"How Do I Love Thee" by Elizabeth Browning

In this poem, "How Do I Love Thee," she is naming all the ways in which she loves this person. The antecedent scenario may have been her significant other asked her how did she love him. This is evident by the way she starts the poem by saying, "how do i love thee?" By the words she uses it is clear that she loves this person a lot. For instance when she says, "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach." Her love is so deep that it is more than a physical thing but she loves him on a spiritual level. She mentions God and spiritual things throughout the entire poem. She loves him so much that she wants to be with him even after death.

All throughout the poem she starts each sentence with "I love thee." Except for the last line when she says "I shall but love thee." By ending the poem this way she is showing not only does she love her significant other but she will continue to love him for as long as she can. In the first eight lines she has a rhyme scheme of ABBA but the last six lines have a rhyme scheme of CDC-ECE. This change in rhyme scheme marks a change in emotion as well. This heightened emotion is evident because the end does not flow as well as the beginning.

Her attitude throughout this poem is positive and loving. She is showing her significant other exactly how much he means to her. Another approach she could have taken with this poem is by changing her choice of words. Instead of being spiritual she could have made it more about personal thoughts. I think her choice of words makes this poem not as cliche as other love poems. If she had made it more personal it would not have been as interesting as it was. Her rhyme scheme and how it changed also made her poem unique. She could have kept the same rhyme scheme throughout the entire poem but instead she changed it as her emotion heightened. The fact that she did not use stanzas also made her poem unique. Her sentences did not end at the end of every line but ran onto the next line and the poem was a continuous flow. This structure was very unique and made her poem unlike others.