“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” Elizabeth Barrett Browning also starts her sonnet with a question, which she starts to answer right away with all the ways she can express her love and how she can still love. There are multiple ways in which she answers her question but most of them start with, “I love thee” repetition is used a lot throughout the sonnet and shows that there are no other ways to explain how she loves thee. The first quatrain is dedicated to which the spiritual ways she loves him are used. “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight” This is the first way she loves him and she explains with so much details that you can probably understand that she’s completely devoted to the person she’s declaring her love to. It also shows that she’s going past human boundaries by describing how far her soul can reach with all the love she harbours for him. In the second quatrain browning uses not only time but also faith and peace, “I love thee to the level of everyday’s most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.” This part seems to tell us she loves him as much as people need daytime and the night. It also to me conveys how day and night will always be there and always have been there and she is explaining that her love is as constant as daytime and night. “I love thee with a passion put to use” If she’d used this line at the beginning of the sonnet then the sonnet would seem to make more sense and then there would be no need for the sonnet. When she uses the word passion everything else becomes irrelevant and the sonnet has clarity. During this sonnet she is explaining how her love pours out of everything she does, everything she says and everything she believes in. In the final couplet she explains that if she’s lucky when she’s granted death that if God gave her an afterlife then she’ll love him even more because of the gift of afterlife “if God chose, I shall but love thee better after death” and everything is more appreciated when its gone. This sonnet has a tone of devotion and the desperation of expression.
“Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea” Shakespeare starts the sonnet by using natural physical elements and then saying these are all defeated by mortality and mortality overrules their power. In all three quatrains a question occurs and all questions are answered before the sonnet meets its end. “How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, whose action is no stronger than a flower?” This question is referring to beauty, love and mortality. Shakespeare is asking if beauty and love can defeat mortality, if love and beauty can still stand out during such a rage and goes on to answer this question through the sonnet. The second quatrain talks about time and strength, it gives few examples of strong elements but then goes on to say that all these elements can be defeated by time and no matter how strong, they can’t last forever. The third quatrains first line starts with a juxtaposition before going on to sorrow, “O fearful meditation, where alack,” the juxtaposition is of the fearful meditation, its showing us the opposite meaning of meditation as meditation is supposed to be peaceful and not meant to be feared. The rest of this quatrain talks of death ever coming and talks of beauty again and saying maybe beauty can defy time as long as it is hidden but then time becomes personified as it says, “Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back, Or who spoil o’er beauty can forbid?” and this says that beauty alone cannot stop time but in the final couplet it is explains how beauty can still hold its plea.
Comparisons
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Written by William Shakespeare and “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Both of these sonnets speak of everlasting love, spoken in different ways but in the end meaning the same. Shakespeare’s sonnet talks more of everlasting beauty than love yet it is portrayed quite the same. Shakespeare’s seems to mean that her love is like her beauty and it’ll never fade while Browning seems to be saying that her love is like her soul; it’ll always be there. The point of view of these sonnets are both written in the first person and both have a sense of tenderness and genuine softness for whomever it was written for. The language used in Shakespeare’s sonnet is quite sensitive especially when he says, “Thou art more lovely and more temperate”, it shows affection and may be found to be quite emotional. While the language used in Shakespeare’s sonnet is emotional Browning seems to add fire at the Volta by saying, “I love thee with a passion put to use”, this seems to make the sonnet stronger and stops it from seeming quite soppy. At the Volta both sonnets seem to change; Shakespeare’s sonnet goes back on everything he had said while Browning’s sonnet seems to say what she loves him with instead of just how she loves him. Shakespeare’s sonnet is a question followed by a long and complicated answer while Browning’s sonnet also is an answer to a question but also includes a lot of repetition so that the point of the sonnet is understood. Both sonnets mention death, “Nor shall death brag thou wand’ rest in his shade” in Shakespeare’s and “I shall but love thee better after death” in Browning’s but in such a way that it makes you feel like somehow the cherish the end of something so amazing because you enjoy things more and make the most of what you have when you know there is an ending.
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and “Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea” written by William Shakespeare.
As most sonnets, these two speak of love. Shakespeare’s sonnet seems quite rough and harsh but still expresses love. In the third quatrain of Shakespeare’s sonnet it seems as if the tone of the sonnet changes from rough to pleading. Browning’s sonnet put next to this sonnet seems very timid and easily defeated as Shakespeare’s reflects a stronger love. In the third quatrain of Shakespeare’s sonnet it seems as if the tone of the sonnet changes from rough to pleading. In both sonnets the final couplets talk of death or life after death and both seem to mention faith, “O none, unless this miracle have might” (Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea) “Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,” (How do I love thee? Let me count the ways), Shakespeare mentions it in the possessions of miracles but Browning mentions it by using “God”, which shows she may believe and trust in her faith. Both sonnets are relying on the afterlife or immortality. In both sonnets the Voltas seem to bring a whole new angle to the tones of which the sonnets are written.
“I love thee with a passion put to use”, Its like she wants to say that her love is pouring out of everything she does to everything she says.
“Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea” and “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Both sonnets written by William Shakespeare.
Both of these sonnets written by Shakespeare are ore bound to be more similar than any other however Shakespeare uses two totally different tones for the sonnets yet he uses sort of the same subject, Nature. He uses summer for “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and for “Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea” he uses strong natural elements. In the final couplet of each sonnet he uses his sonnets as an explanation of how things will last forever. In both sonnets he describes death as if it is a living-breathing thing. In “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Shakespeare speaks of death as if it is ready to claim a life in the shadows. But in “Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea” Shakespeare personifies death using words such as “hand” and “foot”. “Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,” (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?) “Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back”. (Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea). Both sonnets are more about time than love and both describe things that are overcome by time and yet love can defeat time, if the love is strong enough. “O how shall summer’s honey breath holds out, against the wreckful siege of batt’ring days”(Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea). These two lines are probably talking about how something so sweet and pure can stay standing after something so forceful.
