Symbolisms in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “how Do I Love Thee?”

Essay No. 2

Symbolisms in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most significant poet of the Victorian era and also one half of the famous literary couple with Robert Browning. She was ill at such a young age and therefore cannot participate much in physical activities. It doesn’t mean her mind stopped growing thus, she holed up in her room, studied classical literature all day and wrote poetry.

One of her most famous poems is “How Do I Love Thee” which was dedicated for her soon-to-be-husband then. It was famous for a lot of things like its depiction of love in its purest form. It surely tugged at people’s heartstrings with its verses. There are three symbolisms in the poem: love, grief, and loss.

The first symbolism, love, is the most obvious one. The title basically says it all. The whole poem revolved around how the persona loved the addressee. Rather than typically giving the reason as to why “I” loved “thee,” she wrote--counted the ways instead. It says a lot about the persona’s love; it’s not something that is out of reason but of intention. The persona intends to love the addressee because it was her choice (Line 7). She’s doesn’t even need anything in return (Line 8).

As we discussed the previous week in class, E.B.B used assonance using the long “e” vowel in words like “being,” “seemed,” “need,” which sounds like the addressee, “thee.” It was as if the persona is relentlessly calling out to “thee” to hear her words of love to him and for him to know that no matter what happens, them persona will always be there to love the addressee tirelessly.

The second and third symbolism are grief and loss which were easily seen on the latter part of the poem. One might comment that the last two symbolisms are quite negative compared to the first one. How could something like that be one of the greatest love poems ever? The existence of those two negatives is what probably makes it great. It reflects reality. It’s not a mindless Juliet telling her Romeo how much she loves him and that they should just run away from the rest of the world. It’s a real person her love that bad things have happened but that would not stop her from loving him and that those grievances and loss she had in her life only influenced her passionate love for him (Lines 9-12).