Elizabeth Barrett Browning uses many different aspects of figurative language in "Sonnet 43," outside of the more typically used ones.
First, she uses apostrophe. Apostrophe is where a poet evokes or speaks to someone who is absent, or not present. Here, she opens the poem speaking to an absent person. Readers can assume that the poem is meant to address a love in a reflective way, perhaps reminiscing about their time together and what the future may bring.
Second, Browning uses anaphora. Anaphora is the repetition, at the beginning of a sentence, or in this case a poetic line, for effect. Lines 2, 5, 7, 8, and 9 all begin the same way: "I love thee."
One could also argue that ubi sunt is present in the poem. While ubi sunt typically appears as a series of questions about fate, and Browning only poses one question, the message of a fleeting life is apparent. As the poem progresses, one could justify that Browning speaks of how love changes over the course of one's life. This could be best justified by the final line: "I shall love thee better after death." While the poet does not specify if this death is hers or her lover's, one could argue that the mentioning of death illustrates the passage of life—a characteristic of ubi sunt.
Finally, Browning uses parallelism. Parallelism is used in writing to ensure that symmetry exists within a sentence or poetic line. Lines 7-9 possess parallelism. This is illustrated through the use of the statement made, followed by a comma and an extension to the initial idea presented. The poetic lines are parallel because they possess the same structure.
The metaphorical language used in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet, "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / my soul can reach," seems to refer to love as something physical, a distance that can be reached. It’s as though the speaker’s love feels so tangible and palpable to her that it becomes physical, three-dimensional even. It has mass and substance because it feels so big, and this makes the reality of how it feels to the speaker clearer.
The similes in the sonnet—"I love thee freely, as men strive for right" and "I love thee purely, as they turn from praise"—further describe this most unusual love. The speaker says that she loves her lover in the same way, perhaps for the same reason, as people who strive to do the right thing: it is innate; they cannot help but behave the way they do. They must strive because it is right to do so. This is how the speaker loves. Next, she says that she loves as one who turns from praise. People who strive to do what is right because they feel that is their calling often do not accept praise for their actions. They do what is right for its own sake, not for the awards or accolades it might bring. In fact, they don't want any of these things. So, too, does this speaker love just for the sake of that love, not for any way in which it might benefit her.
In Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 43," identified by literary critics as addressing the poet's husband, Robert Browning, the speaker begins the poem by expressing metaphorically how she seeks to measure or quantify the love she possesses:
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach
The speaker also uses similes to describe her love to the object of her affection:
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
In addition to similes and metaphors, the speaker uses personification in describing how she loves him:
To the level of every day's
Most quiet need. . . .
With the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life.
A person, not a life, is capable of breathing, smiling, and shedding tears.
Hyperbole is another form of figurative language, and the poet makes use of it in the many exaggerations of the sonnet such as the similes, metaphors, and personification already noted; additionally, she seems to elevate him to the status of a god when she describes her love for him as replacing or being on par with the passion she felt for God in her "childhood's faith."
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