Sonnets From the Portuguese, Essay Example

I can easily understand why Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s opening line, “How do I love thee?/ Let me count the ways” (Browning, in Greenblatt), remains so popular with people feeling romantic. The power of the line does not stem from what it says, but rather from what it suggests. More exactly, it is a question, and one implying an endless answer, if there is any answer at all. This resonates with all people in love because the nature of love is to lead the lover to believe that no words can ever express the feeling. Even the beginning of her own answer points to the ridiculousness of trying to measure real love. Love is felt to be, no only unique, but too large to be captured in mere description. Consequently, Barrett Browning affirms through the question alone the impossibility of truly arriving at an answer, and people respond to what is a poetic expression of what cannot be expressed.

Personally, however, I prefer the more pragmatic approach of Robert Browning in his poem, “A Face”: “You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel – /Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime!” (Browning). This appeals to me because it is so loving a testimony, it is not content to leave the love to the imagination. It tells of the timeliness of love as unconcerned with physical changes, and how the beauty seen by love can never fade. I like as well how Browning has some fun with typical poetic expressions, twisting the traditional comparison of the beloved to a flower, and declaring it inadequate. Finally, the exclamation adds a kind of excitement to the lines, making the experience of the poet more real.

Works Cited

Browning, R. Browning: Poems. New York: Random House, 2012. Print.