My poem analysis by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

lucy reading the poem 

 How Do I Love Thee? By: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1       How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.2       I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

3        My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

4       For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

5         I love thee to the level of every day’s

6       Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

7       I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

8       I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

9      I love with a passion put to use

10     In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

11     I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

12     With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,

13      Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,

14      I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett browning wrote 44 sonnets in secret about her love to her husband-to-be Robert Browning, who was also a poet. She called her series Sonnets from Portuguese. Her poem “How do I love thee?” is known as sonnet 43.

This is a poem describing how much she loves a person, most likely Robert Browning. This is a sonnet with regular rhyme and rhythm. In the first line of the poem she is answering her question which is the title.  The constant repetition of “I love thee” emphasizes her love’s strength. On lines two through four she is saying how her loves is so great it is unable to be measured, it has no end. In line four she mentions religion in grace and praise which shows how her love is pure and how her love is so great it rises to the spiritual level. In line seven she says how her love is freely given which emphasizes how much love she truly has. On line nine it shows strong her love is because she wants to put it to use. On line ten she shows how strong her love is by using the faith of a child and that has been known to be very strong. Line 11 indicates that she has seen sorrow in her past. From line twelve to line 14 it shows that her love is so strong it will continue past death. Browning uses alliteration on every line which makes the poem flow.

I think that this poem really fits the apotheosis part of the hero journey because it has to do with insights. It has to do with insights because all she talks about in her poem is her true feelings. She spends the whole poem talking about her love and how abundant it is for this one person.

http://www.eliteskills.com/c/2193

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Sonnet43.html

My Medicine Bag will make me a Hero!

Looking at these qualities I had trouble picking the ones that I already had. I had trouble finding my strengths. After taking a good amount of time, I decided that my strengths were compassion, heart, and perseverance. Compassion will help me with helping others and make sure I care for other people. I think that heart and perseverance kind of go together. If I have my heart on something or in something I preserve to make sure I succeed. On my hero Journey I decided that the things that I needed the most and the things that were most important were: Humor, faith, patience, strength, integrity, and insight. It took me a while to decide what qualities I should go and look for but I finally decided to look for the qualities that I thought would personally help me the best and the qualities I thought would help me through my own life. I chose faith because I have learned throughout my whole life that faith in God is always very helpful. I have always been taught that God is always there by your side and that he can help you through your troubling times. I also think it is important to believe in you and to have faith in yourself. I chose patience because I think that patience can get me through a lot. I see my parents lose their patience all the time waiting in lines and every time I hope that I will not be like that because there is no reason to get so worked up about things, especially if it is possible to avoid it if  you just had a little bit of patience. Strength is the one that I need the most. Not physical strength (even though I am weight lifting), but I really need some emotional strength. I let so many things put me down. If I was just a stronger person I believe that I would be a better person because I would be able to do more things and not let them get to me. I do not think that integrity is a weakness of mine but I could sure use more of it. I think that being able to live by good morals is just a great characteristic of a person. I believe that if a person has integrity then that person is a great person, a hero. I really need some insight, which is one of the things on my list that I really need in my life today. I believe that if I had the capability to understand more things then I would be open to more things. That number one thing that I think every person needs to live a fulfilling and happy life is humor. Humor can you through so many different things it can get you through awkward situations, it can help you get through grief, it can allow you to have a good time, it can make the serious things not so over whelming. Humor is my favorite characteristic in a person because I think that if a person has humor then they know how to live life. All of these things I think will help me and get me on the right path for my hero journey. I think that with all of these amazing characteristics I could really be a hero.

THE WEATHER!!!

Please tell me that you have been outside and have fealt how rediculously warm it is outside! I love it! It is sooooo nice! Today I am going to do something after school that allows me to be in this georgous weather. I can’t completely decide but I’m thinking about doing a surprise attack and taking over rose’s house and making her let me jump on her trampolene…. or i guess I could just ask her if I could jump on it, but where is the fun in that? I hope Indiana does not play another trick on us an have it start snowing in two days; that would be so mean! 

Answers

Here are the answers to the movie quotes and BOOoo to all of you that looked at the answers before the questions!!

- Guess before you read this!

1. Devil wears Prada

2. Mean Girls

3. Breakfast Club

4. Forest Gump

5. Remember the Titans

6. She’s the Man

7. Gone With the wind….. (its a classic)

Name that movie

Here are the quotes:

1.  Im on this new diet where I don’t eat anything but when I feel I’m about to faint I eat a cube of cheese.
2. -Nice wig Janece whats it made out of – Your mother’s chest hair!
3. Brian: I’m a f—ing idiot because I can’t make a lamp?
   John: No. You’re a genius because you can’t make a lamp.
4. stupid is as stupid does
5. Coach: Gary, if you want to play on this football team, you answer me when I ask you who’s your Daddy. Who’s your Daddy, Gary? Who’s your Daddy?
   Bertier: [softly] You
6. - Do you.. like.. cheese?  – why yes my favorites gouda
7. Miss scarlet, miss scarlet I don’t no nothin ’bout bursin no babys

 Have fun guessing which movie goes with which Quote. Next week ill post  the answers and #7 is a bonus, if You get It I am very glad I know you!

Good Luck!

My snow day

My snow day was comprised of :

• snow ball fight with my 3rd grade neighbor
• shoveling my driveway for 2 hours
• having a concoction mixed with orange juice and snow ( my neighbor made it for me)
• then making my own concoction with gatoraid and snow with alison S and shelby H
• then having a very intense snowball fight with shelby, allison, kara, and alice came in in the end and shoved shelby’s face into the snow…. it was hilarious
• Then we ate a TON of food, we ate a whole jar of pickles and tub of cookie dough and soup and biscuits and pop corn, it was delicious
• we watched dark night and I was still a little frightened eventhough that was my second time watching it but it is SUCH A GOOD MOVIE!
• then ate more food
• then put videos on people’s facebook, i had no idea you coud do that but i guess you can and its really cool!
• ate dinner at nothing but noodles
• watched james bond
• painted my nails purple

Ya I think it was a pretty good day!

24!

I hope some of you watch 24 because it is amazing! Its about all this bad stuff that happens in one day in the United States. It takes place in modern time and each episode is one hour of the day and the whole season is one whole day. It is so Intense and Jack Baur is the guy who goes through it all and somw how he survives it all. He is basically second to God! He is amazing! It was kind of funny watching the inogeration and seing Obama step out of the car because my mom  and I both flinched because we know what could happen because of 24! If you want a show that keeps you interested watch 24, I can not wait till next  monday!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

It is way to cold for me outside! Whenever the temperature is in the negatves then there is no way we should have to go to school! Just walking from my car in the parking lot to the inside of the schoo is to painfull to do! The thing is that weird is that it is not just Indiana that is so cold, it is the entire United States. I do not understand global warming. My friend who lives in alaska has had three days of school canceled in a row and she says she does not remember the last time school was cancled because all of the alaskins are so used to all of the awful weather. If alaska people are not able to function through the hard winter weather spread across northamerica how are we supposed get by. This weather is rediculous, when is spring coming!?

Has anyone found my calling by chance?

                    In my life I feel that I am somewhat called do do something. I don’t know what I am supposed to do with my life but I know I must make it somewhat usefulto the world. I hope that I am called to do something with my life because if I am not then I will feel like my life is worthless. I don’t want to be lying there on my death bed not able to name one person whose life I didn’t make even the slightest bit better. This is a really stressful part in my life right now because I have to choose what road to take to make that difference in the world. Now that I am looking at colleges I have to decide what major I might be thinking of going into because I have to choose a college that has a good program for that major. I am really hoping that I will be getting that calling sometime soon that will tell me what kind of person I am and maybe what I might want to do with my life. I need that calling to pick me a college that will allow me to focus on what I need to use my life for.

            When I through that balloon and watched it burst I was so nervous that I would never find my calling gem, so I had two other people watch my balloon to make sure my gem would be found. The second my balloon burst I called out, “Does anyone see my Gem?”, and sure enough no one could find it. I almost knew that I would loose my calling because last time I had an awful destiny and I knew it would be just my luck for the same kind of disappointed outcome. I decided that must mean I will just have to work hard to find my calling. I thought that maybe for me I will have to go looking for my calling, rather than just waiting for it. After being sad for a while at the chance that I might not even have a calling, I decided that my gem-loosing incident does not mean that at all. This does not mean that I will not have a calling because I know for certain that my life will be useful to the world, Even-though I do not know yet what I will have to do. The only thing I know for certain is that I will use my life to bring happiness to others. My favorite quote is by the 14th Dalai Lama in which he says, ” We are visitors on this planet for 90 to 100 years at the very most. During that period we must try do do something good, something useful, with our lives. If you contribute to other people’s happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.” Something that I know for certain is that love and happiness always make the world a better place. I decided to stick with happiness because I think I am better at spreading that around.

            Even-though I do not know what profession to pursue ,yet, or how to make my time on this world useful I do know a couple things that might help me figure out what path to take. I know I want to make a difference and I want to do that by putting smiles on people’s faces and I can work with that. Like my mom tells me every-time I get stressed out about choosing a college and how to persue my life, I am only sixteen. I still have time to figure it out.

What does Indiana have to offer?

This summer I spent a whole month in DC and made a ton of great friends! This new years two of my closest friends are comming to visit! My friend named Will from Alabama amd my friend Ally from Utah. I am so excited but I dont know what to do with them when they are here for a coupple of days! Do you have any suggestions? I mean I will show them down town and maybe introduce some of my froends but other than that I dont really know!!