Comparison Of Love Poetry:Remember by Christina Rossetti, How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and When We Two Parted by Lord Byron

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Comparison Of Love Poetry:

Remember by Christina Rossetti, How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and When We Two Parted by Lord Byron

        The three poems, Remember by Christina Rossetti; How Do I love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and When We Two Parted by Lord Byron, each explore love and loss in their own unique ways. Remember is, as expected from the title, a solemn lament which is a farewell sonnet to her treasured one. How Do I Love Thee? is again a sonnet of love but is of a love that is present and hopefully will remain forever. The third poem that will be examined is When We Two Parted which tells of a lost secret love that has left a scar on Lord Byron’s life.

        Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s impressive How Do I Love Thee? is, as you might suppose, a poem describing the extent of the author’s love of her partner. It is one of her “Sonnets from the Portuguese” which were written in her Italian days at the Casa Guidi. Like many of them How Do I Love Thee? takes the form of a patriarchal sonnet which is the most common sonnet form and is for the most part the more appropriate form for love poetry over the English or Shakespearian sonnet or the Spenserian sonnet. Using sonnet form, you would expect the change in tone after the first octet but in this the change is less pronounced with a subtle change to a graver side of love. Though it is so understated it could be debated that it isn’t there at all.

        The second poem to be analysed is Lord Byron’s When We Two Parted. This is written from a different perspective to How Do I Love Thee? where the relationship has ended and his feelings can be simply shown in language. The overriding tone is one of hostility and bitterness towards his past and this is imprinted in the layout which features an ABAB rhyme pattern emphasising the separation. This also happens in First Love by John Clare where this rhyming structure stresses the fact that they were not as one rather just the one. When We Two Parted is particularly interesting as Lord Byron is frequently described as a womaniser yet he seems to express regret at the incident as, for once, it appears to have harmed him more than the other involved.

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        The last poem to be studied in detail is Remember by Christina Rossetti. This is a patriarchal sonnet like How Do I Love Thee? but tells a different story. Remember

is a sombre dirge acting as a departing message for Christina Rossetti’s loved one. Also the separation between the octet and the sestet is much more evident in this, the first segment of eight lines is a reminder of the good times and how much she will be missed. But the second section of six lines acts as a messenger to tell that the time has come to move on. To ...

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This is a perceptive comparison between the poems which shows a knowledge of poetic techniques and the contexts in which writers were writing. With more frequent, embedded quotations, the writer could have achieved the highest rating. ****