In both poems, "How Do I Love Thee" and "The Definition of Love" Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Andrew Marvell use figurative language, imagery, diction and tone to depict love as a feeling and less on the object of love. Browning believes that love doesn't have boundaries, physical nor spiritual. However Marvell believes love and fate are an opposing force always battling. In this sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, love is everything and the poet tries to list the different types of love that she feels, and it becomes a new way of expressing her affection for "thee.In line 1of the sonnet Browning begins by stating a question that the entire sonnet will answer which is, "How do I love thee? " It's interesting that the word "how," rather than "why" is used because the speaker does answer it, but it's like a rhetorical question because it introduces the poem and gets the reader thinking.
A metaphor is used in lines 2-4 to describe the extent of her love, comparing her soul to a physical. Lines 5-6 use imagery like "sun and candle-light" which is only images of different kinds of light, not necessarily definite objects. Browning writes, to love someone "better after death," (lines 12-14) is a hyperbole.It is over exaggerated because if you’re dead how can you love someone better? The repetition of "How do I Love Thee" emphasizes the intensity of the speaker's love.
The repetition of "I love thee" serves as a constant reminder, but it is the feeling of love, not the quantity of love, that makes the poems theme of love conquering all. Diction is depicted in the motif of religion in the poem when Browning describes love as holy. Saying that only her, "soul can reach the extreme love, found at the ends of being and ideal grace. " demonstrates that her affection towards her lover is as great as her love towards God.By comparing him to the Lord she is putting her lover above and beyond any living thing on Earth.
When saying that she loves him "purely", she is describing her love for him as sincere and innocent. The comparison of her love to her faith shows that she is dedicated and devoted to both, and that her love is not necessarily seen but it is felt. “The Definition of Love” by Andrew Marvell is about being in love with the idea of love but not being in love with the person. When he says “My Love” in the first stanza, he doesn't mean the woman he is in love with but Love itself.
He starts by setting up his love as an impossible one, saying it was begotten “upon impossibility”. In stanza two he uses an oxymoron by saying, “Magnanimous Despair” and “feeble Hope”. Magnanimous means generous, however why would despair be generous and hope be feeble. In the third and fourth stanza Marvell mentions Fate. Fate has seen how perfect they are for each other but doesn’t let it happen.
Marvell says it would be “her ruin” for them to be together. By that he implies that love is stronger than anything and when achieved “tyrannic” Fate could end itself.He couldn’t achieve it and is therefore left heart broken and weak. Marvell compared Fate to “iron” and “steel”. He uses those words to show how strong and immobile Fate is. Marvell gives us a glimpse of how he feels about love in the fifth stanza when he compares the lovers to the Earth's “poles”.
The term “poles” is used as a form of distance and separation. Towards the end Marvell again highlights the fact that Fate interferes with their love because it keeps pulling them apart. Marvell believes love is something that people think they can possess but it's really an unattainable goal.Instead of Fate matching people up, Marvell believes that Fate only tears people apart. He manages to turn Fate into a philosophical idea.
However, Marvell ends the poem with a small glimpse of hope when he writes, "Therefore the love which us doth bind, But Fate so enviously debars, Is the conjunction of the mind, And opposition of the stars" (lines 29 - 32). Though this sounds as if it would be in a typical love poem, the last two lines are complex which forces the reader to think deeper. The word conjunction means coming together and when I think of the ‘opposition of the stars” astronomy comes to mind.In the last line it sounds as if Marvell sees a chance for lovers to remain together but it's clear that he believes love isn’t a foretold force.
“How do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and “The Definition of Love” by Andrew Marvell differ from each other because Browning makes love to be such a glorious thing that is essential to life. Marvell thinks that Fate clouds loves judgment meaning it is hard to love when Fate doesn’t permit you to. In little ways both poems are similar because there is hope for love and an overall idea of loving being something that’s seems great to have and feel.
