"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" is a poem written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1850. The title suggests that the poet is going to list all of the ways she loves someone. The title reminds me of a child spreading out her arms, and saying, "I love you this much!" The word "count" suggests that love is measurable. In fact throughout the poem the speaker uses words that are used for measuring. She says, "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach .." "Depth," "breadth," and "height" are words used to measure and count. The speaker loves this person with all of her soul, and all of her being. Furthermore the poem says, "I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love they purely, as they turn from praise." The speaker loves "freely," or without restraint. She loves with all of her being, and does not expect anything in return. She gives her love away unconditionally while "men strive for right." Men are looking for goodness; they are looking for purity and perfection. This is a contrast between men and women in the 1800s. Women were expected to be pure and to be loving. Men were expected to find a woman who was pure. I think the poet is saying that men's love was conditional, because they were looking for perfection. Women's love was unconditional, because that what they were taught to do. The speaker also loves "purely." During the time of this poem women were expected to be pure and good. I think "purely" is a reference to the way women were supposed to act. "Purely" also suggests that she loves without an ulterior motives, which shows her humility. She loves "purely" while "men turn from praise." "Praise" can be loud, and flattering. I think the men are turning away from pride. The men value humility; their should not be a need for praise. The speaker is the perfect woman that men are looking for in her time. She love unconditionally with all of her soul, and she is pure. I think the author's tone is sweet, like a woman in love. However, I think if you read it as a criticism of the perfect woman of the 1850s, you might be able to hear a sarcastic tone.
Does depth, breadth, height imply that love has a limitation or that her soul/being is consumed by the love? Sarcasm is an interesting approach and how the poem is recited makes a significant difference.
In the poem “She Walks in Beauty,” the author, Lord Byron, writes about a beautiful woman. This subject is a woman with natural and dynamic beauty. This is inferred because the woman “walks in beauty, like the night.” The word “walks” suggest that the beauty is changing, but is natural just as nightfall is. Byron uses word choices that represent light and dark which could be a reference to the woman’s physical attributes and personality, respectively. This is written in the first stanza “Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright.” While the woman has stunning, well seen looks (like the day), her personality is just as beautiful but goes unnoticed because her looks are so captivating (night compared to day). The speaker in this poem is not spoken of, but it can be inferred that he is in admiration of the subject’s beauty. This can be inferred because the speaker focuses on the positive attributes of to subject’s physical looks, and personality, as seen in the third stanza. “And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,/So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, … / A heart whose love is innocent!” The fact that the speaker values the woman’s personality as much as her physical beauty tells us that the speaker may be in love, not lust, with the woman. The speaker speaks in a tone of admiration and awe. This is explicated in the use of constant words of love and admiration. This is also exemplified when the poem ends with an exclamation point which suggests that the speaker is excited about his proclamation of admiration for this woman.
Although, she walks "in" beauty. What might be the relationship between the she, nature and the speaker? Do you think the speaker more admires her beauty in appearance or character?
In the poem "My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)", by William Shakespeare, it features a man describing his love interest. With a name like this, it seems like it may be a traditional love poem, complementing features like her eyes, body, etc. We learn from the poem's onset though this is no such poem. The subject of the poem is to explain how she is not perfect, but he loves her because she is real. "Coral is far more red than her lips’ red..." "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare...As any she belied with false compare." The entirety of the poem, aside from the ending couplet, serves to provide us with some of her flaws. The couplet reminds us though that he does love her, and appreciates her imperfections. Without this feature, the poem has an entirely different meaning. The tone seems like it is meant to be insulting, the way he bags on her at every turn. "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head." As we discussed previously though, he is not intending to demean her. The word choices serve to compare her to nature to cite her imperfections. "I have seen roses damasked, red and white...But no such roses see I in her cheeks..."
The poem, "The World Is Too Much With Us" written by William Wordsworth introduces a speaker who seems to be very frustrated with the human world vs the nature world. The speaker introduces the idea that humans are way too into materialism. Wordsworth wrote, "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;- Little we see in Nature that is ours;"(2). Getting and spending suggests humans getting paid, having money and then spending it all on things that are not nature related. Humans are throwing away the beautiful nature that is around them to get nice clothes, purses, mansions, cars, and phones. The industrial production is destroying nature, taking up natures space. He also introduces the idea that nature is not for sale and once it is gone, it is gone. Wordsworth uses metaphors and alliteration like howling at all hours, bares her bosom, sleeping flowers to relate humans to nature. Howling suggests that humans are like wolves and that the idea that we are throwing nature away is scary. Sleeping flowers suggests that without nature, all humans will die. Sleeping is also another term for peace, or death. At the end of the poem, Wordsworth tells the reader about him in the ocean. There is only one thing that humans haven't taken over and that is the ocean, however, he explains that one day humans will find a way to destroy that as well.
Percy Shelly's poem "Ozymandias" is a commentary on the pride and ego of man. It is about the ruins of the Egyptian civilization lost to the desert. All that remains is a broken statue of Ozymandias. The statue is imposing. The reader gathers this image from the description of the statue being that it had "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and that the face of the man it depicted lay nearby bearing a"frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command." There is also an inscription reading: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" However, all that is left is a desert whose "lone and level sands stretch far away." All that is left of this man's empire is the sand from which it sprang, as if some higher power saw fit to mock Ozymandias for his petty ego. In "Ozymandias" there is not one speaker, but three. First, there is the reader whose voice is only heard in the first two lines as he introduces the traveler. Second, there is the traveler as it is his story being told. Then there is Ozymandias. He becomes a sort of third speaker as his personality is displayed in the inscription he had put on his statue. All three of these voices add new tone to the poem. The speaker is merely remembering a story once told to him, so his tone is minimal. The traveler recounts his story with a tone that evokes a feeling of what is almost a sort of pity. He does this through his description of what was once an imposing statue and how now "Nothing remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away." The allusion that this was once a grand kingdom, but now is desolate and decaying can make one feel pity for the long gone king. The King's tone creates a stark contrast to the other two speakers. Ozymandias' tone is that of arrogance and admiration for himself. Proclaiming himself "King of Kings" and declaring that everyone should "despair" at the sight of his works demonstrates that this man was an egotist even though his voice is only heard over two lines.
The poem “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Browning is just as you think it would be: a love poem. From the title, we, as an audience, can expect a list of all of the ways the speaker loves the subject. The way the title (and the first line) is written makes it seem like the speaker is a bit more detached and less emotional or personal with the subject because it is referencing a numbered list of love. And the measureable references don’t stop there. The speaker goes on to say, “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach,” which is also full of words of measure. This can be taken one of two ways. First, the audience can think the speaker is writing about love as if it was an actual tangible object that we can see and feel in 3D. Or second, this phrasing can be taken as the speaker having certain limits to which they can love. I would like to say it is the first, because the rest of the poem is one of a person who is genuinely in love. In the last few lines, the speaker says, “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose / With my lost saints,” and the phrase “lost saints” hold some powerful meaning. A saint is usually known as a holy, virtuous figure of some sort, which means they are someone to look up to. So basically, the speaker is saying that despite losing faith in those they previously looked up to, they found someone new to put their faith into, which would be the subject. By the end of the poem, we can imagine that the speaker is a person who is deeply infatuated with their significant other, who would be the subject. The overall tone of the poem is one of earnest. The speaker is very passionate and sincerely in love with the subject of the poem.
“The World Is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth has a speaker who is upset and angered that the majority of the human population does not appreciate the nature of our world. “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;” (Wordsworth.) This statement conveys how the speaker feels about the situation. He is saying the people of this world take too much of the world away from nature and are wasting our powers to focus on material aspects of our lives. He would rather be in the nature of the sea because humans have not yet discovered it and inhabited it. In this poem he is discussing the subject of materialism versus appreciation of nature and what’s around us; us being the human race. The speaker’s tone is very irritated and irked. “For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not,” (Wordsworth.) The speaker is revealing his frustration through his tone. He is saying that people don’t care about nature and that it doesn’t affect us. Since “we are out of tune”, he’s saying the people are out of sync with the world and the nature it has to offer. People don’t get why nature is so important so that’s why it doesn’t “move us”. Some of the compelling words Wordsworth used throughout this poem include “Sea that bares her bosom to the moon”, “I’d rather be A Pagan suckled...”, “Triton blow his wreathed horn”. The words bares her bosom suggest that the sea is conveying beauty and is vulnerable in doing so because she is “baring” the bosom. The use of the word Pagan is an insult because in that time period, a pagan was a word used to describe someone who believed religious beliefs unlike the rest of the general public. The use of the word wreathed is interesting because he could’ve easily used a word like cover or surround, but wreathed makes the situation appear more direct. In this section of the poem, the speaker is saying he’d rather see Proteus, the God of rivers and oceans rise from the sea or hear Triton, the messenger of the sea blow his horn. These things all make him less sad, but he uses the words less forlorn to emphasize the sadness and loneliness.
So the speaker differs from the majority of the world? Why might many not see the importance or value of nature? What might the speaker be suggesting by having a different view?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”, involves someone speaking to someone they care for. The speaker used to love this person a lot, but their love has slowly faded away. When the speaker says “Let me count the ways. / I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach”(1-3), this love they have is very obviously measureable. If someone has immense love for another, they would not be able to even begin describing how much they love them because it is just so much. Or one would say that one’s soul could not even reach to the same place as how much love they have. Instead, the speaker is using measureable terms to say how much they love this person, and their soul can reach this place, so it isn’t so far out there. This poem is very contradicting, even countering statements within the same line. “ I love thee freely, as men strive for right; / I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.”(7-8) This speaker claims to love this other person freely, just as free as men striving for rights. If men are striving for rights, it would be because they have none. So is the speaker saying that there is no love for this other person? Also loving them as purely as men turn away from praise. One would typically turn away from praise if they did something that caused them to be unworthy of praise. If this is so, then they are not pure, just as the speaker is suggesting about their love for this other person. The speaker also claims to have lost some of this love “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose / With my lost saints.” (11-12). With each person passing, the speaker loses a little bit more love for this other person. However, the speaker clearly cares for their listener, “I love thee with the breath, / Smiles, tears, of all of my life;” (12-13). Maybe the speaker doesn’t love this person as much any more because they have gone away, or there are other people in the speaker’s life, but this person the speaker is talking to will always have a special place in their heart.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" is a poem written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1850. The title suggests that the poet is going to list all of the ways she loves someone. The title reminds me of a child spreading out her arms, and saying, "I love you this much!" The word "count" suggests that love is measurable. In fact throughout the poem the speaker uses words that are used for measuring. She says, "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
ReplyDeleteMy soul can reach .." "Depth," "breadth," and "height" are words used to measure and count. The speaker loves this person with all of her soul, and all of her being.
Furthermore the poem says,
"I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love they purely, as they turn from praise."
The speaker loves "freely," or without restraint. She loves with all of her being, and does not expect anything in return. She gives her love away unconditionally while "men strive for right." Men are looking for goodness; they are looking for purity and perfection. This is a contrast between men and women in the 1800s. Women were expected to be pure and to be loving. Men were expected to find a woman who was pure. I think the poet is saying that men's love was conditional, because they were looking for perfection. Women's love was unconditional, because that what they were taught to do. The speaker also loves "purely." During the time of this poem women were expected to be pure and good. I think "purely" is a reference to the way women were supposed to act. "Purely" also suggests that she loves without an ulterior motives, which shows her humility. She loves "purely" while "men turn from praise." "Praise" can be loud, and flattering. I think the men are turning away from pride. The men value humility; their should not be a need for praise. The speaker is the perfect woman that men are looking for in her time. She love unconditionally with all of her soul, and she is pure. I think the author's tone is sweet, like a woman in love. However, I think if you read it as a criticism of the perfect woman of the 1850s, you might be able to hear a sarcastic tone.
Does depth, breadth, height imply that love has a limitation or that her soul/being is consumed by the love? Sarcasm is an interesting approach and how the poem is recited makes a significant difference.
DeleteIn the poem “She Walks in Beauty,” the author, Lord Byron, writes about a beautiful woman. This subject is a woman with natural and dynamic beauty. This is inferred because the woman “walks in beauty, like the night.” The word “walks” suggest that the beauty is changing, but is natural just as nightfall is. Byron uses word choices that represent light and dark which could be a reference to the woman’s physical attributes and personality, respectively. This is written in the first stanza “Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright.” While the woman has stunning, well seen looks (like the day), her personality is just as beautiful but goes unnoticed because her looks are so captivating (night compared to day). The speaker in this poem is not spoken of, but it can be inferred that he is in admiration of the subject’s beauty. This can be inferred because the speaker focuses on the positive attributes of to subject’s physical looks, and personality, as seen in the third stanza. “And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,/So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, … / A heart whose love is innocent!” The fact that the speaker values the woman’s personality as much as her physical beauty tells us that the speaker may be in love, not lust, with the woman. The speaker speaks in a tone of admiration and awe. This is explicated in the use of constant words of love and admiration. This is also exemplified when the poem ends with an exclamation point which suggests that the speaker is excited about his proclamation of admiration for this woman.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, she walks "in" beauty. What might be the relationship between the she, nature and the speaker? Do you think the speaker more admires her beauty in appearance or character?
DeleteIn the poem "My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)", by William Shakespeare, it features a man describing his love interest. With a name like this, it seems like it may be a traditional love poem, complementing features like her eyes, body, etc. We learn from the poem's onset though this is no such poem. The subject of the poem is to explain how she is not perfect, but he loves her because she is real. "Coral is far more red than her lips’ red..." "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare...As any she belied with false compare." The entirety of the poem, aside from the ending couplet, serves to provide us with some of her flaws. The couplet reminds us though that he does love her, and appreciates her imperfections. Without this feature, the poem has an entirely different meaning. The tone seems like it is meant to be insulting, the way he bags on her at every turn. "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head." As we discussed previously though, he is not intending to demean her. The word choices serve to compare her to nature to cite her imperfections. "I have seen roses damasked, red and white...But no such roses see I in her cheeks..."
ReplyDeleteMight he also be poking fun at traditional love poems? Or, is this more of a genuine love poem that if he stated she is like...
DeleteThe poem, "The World Is Too Much With Us" written by William Wordsworth introduces a speaker who seems to be very frustrated with the human world vs the nature world. The speaker introduces the idea that humans are way too into materialism. Wordsworth wrote, "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;- Little we see in Nature that is ours;"(2). Getting and spending suggests humans getting paid, having money and then spending it all on things that are not nature related. Humans are throwing away the beautiful nature that is around them to get nice clothes, purses, mansions, cars, and phones. The industrial production is destroying nature, taking up natures space. He also introduces the idea that nature is not for sale and once it is gone, it is gone. Wordsworth uses metaphors and alliteration like howling at all hours, bares her bosom, sleeping flowers to relate humans to nature. Howling suggests that humans are like wolves and that the idea that we are throwing nature away is scary. Sleeping flowers suggests that without nature, all humans will die. Sleeping is also another term for peace, or death. At the end of the poem, Wordsworth tells the reader about him in the ocean. There is only one thing that humans haven't taken over and that is the ocean, however, he explains that one day humans will find a way to destroy that as well.
ReplyDeletePercy Shelly's poem "Ozymandias" is a commentary on the pride and ego of man. It is about the ruins of the Egyptian civilization lost to the desert. All that remains is a broken statue of Ozymandias. The statue is imposing. The reader gathers this image from the description of the statue being that it had "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and that the face of the man it depicted lay nearby bearing a"frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command." There is also an inscription reading: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" However, all that is left is a desert whose "lone and level sands stretch far away." All that is left of this man's empire is the sand from which it sprang, as if some higher power saw fit to mock Ozymandias for his petty ego.
ReplyDeleteIn "Ozymandias" there is not one speaker, but three. First, there is the reader whose voice is only heard in the first two lines as he introduces the traveler. Second, there is the traveler as it is his story being told. Then there is Ozymandias. He becomes a sort of third speaker as his personality is displayed in the inscription he had put on his statue. All three of these voices add new tone to the poem. The speaker is merely remembering a story once told to him, so his tone is minimal. The traveler recounts his story with a tone that evokes a feeling of what is almost a sort of pity. He does this through his description of what was once an imposing statue and how now "Nothing remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away." The allusion that this was once a grand kingdom, but now is desolate and decaying can make one feel pity for the long gone king. The King's tone creates a stark contrast to the other two speakers. Ozymandias' tone is that of arrogance and admiration for himself. Proclaiming himself "King of Kings" and declaring that everyone should "despair" at the sight of his works demonstrates that this man was an egotist even though his voice is only heard over two lines.
The poem “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Browning is just as you think it would be: a love poem. From the title, we, as an audience, can expect a list of all of the ways the speaker loves the subject. The way the title (and the first line) is written makes it seem like the speaker is a bit more detached and less emotional or personal with the subject because it is referencing a numbered list of love. And the measureable references don’t stop there. The speaker goes on to say, “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach,” which is also full of words of measure. This can be taken one of two ways. First, the audience can think the speaker is writing about love as if it was an actual tangible object that we can see and feel in 3D. Or second, this phrasing can be taken as the speaker having certain limits to which they can love. I would like to say it is the first, because the rest of the poem is one of a person who is genuinely in love. In the last few lines, the speaker says, “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose / With my lost saints,” and the phrase “lost saints” hold some powerful meaning. A saint is usually known as a holy, virtuous figure of some sort, which means they are someone to look up to. So basically, the speaker is saying that despite losing faith in those they previously looked up to, they found someone new to put their faith into, which would be the subject. By the end of the poem, we can imagine that the speaker is a person who is deeply infatuated with their significant other, who would be the subject. The overall tone of the poem is one of earnest. The speaker is very passionate and sincerely in love with the subject of the poem.
ReplyDeleteWhat word specifically might suggest detachment, but perhaps the act of counting strengthens and cements the love?
Delete“The World Is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth has a speaker who is upset and angered that the majority of the human population does not appreciate the nature of our world. “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;” (Wordsworth.) This statement conveys how the speaker feels about the situation. He is saying the people of this world take too much of the world away from nature and are wasting our powers to focus on material aspects of our lives. He would rather be in the nature of the sea because humans have not yet discovered it and inhabited it. In this poem he is discussing the subject of materialism versus appreciation of nature and what’s around us; us being the human race. The speaker’s tone is very irritated and irked. “For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not,” (Wordsworth.) The speaker is revealing his frustration through his tone. He is saying that people don’t care about nature and that it doesn’t affect us. Since “we are out of tune”, he’s saying the people are out of sync with the world and the nature it has to offer. People don’t get why nature is so important so that’s why it doesn’t “move us”. Some of the compelling words Wordsworth used throughout this poem include “Sea that bares her bosom to the moon”, “I’d rather be A Pagan suckled...”, “Triton blow his wreathed horn”. The words bares her bosom suggest that the sea is conveying beauty and is vulnerable in doing so because she is “baring” the bosom. The use of the word Pagan is an insult because in that time period, a pagan was a word used to describe someone who believed religious beliefs unlike the rest of the general public. The use of the word wreathed is interesting because he could’ve easily used a word like cover or surround, but wreathed makes the situation appear more direct. In this section of the poem, the speaker is saying he’d rather see Proteus, the God of rivers and oceans rise from the sea or hear Triton, the messenger of the sea blow his horn. These things all make him less sad, but he uses the words less forlorn to emphasize the sadness and loneliness.
ReplyDeleteSo the speaker differs from the majority of the world? Why might many not see the importance or value of nature? What might the speaker be suggesting by having a different view?
DeleteElizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”, involves someone speaking to someone they care for. The speaker used to love this person a lot, but their love has slowly faded away. When the speaker says “Let me count the ways. / I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach”(1-3), this love they have is very obviously measureable. If someone has immense love for another, they would not be able to even begin describing how much they love them because it is just so much. Or one would say that one’s soul could not even reach to the same place as how much love they have. Instead, the speaker is using measureable terms to say how much they love this person, and their soul can reach this place, so it isn’t so far out there. This poem is very contradicting, even countering statements within the same line. “ I love thee freely, as men strive for right; / I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.”(7-8) This speaker claims to love this other person freely, just as free as men striving for rights. If men are striving for rights, it would be because they have none. So is the speaker saying that there is no love for this other person? Also loving them as purely as men turn away from praise. One would typically turn away from praise if they did something that caused them to be unworthy of praise. If this is so, then they are not pure, just as the speaker is suggesting about their love for this other person. The speaker also claims to have lost some of this love “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose / With my lost saints.” (11-12). With each person passing, the speaker loses a little bit more love for this other person. However, the speaker clearly cares for their listener, “I love thee with the breath, / Smiles, tears, of all of my life;” (12-13). Maybe the speaker doesn’t love this person as much any more because they have gone away, or there are other people in the speaker’s life, but this person the speaker is talking to will always have a special place in their heart.
ReplyDelete