How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

Browning’s Sonnet 43 celebrates love that is unconditional, redemptive, pure, selfless, and eternal; it transcends the boundaries of time. It is love in the ideal, uncontested by the realities of the daily routine of relationships and the inevitable imperfections in such a relationship exposed over time. It is tempting of course to complete the poem with the idea that Elizabeth Barrett Browning was lucky to have found her heart’s so-much content. The poem, however, defies such boundaries. The poem is addressed to “thee” not to Robert Browning, and there are no gender-specific pronouns to limit the poem to these two.

Much broader in its argument than one fortunate woman’s celebration of a love she has happened to find, the poem moves to a debate between the heart and the soul. The poet, whether Browning or any Christian confronting the hunger of the heart, inevitably ponders whether this earthly love is a manifestation of God’s benevolence or a test to see whether, under such emotional pressure, the Christian can make the appropriate and soul-saving choice: The Christian resists as temptation the lure of the Other and maintains the lifelong pilgrimage directed to earning the rich rewards of the afterlife.