Comparative Analysis of Poetry
Senior 6 · Literature in English
Comparative Analysis of Poetry
Lesson 1 of 5
25 min
In the 1500s, English poets imported a fashion from Italy: the love sonnet in which a lady's eyes are suns, her lips coral, her cheeks roses. By the 1590s the comparisons had become so worn out that William Shakespeare wrote a sonnet that refuses every one of them. Two and a half centuries later, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, secretly in love with the poet Robert Browning, wrote a sonnet sequence that takes the love sonnet completely seriously again. Reading the two side by side shows how much the same fourteen lines can hold.
Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare (published 1609)My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Sonnet 43 (from Sonnets from the Portuguese)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (published 1850)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 candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| mistress | here, the woman the speaker loves (in Shakespeare's time, a beloved, not a secret lover) |
| dun; damasked | dull greyish brown; patterned in two colours, like damask cloth |
| reeks | in Shakespeare's day simply "comes out, is breathed"; today it means "stinks", which adds a joke for modern readers |
| belied with false compare | misrepresented by untrue comparisons |
| ends of being and ideal grace | the purpose of existence and perfect goodness, sought by the soul |
Definition
| Point | Sonnet 130 | Sonnet 43 |
|---|---|---|
| Form | Shakespearean; argument in three quatrains, turn in the couplet | Petrarchan; one continuous list across octave and sestet |
| Method | Anti-blazon: each image of beauty is raised and rejected ("nothing like the sun") | Counting: "Let me count the ways", then "I love thee" seven times, six of them at the start of a line (anaphora) |
| Imagery | Physical, earthly, even comic: wires, perfume, a woman who "treads on the ground" | Spiritual and abstract: depth, breadth, height of the soul; grace, saints, faith |
| Tone | Teasing and witty, turning sincere at the end | Earnest, intense, devotional throughout |
| Theme | True love needs no false comparisons; it loves a real person | Love is limitless and filled with a whole life, past and future; it will outlast death |
The two poems are opposites in method yet closer in meaning than they first seem. Both reject the cheap comparisons of conventional love poetry. Shakespeare does it by mocking them; Barrett Browning does it by measuring love against the largest things she knows, the soul, faith and eternity, instead of against suns and roses. Both end on a claim made with the authority of heaven: "by heaven, I think my love as rare" and "if God choose, / I shall but love thee better after death".
| To show similarity | To show difference |
|---|---|
| Both poets …; Similarly, …; Likewise, …; In the same way, …; Each poem … | Whereas …, …; By contrast, …; On the other hand, …; Unlike Shakespeare, Barrett Browning …; While one …, the other … |
Worked example
A model comparative paragraph (point: imagery)
Both poets measure their love, but against very different scales. Shakespeare's imagery stays on earth: he holds his mistress up against the sun, coral, snow, roses, perfume and music, and each time she loses, until she simply "treads on the ground". The effect is comic, but it is also a compliment, because he loves a real woman rather than a collection of jewels. Barrett Browning, by contrast, measures her love by the "depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach": her images are spiritual and abstract, of "ideal grace", "childhood's faith" and "lost saints". Whereas Shakespeare brings love down to earth to make it honest, Barrett Browning raises it towards heaven to make it limitless. The difference reflects their purposes: one is mocking the clichés of love poetry; the other is trying to find words large enough for a feeling she believes will last "after death".
Tip
Use the point-by-point method, not the block method. Writing all about poem A and then all about poem B gives two separate essays. Instead, take one point per paragraph (form, imagery, tone, theme) and discuss both poems in it, with a connective ("whereas", "by contrast") in the middle. You studied this method for prose in Unit 3; it works even better for short poems.
Warning
Socratica reads Sonnet 130. As you listen, mark the line where the tone changes from mockery to sincerity.
Practice
Sources and credits
