Type of Work
Sonnet 43 is a love poem in the form of a sonnet. A sonnet is a 14-line poem with a specifc rhyme
scheme and meter (usually iambic pentameter). This poetry format—which forces the poet to wrap his
thoughts in a small, neat package—originated in Sicily, Italy, in the 13th Century with
the sonnetto (meaning little song), which could be read or sung to the accompaniment of a lute.
When English poets began writing poems in imitation of these Italian poems, they called them sonnets, a
term coined fromsonnetto. Frequently, the theme of a sonnet was love, or a theme related to love.
However, the theme also sometimes centered on religion, politics, or other topics. Poets often wrote their
sonnets as part of a series, with each sonnet a sequel to the previous one. For example, William
Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote a series of 154 sonnets on the theme of love.
Browning's Sonnet Series
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) wrote a series of 44 sonnets, in secret, about the intense love
she felt for her husband-to-be, poet Robert Browning. She called this series Sonnets From the
Portuguese, a title based on the pet name Robert gave her: "my little Portugee." Sonnet 43 was the nextto-last sonnet in this series. In composing her sonnets, she had two types of sonnet formats from which to
choose: the Italian model popularized by Petrarch (1304-1374) and the English model popularized by SIn
1850, the London firm of Chapman and Hall published Sonnet 22 and the other poems in Sonnets from
the Portuguese inPoems, a revision of an 1844 collection of the same name.
Rhyme Scheme and Divisions
The rhyme scheme of "Sonnet 43" is as follows: Lines 1 to 8—ABBA, ABBA; Lines 9
to 14—CD, CD, CD. Petrarch's sonnets also rhymed ABBA and ABBA in the
first eight lines. But the remaining six lines had one of the following schemes: (1)
CDE, CDE; (2) CDC, CDC; or (3) CDE, DCE. The first eight lines of a Petrarchan
sonnet are called an octave; the remaining six lines are called a sestet. The octave
presents the theme of the poem; the sestet offers a solution if there is a problem,
provides an answer if there is a question, or simply presents further development of
the theme. In Browning's Sonnet 43, the octave draws analogies between the poet's love and religious
and political ideals; the sestet draws analogies between the intensity of love she felt while writing the
poem and the intensity of love she experienced earlier in her life. Then it says that she will love her
husband-to-be even more after death, God permitting.
Sonnet 43 Meter
Sonnet 43 is in iambic pentameter (ten syllables, or five feet, per line with five pairs of unstressed and
stressed syllables), as lines 2 and 3 of the poem demonstrate.
I LOVE..|..thee TO..|..the DEPTH..|..and BREADTH..|..and HEIGHT
My SOUL..|..can REACH,..|..when FEEL..|..ing OUT..|..of SIGHT
For a detailed discussion of meter, click here.
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Theme: Intense Love
Sonnet 43 expresses the poet’s intense love for her husband-to-be, Robert Browning. So intense is her
love for him, she says, that it rises to the spiritual level (lines 3 and 4). She loves him freely, without
coercion; she loves him purely, without expectation of personal gain. She even loves him with an intensity
of the suffering (passion: line 9) resembling that of Christ on the cross, and she loves him in the way that
she loved saints as a child. Moreover, she expects to continue to love him after death.
Figures of Speech
The dominant figure of speech in the poem is anaphora—the use of I love thee in eight lines and I shall
but love thee in the final line. This repetition builds rhythm while reinforcing the theme. Browning also
uses alliteration, as the following examples illustrate:
thee, the (Lines 1, 2, 5, 9, 12).
thee,they (Line 8)
soul, sight (Line 3)
love, level (Line 5)
quiet, candle-light (Line 6)
freely, strive, Right (Line 7)
purely, Praise (Line 8)
passion, put (Line 9)
my, my (Line 10)
love, love (Line 11)
With, with (Line 12)
lost, love (Line 12)
but, better (Line 14)
Sonnet 43
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Published in 1850
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Text of the Poem
Annotations
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
thee: the poet's husband, Robert Browning
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
depth, breadth: internal rhyme
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
when . . . Grace: when my soul feels its way into the
spiritual realm
(out of sight) to find the goal of being alive and living
uprightly
I love you enough to meet all of your simple needs
during the
day (sun) and even during the night (candle-light)
freely: willingly—and just as intensely as men who fight
for freedom
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
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,
purely: genuinely, without desire for praise
with an intensity equal to that experienced during
suffering or
mourning; I love you with the blind faith of a child
with . . . saints: with a childlike fervor for saints and
holiness that I
seemed to lose when I grew older. breath:
echoes breadth, Line 2