Compare the theme of love in 'Villegiature' and 'How do I love thee'

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Poetry Comparison

In this essay I will be looking at how two of the poets write about the theme of love.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote ‘How do I love thee’ and in this poem I think the poet spoke of an unconditional love, I thought this from its tone which was very sad.

I think this poem has some religious significance as well because the poet wrote words like ‘Being, Right, Praise, Grace and God’ these words give the poem a spiritual aspect which the other poems lack.

In the final line it said ‘I shall but love thee better after death’ I think from this that the poet is talking about being reunited with a lost love in heaven because we have already seen that this poet has faith in religion.

In the line ‘For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace’, Being means being looked out for by God and Grace means God’s protection, I think the poet has a love for God as well as the person the poem is dedicated to.

The poet has an unquestionable loyalty to whoever she speaks of, we can see this from the line ‘and with my childhood’s faith’ the key words being childhood’s faith because a child’s faith or loyalty is unwavering.

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‘How do I love thee’ is a sonnet which was a favoured style of writing at the time of the Pre-Raphaelites, the poem itself contains a lot of assonance and the occasional rhymes. This poem was obviously influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites because it speaks of everything they represented.

The poem contains iambic pentameter and has a disheartening tone I think this because I found the poem quite sad but it’s the poet’s faith which keeps her going and this is what makes it stand out amongst other poems.

The language used is nineteenth century English which I think is a ...

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