32
4.2 Passion to Love in
How Do I Love Thee? HOW DO I LOVE THEE
1.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
2.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
3.
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
4.
For the ends of being and ideal grace
5.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
6.
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light
7.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right
8.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise
9.
I love thee with the passion put to use
10.
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith
11.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
12.
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath
13.
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose
14.
I shall but love thee better after death Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861 wrote a series of 44 sonnets, in
secret, about the intense love she felt for her husband-to-be, poet Robert Browning. She called this series Sonnets From the Portuguese, a title based on the pet name
Robert gave her: my little Portugee. Sonnet 43 was the next-to-last sonnet in this series. A love poem with first eight lines octave pose a problem and the last six
lines sestet solves the problem. In composing her sonnets, she had two types of sonnet formats from which to choose: the Italian model popularized by Petrarch
33
1304-1374 and the English model popularized by Shakespeare 1564-1616. She chose Petrarchs model.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her love sonnet How Do I Love Thee beautifully expresses her love for her husband. Listing the different ways in which
Elizabeth loves her beloved, she also insists that if God permits her she will continue loving the love of her life even after her death.
The rhyme scheme of Sonnet 43 is as follows: Lines 1 to 8—abba, abba; lines 9 to 14—cd, cd, cd. The first eight lines of a Petrarchan sonnet are called an
octave; the remaining six lines are called a sestet. The octave presents the theme of the poem; the sestet offers a solution if there is a problem, provides an answer if
there is a question, or simply presents further development of the theme. In Brownings Sonnet 43, the octave draws analogies between the poets love; the sestet
draws analogies between the intensity of love she felt while writing the poem and the intensity of love she experienced earlier in her life. Then it says that she will love her
husband-to-be even more after death, God permitting. The subject matter is that love is not an earthly concept but an eternal,
everlasting thing that lasts well beyond the cold grave. The poem is not related to how she loves or why, but just the way in which she does so freely and purely. They
had never met but they were just expressing how much they loved each other and this is one of the love poems that they shared. She defines herself with the ways she loves
Robert. This actually makes this poem very sensitive. Besides her love to Robert, she actually has admires him. The poem begins with a question, and answers it. The main
point is the authors desire to tell us how much she loves him with all her heart. The author expresses how she adores her love by repeating it often.
34
Reader will immediately understand the greatness of the intensity of Elizabeths love. The poem contains internal rhymes that tells us Elizabeth loves
Robert with every dimension of her entity. His love sustains her and that’s why she needs him. She tells that she loves him with the blind faith of a child. It explains that
she had lost believing in holy things after growing up. However, Robert has awakened her spirit in a way that she has again begun to reaffirm her belief in all the
things holy. He is her savior and means the whole world to her. There is passion, excitement and spontaneity in her love. Also, she has a big hope that her love will
transcend the boundaries of time, space, life and death; it will live forever. She hopes that only something as violent and destructive as death will strengthen her passion.
Here the writer will explain about passion to love in How Do I Love Thee? but firstly the writer will explain about passion of love that found in this poetry until
knowing woman’s passions to love in How Do I Love Thee?. a.
Passion of Love in How Do I love Thee? Love is a matter of giving and taking, of mutual responding and reciprocal
interaction. Love involves a sharing and returning. Most humanist would agree that love is a necessary ingredient in our lives. Maslow in Warga 1983: 318 made love
and intimacy one of the prerequisites of achieving self-actualization, the realization of one full potential. Obviously, Maslow felt that it is possible to live a life without
love, but that such a life is one a rather low plane of existence. This experience of love is possibly different from other experiences, yet few people are able to achieve
or maintain it. Most people have serious, however, unattended problems that specifically involve love. In this poem, Elizabeth wants to tell that woman has an
passion in her live, especially to get her love and how to love. She always dreams
35
about her passion how to love her husband. She believes that her dream would come true. It can be seen from the following quotation:
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace Line 2-4
From the quotation above, we can see that she really loves someone. She describes love with any ways which is from the depth, breadth and height. It means
she loves him from the bottom of her heart. She can reach everything she wants, even though her feeling can not be seen by someone she loved. She was doing everything
because it is only for her ideal grace. Love is a strong process of examination in human life. With true love in
everybody, it is the biggest motivation for a woman to have passion. Without love, humans will not get a support to achieve their aims.
So, love is the dominant factor to achieve her desire. According to Warga 1983: 313, love is a strong fondness or enthusiasm for something. Based on the
explanation above, I can deliver the factor or reason that triggers of the woman in the poems. We can notice the explanation about it clearly below.
I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light
I love thee freely, as men strive for right I love thee purely, as they turn fro praise
I love thee with the passion put to use Line 5-9
From the quotation above, love is the strong factor or reason for a woman. The woman really loves someone. So, It can be the reason to get her passion
especially passion to love her husband. The poem uses the hyperbole, It is showed in the fourth line of last stanza:
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath Line 12
36
The poet shows her love toward a particular person by saying I love thee with the breath. It means she will give everything including her breath, in this case means
she is ready to death for him. It also means she cannot live without breath as well as she cannot live without him. This is a hyperbole because showing love to someone
usually only showed by giving attention and affection instead of giving life. It is also showed in the last line of last stanza :
I shall but love thee better after death Line 14
The poet stated that her love is unending like what she wrote through the last line in her poem, she will love her special person even after she died. This statement
is a hyperbole because, it expresses someone’s love when people are still alive, not until after people die.
The major subject matter of this poem is love. The poet talks about the emotion of love and she is exploring the different aspects of that emotion. In the
poem, she shows love from a variety of perspectives. She talks about love being a quiet, everyday sort of thing. But she also talks about love being a passionate thing.
People who had loved another for a long period of time knowing that there are all sorts of different aspects of this emotion. The poet is bringing these aspects out in
this poem .
Overall, this poem describes about the ways Elizabeth loves her husband. That’s why she uses diction how instead of why. It is because she won’t describe
about the reason why she loves him since loving someone doesn’t need any reason. The way she loves him can be measured by the depth, breadth, and height. She loves
him eternally, until the end of her life even after she died. She loves him anytime, both in day and night. She loves him sincerely and purely without need any return.
37
She loves him with her breath, and always share happiness and sadness in her life with him.
b. Woman’s passions to love in How Do I Love Thee?
How Do I Love Thee is a sensitive poem because of the reason that the poet here defines herself only in the ways she loves Robert. Love is portrayed to be
intangible; it can even be felt even after one settles in the cold grave. Love according to Elizabeth is not an earthly concept because she loves freely
and purely without thinking about the why’s and how’s of love and its future possibilities. Though both the lovers never met but still they express their love for
each other by the means of sharing poems and this is obviously one of the poems they shared in the moments of their love.
Defining her love, by using a spatial metaphor, Elizabeth’s love extends to heights of all the lengths and breadth that her pure soul could possibly reach. She
expresses her love for her husband to be from every part of her soul.
How Do I Love Thee is undoubtedly a simple poem but it has a deep hidden meaning. Love is eternal, unconquerable and the highest power in the world.
Elizabeth loves her husband to be on a daily basis instead of loving him for a few passionate moments. Her love is not a slave to momentary passion and this is proved
because she is in love with Robert without even meeting him. The poetess by no means is seeking appraisal by the readers she is fully controlled by the emotion of
love both internally and externally. She has completely lost control over her body, mind and soul.
38
Elizabeth is also feels on the fact that someone does not have to pretend that they are morally or ethically good and goodness is completely a matter of one’s own
choice. Pure love and dedication are the two pillars on which this poem stands and once again the poem proves the most cherished notion that love is eternal and it is
unaware of any boundaries.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways Line 1
In first line starting with the title How Do I Love Thee, already tells us that the poem is a love poem. The title also shows that the author is going to express to
what extent of love they feel for the person they wrote the poem for.It shows that the author loves her significant other in many different ways. The poet dedicates the rest
of the poem to answering her own question and expressing the ways in which she loves her partner.
The author shows the question thats going to drive the entire poem: how does she love thee, the man she loves?. She decides to count the ways in which she loves
him throughout the rest of the poem. Now, these all might seem pretty straightforward after all, the line is simply
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. But the writer wants to point out that deciding to count the ways you love someone does seem a bit, calculating. The
speakers initial decision to count types of love is intriguing. For her, love is the best expressed by making a list, and that just seems weird to other people.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace Line 2-4
39
In this phrase she is talking about how deep her love is for him. She is basically saying that her love is physical and also spiritual at the same time. That the
love she has for him is in her soul body and mind. She loves him till she doesn’t exist anymore; she loves him as the perfect gift, the perfect guy for her.
The speaker describes her love using a spatial metaphor: her love extends to the depth and breadth and height that her soul can reach. Its interesting to think of
love as a three-dimensional substance filling the container of her soul. The sense that the speaker is stretching out with both arms, trying to explain
how broad and wide and deep her love is. Its a much more poetic version of saying I love you THIS MUCH with arms flung wide. True love overcomes all and is
eternal in nature. True love can be profound, deep and moving. There is hope that great love
exists beyond the grave; that a truly great love never die. I love thee to the level of every days
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light Line 5-6
In line 5 and 6 she expresses her love for him by saying just as we have our basic needs to survive, she has his love. For her, his love is one of her basic needs,
like air and water, and she needs it day and night. The poem become much more grounded and down-to-earth in the description of the next way to love. As the
speaker explains, she loves her lover to the level of everydays or most quiet need. This is a reminder that, even though she loves him with a passionate, abstract
intensity, she also loves him in a regular, day-to-day way.
40
Its important, however, that it doesnt mean the love is any less significant. The everyday need for love may be quiet, but its definitely there. These are some of
the only lines in this poem that actually use concrete imagery. She completes the description of this everyday love with two images of light: by sun and candle-light.
Basically, this is just a way of saying in the day and at night, or it’s also the way of saying that Elizabeth needs her husband just like humans need sun as a light in life,
but it also reminds us that the lovers are looking at each other all the time and that the speaker here loves her beloved no matter what light she sees him in.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right I love thee purely, as they turn from praise
Line 7-8 These lines use anaphora, beginning with the same phrase I love thee, as do
lines two, five, nine and eleven. This parallel structure emphasizes that the poem is in many ways a catalog or list of ways of loving, rather than an extended argument
.
The poet also represents her love to her special person using simile. She uses ‘as’ to
compare it. She compares her free love as men who strive for right. She also compares her pure love as those men who turn from praise.
She loves him freely as if not by force or obligation but by her own free will. She is saying that she loves him purely for love and not the praises or benefits from
love. The poet loves with her whole soul. She loves him for fulfilling her completely, every hour of the day. She loves him without asking for flattery or praise. She loves
him with all the emotion she experienced, with a love she believes, with God’s will, will last for all eternity.
41
Besides of that, the word freely here can be interpreted as a woman is free to choose and loving man she wants. It is inversely proportional to the reality of women
in the Victorian Era women were seen, by the middle classes at least, as belonging to the domestic sphere, and this stereotype required them to provide their husbands with
a clean home, food on the table and to raise their children. Women’s rights were extremely limited in this era, losing ownership of their wages, all of their physical
property, excluding land property, and all other cash they generated once married. When a Victorian man and woman married, the rights of the woman were legally
given over to her spouse. Under the law the married couple became one entity where the husband would represent this entity, placing him in control of all property,
earnings and money. In addition to losing money and material goods to their husbands, Victorian wives became property to their husbands, giving them rights to
what their bodies produced; children, sex and domestic labour. Marriage abrogated a woman’s right to consent to sexual intercourse with her husband, giving him
‘ownership’ over her body. Their mutual matrimonial consent therefore became a contract to give herself to her husband as he desired.
Rights and privileges of Victorian women were limited, and both single and married women had hardships and disadvantages they had to live with. Victorian
women had disadvantages both financially and sexually, enduring inequalities within their marriages and social statuses, distinct differences in men and women’s rights
took place during this Era. Providing men with more stability, financial status and power over their homes and women. Marriages for Victorian women became
contracts, one which was extremely difficult if not impossible to get out of during the Victorian era. Women’s rights groups fought for equality and over time made strides
42
to change rights and privileges, however, many Victorian women endured their husbands control, cruelty targeted against their wives; including sexual violence,
verbal abuse and economic deprivation and were given no way out. While husbands participated in affairs with other women wives endured infidelity as they had no
rights to divorce on these grounds and their divorce was considered to be a social taboo.
Elizabeth tells, I love thee freely, as men strive for right. She is implying that men strive for right in a free way. That is, trying to be morally good isnt
something anyone has to do, its something they choose to do of their own free will. Everything men do is a choice, but in another way, a men try to do the right thing
because they think they ought to. So, if her love is just as free as being ethically good, maybe its something she feels she has to do, even when she doesnt want to.
Next, the speaker tells us, I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. That is, her love is pure in the way that being modest and refusing everyone elses
admiration is pure. Perhaps the speaker is also implying that she is not proclaiming her love in
order to be applauded by her readers. She is not seeking praise for writing a great poem about love, she loves without wanting any reward or commendation.
I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhoods faith
Line 9-10 First the writer needs to explain what old griefs are. Thinking about an
incident in the past that still feel really angry about. Now imagine if people could use all the passion and intensity of that bitter feeling and convert it somehow into love.
Thats what the speaker is talking about.
43
The speaker of this poem is saying I love you with all the energy I used to spend being bitter about stuff in my past.” The speaker also claims that she loves her
beloved with my childhoods faith. Of course, just as the previous metaphor seems to inject an odd kind of bitterness and anger into the world of love, this metaphor seems
to bring with it connotations of simplicity. With 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
Line 12-14 The poet shows her love toward a particular person by saying I love thee with
the breath. It means she will give everything including her breath, and she is ready to put her life to death. It means she cannot live without his breath as well as she can
not live without him. This indicates a hyperbole because it shows love to someone that usually only expressed by giving attention and affection instead of giving life.
It is also showed in I shall but love thee better after death. The poet states that her love is unending looks like what she writes through the last line in her poem that she
will love her special person even after she died. This statement is also a hyperbole because it expose someone’s love after the death.
If God intends 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.
She is confessing her love for him so strong that she loves him with the life that’s in her. Line 13 use climax that showed in line 13 smiles, tears, of all my life;
and, if God choose. Its means that she loves him with every breath in her body;
44
through the happy and sad times in her life. She loves him so dearly that even after death, beyond the grave if god will allow it, she will still love him forever more.
Going back in history, this poem was published in 1850 but written in between 1844-1845. Elizabeth Browning married Robert Browning in 1846, the man
to whom the poem was written for. Elizabeth wrote love poems to escape her childhood, her dad which had her under key and chain and refused to allow his
children to marry. The poem is among many she has written for her beloved husband pouring out her love. They died still in love with each other, still together. Who
knows, maybe they are still loving each other after death as in her poem.
45
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
5.1 Conclusion
Kategori