Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese/ “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”----Discuss as a love sonnet.

 Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese, often known by its opening line, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” is a powerful expression of love and devotion. Written in the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, this poem captures the depth and sincerity of the speaker’s feelings for her beloved. Through its careful structure, vivid imagery, and emotional intensity, the poem celebrates the transformative power of love, presenting it as a force that transcends both physical and spiritual boundaries.

Structure and Form

The sonnet follows the traditional Petrarchan form, with an octave (the first eight lines) and a sestet (the final six lines). The octave introduces the central theme: the speaker’s attempt to quantify and describe her love. The rhyme scheme (ABBA ABBA) provides a lyrical and harmonious flow to the poem, enhancing its emotional appeal. The sestet (CDC DCD) shifts toward a deeper contemplation of love, connecting it with the speaker’s past experiences and her hopes for eternal love, even beyond death.

The use of the Petrarchan sonnet form is particularly significant, as it aligns Browning’s work with a long tradition of love poetry while allowing her to infuse the form with her own personal and emotional depth. The sonnet’s structure mirrors the movement of the speaker’s thoughts, from an initial intellectual contemplation of love to a more emotional and spiritual reflection in the concluding lines.

Exploration of Boundless Love

The poem opens with the famous rhetorical question, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” This line sets the stage for the speaker’s attempt to describe the various dimensions of her love. What follows is an enumeration of her love’s vastness and intensity, expressed through metaphors that suggest both physical and spiritual reach. The lines “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach” emphasize the boundlessness of her love, as if it transcends earthly limitations and expands to the furthest reaches of her being.

The speaker’s love is not confined to the abstract or the ideal; it also encompasses the everyday. She declares, “I love thee to the level of every day’s / Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light,” suggesting that her love is as essential and natural as the small, quiet moments that make up daily life. This blending of the extraordinary and the ordinary reflects the idea that true love permeates every aspect of existence, from the grand and transcendent to the mundane and practical.

Purity, Freedom, and Passion

Browning explores different qualities of love through a series of contrasting metaphors. She describes her love as both “freely” and “purely” given, comparing it to the striving for justice and the rejection of praise. This suggests that her love is selfless, untainted by selfish motives or the desire for recognition. The purity and freedom of her love are key elements that elevate it above mere romantic attraction, giving it a moral and ethical dimension.

At the same time, the speaker connects her present love with the passion and intensity of her past emotions. She loves “with the passion put to use / In my old griefs,” indicating that the emotional energy once directed toward sorrow and pain has now been transformed into love. This contrast between grief and love underscores the healing power of love, suggesting that it can redeem and repurpose the emotional turmoil of the past.

Spiritual Love and Immortality

The speaker also links her love with spiritual and religious imagery, particularly in the lines, “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose / With my lost saints.” Here, Browning reflects on the speaker’s earlier feelings of disillusionment or loss of faith, only to find that her love for her beloved has rekindled a sense of spiritual devotion. The reference to “lost saints” suggests that her love is not only a matter of human affection but also carries a spiritual significance, restoring her faith in something greater than herself.

The final lines of the sonnet point to the idea that love transcends even death. “And, if God choose, / I shall but love thee better after death” suggests that the speaker believes her love will continue into the afterlife, growing stronger even beyond the limits of earthly existence. This idea of eternal love aligns with the Romantic belief in the infinite and transcendent power of emotions, particularly love.

Conclusion

Sonnet 43 is a profound meditation on the many dimensions of love—its boundlessness, purity, passion, and spiritual significance. Through vivid imagery and a carefully structured sonnet form, Elizabeth Barrett Browning captures the depth of feeling that love can inspire. The poem elevates love to something more than just a romantic or physical experience, portraying it as a force that permeates every aspect of life and even transcends death. In this sonnet, love is portrayed as an enduring, transformative power that sustains and enriches both the speaker and the beloved, embodying the ideals of Romanticism and the poet’s personal devotion.