Literary Devices in How Do I Love Thee?

Sonnet 43 is an example of apostrophe, which involves addressing something or someone who is unable to respond in the moment. In this poem, the speaker addresses a romantic interest who never appears. Apostrophe enables Browning to convey strong emotion in a way that is more concrete than simply discussing love as a concept.

Browning includes a caesura in the first line of the poem. A caesura is a break or interruption, usually in the form of punctuation, within a unit of verse. Here, that unit is the metrical foot made by “thee” and “let.” Caesurae are regularly used to create variation in a poem’s rhythm; in this case, however, it isolates the phrase “How do I love thee?” in order to signal to the reader that the rest of the poem will answer this initial question.

The question that opens the poem—“How do I love thee?”—is an example of aporia, the expression of real or pretended doubt in order to make a point. Browning employs aporia as a rhetorical device to emphasize the intensity of love that the speaker feels for her beloved.

In repeating the phrase “I love thee” throughout the text, Browning uses anaphora, or the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines. Anaphora, like most other forms of repetition, enables a speaker to emphasize her stance.

Lines three and four use assonance, or the repetition of vowel sounds in order to highlight important details in a text. By repeating words that contain an “ē” sound—“reach,” “feeling,” “being,” and “ideal”—Browning further emphasizes the magnitude of the speaker’s feelings.

Browning employs simile in lines seven and eight. A simile is a literary device that compares two things by using the words “like” or “as.” In this context, the speaker compares herself to people who choose to do the right thing without expecting recognition. The reader is therefore encouraged to associate the speaker’s love with freedom of choice and humility.