Matthews 1
LeeAnn Matthews
Ms. Walker, Per. 6
AP English
20 October 2014
Views on Love
The poems, "Sonnet 43" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and "Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink" by Edna St. Vincent Millay, express the two poet's views on love. The literature conveys two diverse values of love through alike methods, such as, metaphors. The writings express their innermost feelings. It taps into the deepest recesses of their heart and soul. The two poetic speakers have differing views and values of love, but both poets use similar strategies to express their message regarding love.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning asks how she loves her beloved. She then catalogues different ways in which she loves him. The love she expresses are eternal and to exist everywhere. Browning also intends to continue loving him after her own death, if God would allow her to. The speaker describes her love through the use of metaphors.
Photo of Elizabeth Barrett Browning with her son P...
Tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning on the Cimitero...
Elizabeth BrowningHer love spreads to the "depth" and "breadth" and "height" that her soul can "reach". Browning depicts love as a three-dimensional object, as if it was the container of her soul. She refers to her love and her soul almost as the same thing. For instance, "I love to the depth and breadth and height/ My soul can reach, when felling out of sight/ For the ends of Being and ideal Grace" (Lines 2-4). Elizabeth finds it difficult to put a barrier on the volume of her heart's love for one in particular. Browning believes in have no limit to love. However, Edna St. Vincent Millay spoke otherwise.
Millay looks at love with more of a realistic view. She expounds about all the physical aspects of survival that love could not provide for her. Millay expresses this metaphorically through, "not meat nor...