In this sonnet Elizabeth Browning talks about her mother and brother whom had died and is telling her husband just how much she loves him.
Elizabeth Browning asks a question in the first line of the sonnet.
“How do I love thee?”
She then lists many ways in which she loves him using a series of metaphors.
“I love thee to the level of every day’s
most quiet need, by sun and candle light.”
There is also a case of enjambment between lines two and three. She also uses hyperboles to emphasise just how much she loves him.
“ I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight.”
I the last six lines she begins to compare her love for her husband to her love for her family.
Line ten begins with
“In my oldest griefs.”
When Elizabeth Browning says this she is talking about her mother and brother who have died.
Then in the end line she says-
“And with my childhoods faith.”
This line means that her love is unquestioning.
In line thirteen she talks about her love for God, then in the last line she says that she will love him even more after death. The last line was controversial at the time, as most people believed that after someone died all earthly relationships ended.
The next sonnet that I am going to look at is “Phillis” by Thomas Lodge. In this sonnet Thomas Lodge talks about his love for a woman called Phillis. In this sonnet Thomas Lodge uses many metaphors to describe Phillis. The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is ABABCDCDEFEFGG. This sonnet is full of hyperboles as Thomas Lodge greatly exaggerates Phillis’ features. In the sonnet Thomas Lodge tells us that Phillis is more beautiful than the sun and has hair shinier than gold. He goes on to compare Phillis to a Goddess. He places Phillis on a pedestal.
“And Herbe spic’d hir necter with thy breath:”
In the last two lines Thomas Lodge begins to focus on himself and says that his faith is greater than any of Phillis’ features. The rhyming couplet exposes Lodge’s insincerity as he focuses on himself instead of the object of his supposed affection.
“Yet naithelesse tho wonderous giftes you call these,
My faith is farre more wonderfull then all these.”
I have noticed that throughout the whole poem Thomas Lodge has not once mentioned Phillis’ personality which shows us that his love is not true love and he is merely infatuated with Phillis because you cannot love someone only because of their looks.
Now I am going to look at the sonnet CXXX which is the complete opposite to Thomas Lodge’s sonnet. In this sonnet Shakespeare tells us that his mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun and her hair is wiry. He continues to tell us how his mistress is not good looking and about he bad smell.
“And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.”
Then in the final couplet Shakespeare says that despite all of these faults he still loves her.
“And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.”
In this sonnet Shakespeare is mocking others like Thomas Lodge who exaggerate their comparisons.
The final poem, which I am going to assess, is sonnet CXVI. In this poem Shakespeare is trying to convey to us his opinion of true love. He says that love does not change over time or end when something goes wrong.
“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,”
Shakespeare also uses a metaphor when he compares love to a star for a wandering ship.
“It is the star to every wandering barke,”
We can see a case of enjambment from line one to line two; also Shakespeare uses hyperboles to get his point of view across. The rhyme scheme for this sonnet is ABABCDCDCDEFEFGG. In the last two lines we see how confident Shakespeare is about his theory of true love as he says that if he is proved wrong then he has never written or no man has ever loved.
“If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”
There are many similarities and differences between the poems, which I have looked at. The main similarity is that all of the sonnets are about love. Phillis is the real odd one out as while all the other poems mention personality, Thomas Lodge’s sonnet is based solely on appearance and this cannot be true love. For example here are two quotations, one from Phillis, which is about appearance, and one from sonnet CXXX which is about true love.
“As nor the sunne, nor I have seen more faire.”
“And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare
As she belied with any false compare.”
Also another similarity is that every sonnet I have looked at apart from sonnet CXXX have hyperboles.
I feel that sonnet CXVI best portrays true love and I agree with most of Shakespeare’s theories. I think that he is correct when he says that true love does not alter or change over time. I feel that there is a clever use of hyperbole in this sonnet as it makes Shakespeare’s theories more believable. I do not think that the sonnet Phillis gives us a true indication of what true love is as true love is not based on appearance.
In “How Do I love thee?” by Elizabeth Browning I feel that there are too many hyperboles and after a while they begin to lose their meaning. However when she compares the love for her husband with the love for her family it shows us how much she does love him.
In sonnet CXXX Shakespeare that even despite his mistress’s looks he still loves her, which I feel is true love.
So in conclusion I feel that the sonnets do present contrasting views on the nature of true love as the authors of the sonnets obviously have different ideas of what true love is. Thomas Lodge’s sonnet leads us to believe that he thinks true love is based on appearance while Shakespeare’s sonnet tells us the exact opposite.
By-
Steven Montgomery
