William Wordsworth once described poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings..."(1). He could not have described Barrett's Sonnet 43 more succinctly, despite having preceded it by half a century. Barrett wrote 44 sonnets about her love for her fellow contemporary poet and later husband, Robert Browning, a series she titled "Sonnets from the Portuguese." Critics' opinions vary on this matter, but most agree that his choice is a reference to one of his early compositions about the love between a young girl and Camoens (2), a Portuguese poet from the 1500s. Others believe that the title is a private joke between Barrett and Browning, as the latter liked to call her his little “Portugee” (3). For the purposes of this essay, we will assume that the sonnet is written in homage to his beloved Browning. In any case, Sonnet 43 comes towards the end of the series, and as such inevitably possesses a climactic appeal when read in context with the other sonnets. This essay will briefly discuss the genre and other technical aspects of this particular poem, before analyzing it in more detail to determine its impact and effect on the reader. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As we briefly mentioned above, “How Do I Love You?” is a sonnet, a 14-line poem with an ABBA ABBA CD CD CD rhyme scheme in the style favored by Petrarch. In it the composer used iambic pentameter (there are five iambs, or two-beat feet of unstressed-stressed syllables per line), which increases the musical quality of the piece. Sonnets originated in Sicily in the 13th century - the English name derives from the Italian 'sonetto' meaning 'little song' (4) - and were often accompanied by the lute, recalling a serenade or perhaps the courtly love ballads of the Middle Ages . It is evident from the beginning of the poem therefore that love will most likely play a role in this particular genre of poetry, as in this case. Petrachan's sonnets differ from other poems of the same genre in their formal structure. In the first eight lines, or octave, we are presented with the theme of the song: Love. Then we have a volta, or twist, followed by the final six lines (or sestets) which further develop the theme. In Sonnet 43, Barrett takes this style to another level. In the eighth he describes the height of his love in abstract and spiritual terms, drawing parallels between his intense love and religious or political fervor; in the sestina he includes his feelings of pain and loss of innocence, giving his love a more realistic stance. He uses a constative speech act (5), in which he describes his love in a relatively calm, logical and even philosophical way. The completion of the linguistic act "consists in its recognition" (6), as is clearly illustrated in this case. Yet the poem still manages to have the effect of being a passionate declaration of love, convincing us that this love is not a passing fantasy but real and eternal. Let's examine the poem in more depth. Start with a question: "How do I love you?" (l.1) Is this a rhetorical question? Barrett wants the reader to think about the question in anticipation of what will follow. There are so many ways in which the speaker loves the object of his affections that he feels the need to count and list them one by one, using anaphora with the repeated phrase 'I love you...': “I love you to death depth and width of height...” (l.2) Here we have not only internal rhyme (depth, width), but also a kind of paradox: he uses abstract analogies to describe his love as three-dimensional and therefore very much part of the real world . His love extendsto the limits of the physical world. There is also an element of intertextuality, as this could also be a reference to an epistle of St Paul to the Ephesians, where the Apostle wishes to understand "the length, the breadth, the depth, and the height of Christ and the fullness of God" (7). This connects directly to the idea of ​​his love as a spiritual thing, as he reiterates in the next line, mentioning his soul: "My soul can reach, when I feel out of sight..." (l.3)This line suggests that this love is a part of his very being, pertaining to his body and soul. Barrett was very religious, and as such this would have had more meaning for her than someone less inclined to such beliefs. For her, this love had become the very core of her being, the meaning of her existence. Arising from the extensive use of “th,” these lines also introduce soft, “breathing” syllables into the sonnet, reminiscent of the act of living. There are also elements of assonance in these lines, with the words 'feeling', 'Being' and 'ideal', which help the poem return to a more lively expression so that it does not perhaps lapse into faint breaths and sighs. Along these lines: “For the purposes of Being and ideal Grace” (l.4), we can assume that it refers to God, the Beginning and End of all things. With this in mind, he compares his love for Browning to his love for God, elevating it to something that is out of this world. She brings him back into our spectrum with the words “I love you on the level of every day/ In the quietest need, in the sun and candlelight” (l.5-6), suggesting that her love is one of the primary necessities of life. life, as necessary as air, food, water or shelter. But she still chooses this 'necessity' of her own free will (“I love you freely, as men fight for right” (l.7)). This could also be another reference to God, echoing the Christian belief in loving, having free will in loving God, and doing what is right to achieve perfect happiness. Likewise, in the next line, he describes his love as “pure.” , because he does not want any “praise” for his action. Then we have the turn, where his tone changes: he begins to describe his love as a passion that hurts, the passion he has in old sorrows and childhood days. She loves him with a love that she seemed to lose with the innocence of her childhood, or of the "lost saints" - it is as if she loves him in the same way one loves when young, with all her being, entirely and naively, faith blind. of a child, "undoubtedly due to a lack of life experiences that would be against her" (8). His last lines are sentimental, echoing the intensity of this love: “I love you with the breath, the smiles, the tears, of my whole life! - and, if God wants it, I will love you more after death. (l.12-14) To some critics this may seem like gross hyperbole, but when one bears in mind the religious nature of the speaker and the poet's belief that there is life after death, it takes on a timeless, romantic significance. We can understand the emotional complexity and maturity of the speaker's character and feel uplifted by the intensity of pure love that she describes so much that it is far more effective and creates a greater impact than any modern love song. W. Wordsworth and S. Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical ballads, with other poems: in two volumes, Biggs and Co. Bristol, London: 1800, Preface.(2) Anonymous, “ARTS1030 Introduction to English: Literary Genres” , UNSW, Sydney , 2010, p24.(3) Anonymous, “Sonnet 43 - A Love Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning”, Cummings Study Guides, Internet, World Wide Web http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Sonnet43.html (31/ 03/10)(4) Ibid.(5) JL Austin, How to Do Things with Words, Oxford: Oxford Uni Press (1912?)(6) M. Devitt &”,.