“LOVE” is a simple four letter word, yet it is popular among poets in the early days. Love can be manipulated in various ways to convey a message. Elizabeth Barret Browning was an English poet of the Victorian era. She came up with a magnificent poem, Sonnet 43. The poem does not specify the “thee” used in its lines. I assume Browning wrote this poem to her beloved husband, who was a great admirer of her poetry. In this poem, Browning claims her unconditional love for her husband to be highly spiritual just like the spiritual love which she had for God. She embraces the spirituality of her love throughout the poem by answering her question in her first line “How do I love thee?”(Browning 594).
The poem was fashioned in a standard sonnet form. It was
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Before she met her husband, her love for God was unconditional and she was immersed in religious beliefs strongly. As she grew up, God started to disappear from her sight of love. This is the turning point which lead to her spiritual love. Her love then stood alone like an orphan without anyone returning it. Imagine sipping through a straw with the other end not in the water. We will get nothing in return. This goes the same with her love, when there was no one to return her love, husband came into her life. God, who faded was then replaced by her husband and she shared the same spiritual love towards with him. This is how she claims her love to be spiritual in the eleventh and twelfth line. However, Browning still has a little faith in God when she ends her poem with “if God choose,”(Browning 594). She realizes that no matter what, God’s love towards us is still the most supreme one of all existing love on earth. Furthermore, she is actually giving herself a reason of why God should place her in heaven. Just because she owns a spiritual love similar to the love of God, she proofs herself to be eligible for being sent to