LIFE OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

QUICK FACTS

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

-Poet

-March 6, 1806

-June 29, 1861

-Durham, England

-Florence, Italy

•Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on MARCH 6,1806, at DURHAM, ENGLAND The sonnet How Do I
Love Thee, also known as Sonnet 43, presents a female speaker who announces her extreme love and
ways of loving her lover. She is of the view that God will bless her with the ability to love her lover in her
post-death period. Hall, Durham, England. She was the oldest of 12 children, and her family made their
fortune from Jamaican sugar plantations. Educated at home, Barrett was a precocious reader and writer.

At age 14, Barrett developed a lung illness that required her to take morphine for the rest of her life, and
the following year, she suffered a spinal injury that would serve as another setback. Despite her health
issues, Barrett lived the literary life to the fullest, teaching herself Hebrew, studying Greek culture and
publishing her first book in 1820, The Battle of Marathon, which her father bound and released
privately.

In 1826, she (anonymously) published the collection An Essay on Mind and Other Poems, which became
a touchstone in her writing career. Unfortunately, fate would throw more obstacles her way soon after
its release. Barrett’s mother died two years later and her father’s business foundered, forcing him to sell
their estate. The family eventually settled in London, but the interruption never gave Barrett pause.
Soon after the estate was sold, she published her translation of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound (1833),
and in 1838, she published The Seraphim and Other Poems.

Life in Florence was good to the poet’s creative process, as was the roiling political and social
atmosphere in Italy. She published the politically charged poem “Casa Guidi Windows” in 1851. Barrett
Browning followed it up in 1856 with Aurora Leigh (a blank-verse novel/poem), which is her longest
work, and then Poems Before Congress in 1860. Included in the Poems Before Congress collection is “A
Curse for a Nation,” which criticized slavery in America (although she doesn’t specifically mention the
country’s name). The Boston abolitionist publication, The Independent, first published the poem in
1856.

Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning is perhaps best known for her ‘Sonnets From the
Portuguese’ and ‘Aurora Leigh’ as well as the love story between her and fellow poet Robert
Browning.
 She could never overcome her generally weak constitution though, and Barrett Browning died in
Florence on June 29, 1861 at the age of 55 as one of the most beloved poets of the Romantic
Movement.

A SHORT ANALYSIS OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING’S

-How do I love thee?let me count the ways. One of the most famous opening lines in all
English love poetry. Yet how much do we really know about this poem? Who can quote the
second line, for instance? The poet who wrote this sonnet, Elizabeth barrett browning, is now
overshadowed by the work of her husband, Robert Browning, so it’s worth delving a little
deeper into this love poem.

ANALYSIS
She use anaphora-repetition of the same few words at the beginning of
successive sentences or clauses – to explore, in summary, the various
forms that love can take, and the many ways in which she loves Robert.

SYMBOL
Light
“How Do I Love Thee?” has very few symbols, but an important one is
light. “I love thee to the level of every day’s / Most quiet need, by sun
and candle-light,” says the speaker in lines 5 and 6. She certainly means
she loves her partner day and night, but she also means that she is
illuminated by love. In line 3 she speaks of “feeling out of sight / For the
ends of being and ideal grace.” “Feeling out of sight” refers to the way
people grope for things they can’t see, things just out of visual reach. A
literal light helps reveal lost or out-of-sight items; a figurative light
provides insight.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning does not mention the circumstances under
which she and Robert Browning fell in love, but she may have had them
in mind when writing this sonnet. Before she met her future husband,
Elizabeth Barrett had lived as a virtual prisoner in her bedroom, trapped
by illness and depression and dominated by an autocratic father.
Browning brought light into her life, and after they eloped, they moved
to Italy. The mild and sunny Mediterranean climate brought about a
substantial improvement in her health. Sometime after the move, she
wrote a friend to say, “I am wonderfully well ... Robert declares that
nobody would know me, I look so much better.”

SUMMARY
Lines 1 to 6
An unnamed speaker addresses a lover who is referred to throughout as “thee.” She announces
that she is going to “count”—in the sense of listing—the many facets of her love. To begin with,
she says that her love is as voluminous as her soul. It reaches as far as her soul can reach when
the soul tries to discern the “limits of being,” or purpose of life, and the limits of “ideal grace.”
Presumably the soul’s reach is infinite, since such limits can’t be ascertained; therefore, the
speaker’s love is also infinite. The speaker explains in lines 5 and 6 that her love is also capable
of perceiving and meeting “every day’s most quiet (trivial) need” both day and night.

Lines 7 and 8
Lines 7 and 8 complete the octave of the sonnet. In these two lines, the speaker measures her
emotion against some of humanity’s worthiest qualities. “I love thee freely, as men strive for
right. / I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.” The concept of loving someone “freely, as
men strive for right,” may not be immediately understandable. What the speaker means is that
she loves without fear or constraint; she loves because it’s the right thing to do, and people
should strive to do right. When she loves “purely, as [men] turn from praise,” she means she
loves without the need for anyone’s approval. This love is pure because it’s untainted; it does not
seek gain. Again, she equates her love with an esteemed quality—humility.

Lines 9 to 14
With lines 9 to 14, the sonnet’s sestet, the mood becomes slightly darker. Now the speaker
recalls “old griefs” and love lost in the past and compares her love with those older feelings.
Once, she suffered passionate, all-consuming grief; now, she loves with an equal amount of
passionate energy. In childhood, she placed absolute trust—“faith”—in religion. As she matured,
however, her faith seemed to weaken, and finally she lost it: “I love thee with a love I seemed to
lose / With my lost saints.” That faith has returned, but now it’s attached to something and
someone she trusts utterly. The speaker concludes by saying she loves him with “the breath /
Smiles, tears, of all [her] life” and praying God will allow her to love him “even better after
death.”

•The sonnet How Do I Love Thee, also known as Sonnet 43, presents a female speaker who
announces her extreme love and ways of loving her lover. She is of the view that God will
bless her with the ability to love her lover in her post-death period.

Quotes to be Used
These lines from the sonnet “How Do I Love Thee?”
are appropriate to use when showing love for
somebody.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose