Annotated how do i love thee

In other words, this is also a practical love that is always present from day to day—a subtle yet powerful life force that keeps her going. However, one might interpret this light imagery as a source of vitality and joy. Her husband lights up her life, bringing her happiness.

Sunlight, in particular, is literally needed to sustain life, suggesting that her love for her husband is key to her very existence. The light metaphors likewise hint at a spiritual energy—just as heaven is bright and beautiful, her love for her husband has a bright and divine energy. In lines seven and eight, the speaker proceeds to use similes as a means of relating her love to the experiences of mankind.

She compares this freedom to the experience of men, or mankind, striving to do what is right for humanity. Loving her husband is the right and natural thing to do, just as mankind should always strive to do the right thing because it brings goodness into the world. Her love is humble and modest, just as decent men are when they do good in the world. Lines nine and ten begin the final sestet of the sonnet. Nonetheless, mentioning this pain gives the poem a sudden touch of sadness that disrupts its otherwise joyful tone.

This energy can be put to good use, and here, she explains that she has put it towards her love for her husband. Likewise, she compares the intensity of her love to the power of her childhood faith. As an adult, she is now exhibiting the same earnest, intense faith in her husband that she showed for all the things and people she believed in as a child.

The last four lines of the poem make direct references to spirituality and religion. The speaker is digging more deeply into her past—and her soul—as a means of giving an even more profound explanation of her love. While previous lines suggested disappointments from her past, the speaker now declares boldly that she actually lost her love for certain figures who were important to her.

Alternatively, one might surmise that she looked up to certain people with such high regard that she considered them saintly. The speaker then continues to describe how her love consumes her, body and soul. Her love keeps her going through life, and it is as necessary as breathing. It is all enveloping. And, in the final line, if God grants it, she'll carry on loving her husband even more after she dies.

This Petrarchan sonnet has 14 lines, the first eight being the octet and the final six the sestet. At the end of the octet comes what is known as the turn, more or less a subtle change in the relationship between the two parts. In this sonnet, the octet is basically a list set in the present that reflects a very deep love; the sestet looks back in time and then forward to a transcendent love, which helps put the whole work into perspective.

The full rhymes bring closure and help bind the lines together. Marine Biology. Electrical Engineering. Computer Science. Medical Science. Writing Tutorials. Performing Arts.

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Welcome to Owlcation. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Question about this poem? Ask us. Let me count the ways. I love thee with the breath, 13 Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, 14 I shall but love thee better after death. Cite This Page. How do I love thee? I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

The quality of true love the poet especially stresses is its spiritual nature. True love is an article of faith. The last line confirms the power of true love, asserting as it does that it is eternal, surviving even death.

A sonnet is a form of regular verse, so it will have a regular rhythm pattern and rhyme scheme. The rhythm pattern, as it is for most sonnets, is iambic pentameter, five beats of an unstressed then stressed sound in each line:. Barrett Browning alters the rhythm pattern with extra stressed sounds—for emphasis—in the first and thirteenth lines.

Read those lines out loud, and you will hear the extra stressed sounds. The rhyme scheme is abbaabba cdcdcd.