My teacher is making us do a poetry anyalsis about "If thou must love me" by Elizabeth Barret Browning. and I don't know how to even start. I have the history of her but I don't know how to go on! HELP PLEASE!!

Let's take a look at the poem:

Sonnet XIV
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby !
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.


Begin your essay with an outline. It is like a game plan for a sports team.
After you have made your outline, illustrate your points with specific examples from the poem. Here are some subjects which may serve as a guideline to follow in doing your analysis.

1. Language
2. Rhyme pattern
3. Connotation
4. Effect on the reader
5. Tone
6. Subject matter

This is not necessarily the order in which you would look at the poem, but it should give you a general idea of topics to consider. Begin with your thesis statement, what you think of the poem, and progress from there.

Les

poetry anyalsis

is too vague for me to know what you want. Could be the teacher is wants you to understand what a Petrarchan Sonnet is. Could be s/he wants you to put EBB's thoughts into your own words. Could be men can't figure women out anyway.

The first thing is to be clear about the meaning of the poem - I've written a paraphrase of the sonnet which might help you, but it's only a starting place - it's not an 'analysis' - to do that you need to consider the things Les mentioned above.

If you must love me, love me only for Love itself. Don't say "I love her because of her smile, or her looks, or her gentle voice, or because she sometimes thinks things which fit in with my own ideas and give me a pleasant feeling!". All of these things could change (or you think they've changed) and love based on these things could easily end. And don't love me out of pity, either, because your love would make me so happy I would no longer need pitying, and then I'd lose you! Just love me for Love itself, and then your love will last forever.

certes = certainly

I'd focus first of all on the tone of the speaker and how she comes across in the poem, and what her attitude seems to be towards the man she's addressing.

my teacher is making us do a Poetry analysis on Christian Rossetti A Birthday.

You will have to be more specific. Rhyme, meter, form, message?

A Birthday

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

My teacher is making us do a poetry anyalsis about "how do i love thee? let me count the ways" by Elizabeth Barret Browning. and I don't know how to even start. I have the history of her but I don't know how to go on! HELP PLEASE!!

First take a deep breath. Poetry analysis is just looking at 1) what the poem means, and 2) what effects does the author use to get that meaning across.

Read the poem. Read it again, this time out loud. Read it a third time. Try to put it into prose- what is she saying? Can you think of a song that seems to say the same thing? Write this stuff down. (Don't try to write a paper yet- these are notes)

Now that you've got some meaning, it's time to look at form. What type of poem is it? How does it rhyme? What kind of words is the poet using? How do these things reinforce (or confuse you about) the meaning?

Once you've got all these things scribbled, you can write the paper. I'd probably start with a little background on EBB, about her relationship with Robert Browning, since this is a love poem. Then go into what the poem means, and then the form, and what that does.

pam

my teacher wants us to do an analysis on the meaning of a poem of our choice. my poem is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43 (How do i love thee). I'm doing pretty good so far but i'm stuck on the third line! PLEASE help!

What's your problem with the third line?

By third line, I assume you mean the one starting with 'My soul.'

This is really a sentence, written in poetic form- try it like this: "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height that my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace."

It's like a child saying with outstretched arms- 'I love you thiiiissss much!' EBB is not stretching out her arms, but her soul, and she's reaching for God.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

pam

Lovely analogy, Pam.

And I was looking at the third line of the wrong sonnet - the one this thread started with! Should be more careful, when doing these postings late at night...



Post Edited (03-15-04 15:50)

i need help with "Man Sails The Deep Awhile" by Walt Whitman---TKS

Do you mean this poem, which is not by Whitman?

pam

Man Sails The Deep Awhile
by Robert Louis Stevenson

MAN sails the deep awhile;
Loud runs the roaring tide;
The seas are wild and wide;
O'er many a salt, o'er many a desert mile,
The unchained breakers ride,
The quivering stars beguile.

Hope bears the sole command;
Hope, with unshaken eyes,
Sees flaw and storm arise;
Hope, the good steersman, with unwearying hand,
Steers, under changing skies,
Unchanged toward the land.

O wind that bravely blows!
O hope that sails with all
Where stars and voices call!
O ship undaunted that forever goes
Where God, her admiral,
His battle signal shows!

What though the seas and wind
Far on the deep should whelm
Colours and sails and helm?
There, too, you touch that port that you designed -
There, in the mid-seas' realm,
Shall you that haven find.

Well hast thou sailed: now die,
To die is not to sleep.
Still your true course you keep,
O sailor soul, still sailing for the sky;
And fifty fathom deep
Your colours still shall fly.

(A) Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Shall I compare you to a summers day?
( Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
You are lovelier and more delightful
(A) Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May;
Rough winds shake the much loved buds of May
( And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
And summer is far too short

(C) Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
At times the sun is too hot
(D) And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
Or often goes behind the clouds
(C) And every fair from fair sometime declines,
And everything that is beautiful will lose its beauty
(D) By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
By chance or by natures planned out course

(E) But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
But your youth shall not fade
(F) Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor lose the beauty that you posses
(E) Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
Nor will death claim you for his own
(F) When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
because in my eternal verse you shall live forever

(G) So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long as there are still people on this earth
(G) So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
So long will this poem live on giving you immortality

Nicely done, except that is Willy Shakes instead of Lizzie Bear.

hi..

I have a poetry essay to do on T.S Eliot's "Preludes"
Im in desperate need of some help with the analysis of the poem.
I need guidence in identifying it's tone and mood. who is the speaker? and what is the scene or occasion?
PLeeeeeaaaasee
i really need help

bump, for Shawna.

Les

Obviously this poem speaks of the woman thinking of her love. But I am confused. Is she blinded by other daily thoughts and now only wants to think of him?? Or does she not think of him because she can't see him? What exactly does this mean?? Can someone give me a good explanation of this poem? I like it, but may be reading it entirely wrong. Thanks!!

I need to compare "How do I love thee" and Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 (shall I compare thee to a summers day). Both are professing eternal love openly and freely, and I sort of see them as counterparts but I cant seem to explain why.

Any help?

Phoenix go here for a discussion of the Shakespeare:

[www.shakespeares-sonnets.com] />
A previous discussion of Browning's poem can be found by typing the title into the search space at the top of this page.

Les

i need help with discussing the theme of despair that is conveyed in the poem : Gered manley hopkins - " no worst there is none" . with concern to the figurative language ( metaphore, similie, personification)..

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?

My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief-
woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing-
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief'.

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
My who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.


Oh, dear, I feel your pain. How can one have confidence in a poet that hyp-
henates ling-ering in pursuit of a rhyme for sing? And, shouldn't the first line read 'no worse' instead of worst? Petrarch must surely be gyrating violently in his grave.

Yusi, there is a reference to the poem here:

[lorenwebster.net] />

Les

Needs correcting 'My' to 'May' in the 11th line.


No, because he is likening death to an abyss, in the literal sense of a bottomless deep.

I agree his syntax is challenging. In his determination to sculpt and contort it to his purpose, with his eye on eternity he obviously wasn't going to let little things like hyphens be stumbling blocks.

Interesting to compare the despair-confronting mood of this poem with that of some others of his available in the Classical Poet List on this site: 'I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark' and 'Carrion Comfort' .



Post Edited (07-26-04 21:22)

Points taken. Here it is with GMH's intended accents & (sprung) rhythm:

[eir.library.utoronto.ca]

hey

i really need to know what the meter is in elizabeth brownings sonnet 43

The meter in almost all sonnets is IP (use that term when you answer - it will make you look brainy). When asked what IP means, answer smugly, iambic pentameter of course.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Still, I personally would stress this line as,

HOW do i LOVE thee? LET me COUNT the WAYS.

Instead of,

how DO i LOVE thee? etc.

It begs a parody of, "How do I weigh thee, let me count the loves", right.

my teacher wants us to answer 2 questions on the poem To His Coy Mistress. the questions are: 1. how does the image of "birds of pray" Line 38, relate to the image of time in line 40. 2. what about to the imagery in lines 41-44? i dont know where to start.....any help will be greatful.

         38And now, like am'rous birds of prey, <br />
        39Rather at once our time devour, <br />
        40Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power. <br />
        41Let us roll all our strength, and all <br />
        42Our sweetness, up into one ball; <br />
        43And tear our pleasures with rough strife <br />
        44Thorough the iron gates of life. <br />
        45Thus, though we cannot make our sun <br />
        46Stand still, yet we will make him run. <br />

[eir.library.utoronto.ca]

Assignment: compare /contrast Silhouttes by Emile pauline johnsen and We Grow accustomed to the dark by emily dickenson using theme, mood and imagery

My status: no idea on how to start... in desperate need of assistance as this is due in 2 days!

Abd,


Decide on the theme of your essay first, after having read both poems and knowing what they both say. The statement of your theme should be in the introduction of your essay. You might say something such as this: " Both of these poems deal with the subject of darkness..." Then go on to tell the reader what topics you will discuss. Divide the essay into several different topics. For instance:

1. Subject matter
2. Rhyme pattern/or lack of same
3. Language (common, superior, inferior, slang)
4. Tone (serious, jovial, friendly, threatening)
5. Connotation/meaning (both real and suggested)
6. Effect on the reader (emotions triggered by the poems)




Use examples from each of the poems to illustrate how they compare/or contrast on each of these points. Be specific, quote lines from the poem(s) to give the reader a better idea of what you're talking about. The more specific you are in giving examples, the easier it will be to write a specified number of words for the assignment.


Les

I'm sorry, I've let this thread get out of hand. It's better to have separate threads for each poem: a title like 'poetry analysis' invites posters to add a whole load of different poems. So I'm closing this thread now.

Stephen