Sonnet 43

Question 1

Point 1 - Browning describes her love for her husband through descriptive language

Answer 1

‘How do I love thee’ - shows her intimacy because thee is intimate language
‘By sun and candle light’ - shows she loves him all the time
‘I love thee to the depth and breath and height’ - tricolon showing she loves him the most

Question 2

Point 2 - She suggests religion can have similar effects compared to love and is powerful

Answer 2

‘My soul can reach’ - religious langauge
‘For the ends of being and ideal Grace’ - showing the religious connotations of divine power
‘I love thee with the passion put to use’ - showing she loves him with the same passion of religion

Question 2

Point 3 - She discusses how her love has overcome her religion

Answer 2

‘with my childhood’s faith’ - showing the the religious thoughts she felt as a child
‘I love thee with a love I seemed to lose’ - showing how she now loves her husband with the love she used to have for religion
‘If God choose’ - showing her agnostic view
‘With my lost saints’ - shows her lost faith

Question 3

Context

Answer 3

This poem was published in 1850
The poem was part of a sonnet collection called Sonnets from the Portuguese - suggesting that the poems were written by someone in Portugal
She wrote these poems for her husband Robert Browning
She has a complicated relationship with the Christian faith and struggled with spiritual convictions

Question 4

Tecniques

Answer 4

Listing tri-colon religious language