. lines in the middle of the sonnet: "I love thee freely, as men
strive for right. / I love thee purely, as they turn from praise."
Lines 7 and 8 also stand out because they mention "men." In
Enjambment also keeps the sonnet's rhythm from being too
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's era, "men" could stand in for
regular. "Mary had a little lamb, / Its fleece was white as snow.
"people" or "humankind." In effect she would be saying "I, a
/ And everywhere that Mary went, / The lamb was sure to go"
woman, love you with the same fervor as people feel when
has an obvious rhythmic pattern that's appropriate for a
they strive for right." However, from childhood on, Browning
nursery rhyme. But it would flow more like natural speech if it
was conscious that females in her culture had fewer privileges
began, "Mary had a lamb whose curly fleece / Was white as
than males. "Throughout my childhood, I had a steady
snow." Barrett may have found the sonnet structure limiting,
indignation against Nature who made me a woman," she once
but her skilled use of enjambment makes the poem flow like
wrote. Perhaps she wants to make the point that the love she
conversation.
feels is as important as more "manly" concerns.

Lines 9 to 14 shift the speaker's perspective from the present

to the past as she compares the emotion she now feels to
former emotions she once believed were love. She's not
deprecating these old feelings, but they no longer feel alive.
Saints have an unreal and insubstantial quality, but the
speaker's lover is real. She will not lose faith in him.

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How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide Quotes 8

"I love thee to the level of every

g Quotes
day's / Most quiet need."
"How do I love thee? Let me count — Speaker
the ways."
The alliteration of love and level puts an emphasis on the latter
— Speaker word, suggesting that needs can actually be measured.
Though boundless, the speaker's love is also cozily domestic.
"Most quiet needs" refers to ordinary daily needs, which,
This could be a conventional opening line. The use of "thee"
though undramatic, are constant and ongoing. The speaker's
instead of "you" adds a layer of tradition. The line gives no hint
love is able to meet these needs.
that the rest of the sonnet will explore love in unconventional
ways. The speaker refrains from identifying her beloved.
Perhaps the lovers know each other so well that no
identification is necessary. Perhaps the speaker wants to make "I love thee freely, as men strive
the poem work for readers of both genders.
for right."
"Count" is an unusual word choice, since in fact the speaker
doesn't do any counting. She uses the word to mean "take — Speaker
account of" or "make a list of."

Line 7 is the first of two lines that shift the speaker's

descriptions from personal emotion to comparisons to the
"I love thee to the depth and emotion of others. She's "striving for right" in the same way a
soldier might fight for a cause. Her use of "men" in this line puts
breadth and height / My soul can
her emotions on par with any traditionally masculine ideal.
reach."

— Speaker "I love thee purely, as they turn

from praise."
For the speaker, love has volume and is simultaneously
capable of being expanded. Her feelings for her beloved
— Speaker
extend to the farthest reaches of her soul, which are
presumably boundless. The internal rhyme of depth and
breadth underscores this idea. "They" in Line 8 is a reference to "men" in Line 7. Here the
speaker continues to compare her emotions to the ideals of
others. Honorable people pursue a cause because it's
right—not because they will be praised for their devotion. The
"When feeling out of sight / For
speaker's feelings are similarly pure. They're not motivated by
the ends of being and ideal grace." anything but love. The contrast between her love's purity and
the lesser motivation of praise is underscored by the

— Speaker alliterative repetition of the "p" sound that begins the words.

"Feeling" here has the sense of "reaching." With her whole soul,
"I love thee with the passion put to
the speaker yearns to understand the incomprehensible and
unknowable. use / In my old griefs, and with my

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How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide Symbols 9

The poem's ending brings the theme of a love that endures

childhood's faith."
through time full circle. The speaker expresses the hope that
she and her lover will be together after death and that the love
— Speaker
they feel will become even deeper. With God's help, their
perfected love will last for eternity.
Passionate grief is tremendously powerful—and hard to forget.
Some people can never overcome it. The speaker's passionate
love has the same power. Childhood faith is sweetly confident
and trusting. When children believe in something, they believe l Symbols
whole-heartedly and unquestioningly. The speaker's love is
passionate, but it's also childlike in the sense that she has
unquestioning faith in her lover.
Light

"I love thee with a love I seemed to

"How Do I Love Thee?" has very few symbols, but an important
lose / With my lost saints." one is light. "I love thee to the level of every day's / Most quiet
need, by sun and candle-light," says the speaker in lines 5 and
— Speaker 6. She certainly means she loves her partner day and night, but
she also means that she is illuminated by love. In line 3 she
speaks of "feeling out of sight / For the ends of being and ideal
"Childhood's faith" isn't always lifelong. As people mature, they
grace." "Feeling out of sight" refers to the way people grope
sometimes outgrow their reverence. The speaker once
for things they can't see, things just out of visual reach. A literal
worshiped saints—the word perhaps standing for religious
light helps reveal lost or out-of-sight items; a figurative light
belief itself—and that adoration has vanished. Now it's her lover
provides insight.
who has become sacred to her.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning does not mention the
circumstances under which she and Robert Browning fell in
"I love thee with the breath, / love, but she may have had them in mind when writing this
sonnet. Before she met her future husband, Elizabeth Barrett
Smiles, tears, of all my life." had lived as a virtual prisoner in her bedroom, trapped by
illness and depression and dominated by an autocratic father.
— Speaker Browning brought light into her life, and after they eloped, they
moved to Italy. The mild and sunny Mediterranean climate

The love the speaker feels is as necessary to her as breathing, brought about a substantial improvement in her health.

and just as constant. She will love her lover for the rest of her Sometime after the move, she wrote a friend to say, "I am

life, through both happy and sad times. What's more, her love wonderfully well ... Robert declares that nobody would know

for him has transformed even the emotions of her life before me, I look so much better."

she knew him. They all feed into her love for him.

Lost Saints
"If God choose, / I shall but love
thee better after death."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was conventionally religious in
— Speaker early life but became less so as she grew up. Christianity
remained important to her, but she also adopted a form of

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How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide Themes 10

pantheism in which she found God in the natural world he

created. "Nature is where God is. Poetry is where God is," she Love Through Time
wrote.

In "How Do I Love Thee?" the speaker makes clear Christian

"How Do I Love Thee?" contains repeated references to the
imagery holds less appeal for her than it once did. "I love thee
passing of time. First, the speaker says her love is constant
with a love I seemed to lose / With my lost saints," she says in
throughout "sun and candle-light." The phrase means "both day
lines 11 and 12. Saints are believed to be closer to God than
and night"—that is, constantly. But the meaning of the passage
ordinary people. In Catholic theology a person can only be
would have been completely different had the speaker
canonized—recognized as a saint—under certain
suggested that her love continues both "night and day." A day
circumstances. They must have lived an exceptionally holy life
is a figurative beginning; night, which is often called "the close
or given their life for their faith, and they must have performed
of day," is a symbolic end. It's therefore significant that
one or more miracles. Saints live in heaven and seem distant
"candle-light" is listed after "sun." Candles are lit at the waning
from the real world. The speaker in this poem hasn't turned
of the day, and this love will still exist as life itself begins to
against her "lost saints," but their importance has faded. For
fade.
her, loving an actual person feels more vibrantly real than
venerating a saint. Lines 9 through 12 in the sestet describe loves of the past. The
speaker mentions "old griefs" that have now been replaced by
true passion. She says she loves her partner "with [my]
childhood's faith." This suggests a pure, unquestioning
m Themes devotion—but one that the speaker thought she had outgrown.
Similarly, the speaker outgrew her love for "lost saints"—forms
of worship that no longer have meaning for her.

Love's Reach The sonnet's final line turns to the future. The speaker's
current love is all a person could ask for. God permitting,
however, the love she feels will not die when she does. Instead
Since "How Do I Love Thee?" is a sonnet about various kinds of it will become even stronger.
love, it's fitting that the poem opens with the image of an
overarching, infinitely expansive love. The speaker's devotion
stretches as far as her soul can reach. It's broad enough to
touch "the ends of being." At the same time, this love can take
Love as Faith
note of even the minutest details. It's capable of meeting every
need—however trivial—that may arise in the course of day. The
speaker's love matches that of brave men "striving for right," Browning's upbringing was solidly Christian. However, her
and it's utterly pure, untouched by any hope of gain. family were not members of the state Church of England. As
Congregationalists they rejected the Church of England's
This is a love that replaces older, outdated fervors, yet
concept of priestly hierarchy and believed in a freer
matches them in intensity. The speaker long ago lost her faith
interpretation of Christian tenets. Browning was raised in a
in the saints who had formerly inspired her. Now she places the
denomination that valued independence in its adherents. Even
same loving faith in her partner. She feels this love "with the
so, she found herself questioning church teachings as she
breath, / Smiles, tears of all [her] life." And if God allows it, she
grew older. She was particularly troubled by her father's belief
says firmly, she expects her love to grow even stronger after
that the world was innately corrupt and evil. In the 1830s she
her death.
began reformulating her religious ideas. For her, humans were
innately good, not evil, and the natural world was proof of
God's blessings.

"How Do I Love Thee?" is framed, beginning and end, by

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How Do I Love Thee? Study Guide Narrative Voice 11

standard Christian thinking. Humans have souls; some form of slapdash writer, however, and scholars have suggested she
life continues after death if God permits it. But the poem's deliberately loosened the rules. "Near rhymes," says writer and
sestet makes clear Browning's religious views have evolved scholar Margaret M. Morlier, provide "a strategy for developing
since her childhood. She has shed her "childhood faith" in the more contours than the monotone sweetness expected of
supernatural and her love for her "lost saints." Those feelings most female poets." Morlier adds that loose rhyming may be
now revolve around her beloved, an earthly human being. part of a "subversive influence" in Browning's poetry. Browning
had taken up a poetic form that until then had been almost the
exclusive province of men. She was determined to develop a
style that would speak especially clearly to women.
b Narrative Voice
Despite the formal, old-fashioned word "thee," the first line of
Sonnet 43 sounds rather casual. "Let me tell you something,"
the speaker seems to be saying. The fact that the first line
opens with a question suggests that perhaps her lover has
even asked how or why she loves him. Now she's answering
him. "I" comes before "thee" in this poem, for the speaker is
definitely the main character. "Thee" is never identified or even
described; the sonnet is concerned solely with the speaker's
emotions.

The speaker in "How Do I Love Thee?" seems to radiate

independence. Anaphora—deliberate repetition—drives this
quality home. Eight times the speaker says, "I love thee." Only
in the penultimate line, with the phrase "if God choose," does
the speaker suggest any agency besides her own is driving this
love. And here she says that if God does choose, her feelings
will become even stronger. Anaphora also acts as a sort of
stabilizer in this poem. The speaker's comparisons are
complex, but repeatedly pairing them with the same phrase
grounds them.

The speaker's comparisons are also hyperbolic: exaggerated

and overly emphatic. Love is impossible to quantify, but "I love
thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach"
is essentially saying, "My love is infinite." The declaration "I love
thee with a love I seemed to lose / With my lost saints" can
similarly be seen as exaggerated. The speaker loves with a
religious fervor. Yet the speaker does not seem overwrought,
partly because the repetition of "I love thee" gives equal weight
to the comparisons that follow. The speaker does not progress
from small, "tame" similes to earth-shattering ones. Her love is
pitched equally high throughout the poem.

The poem's end rhymes are somewhat imprecise, a stylistic

choice for which Browning was faulted in her lifetime. Ways
and grace are near rhymes, and it would be a reach to say the
words faith and breath rhyme at all. Browning was not a

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