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Compare the way love is presented in ‘Sonnet 43’ and ‘Ghazal’ Both poems, Sonnet 43 and Ghazal convey emotions and passionate feelings of love in different ways. Sonnets and Ghazals are poem that are meant to express strong feelings of love. Khalvati and Barrett Browning chose them to illustrate their loving feelings to their lovers.
Barrett Browning does not correctly carry out all the rules of Sonnets in her poem which gives an effect that she would do anything for her lover and that there are no rules to their love, whereas Khalvati does not break any of rules in Ghazal, this might, perhaps mean that her love is unrequited and that she would follow all the rules to get the attention of the person she loves. Barrett Browning and Khalvati use a wide range of poetic techniques in their poems to emphasize their feelings of love.
In Sonnet 43, Barrett Browning makes the use of anaphora, which is the deliberate repetition of a word or phrase to establish the tone regarding love, for example she repeats the phrase “I love thee” through out the poem. This gives an effect that her love for him has no boundaries and that she loves her partner in many different ways and she is listing some of them in her poem it also reinforces how much she loves him, whereas in Ghazal, the use of anaphora is not to the same extent.
She repeats, “If I am” often throughout the poem to link herself to the person, showing perhaps that her love is unrequited. Khalvati uses the idea of assonance to create possibly a rhythm to the poem, such as “blow through me. If I am the rose and you the bird, then woo me. ” In these sentences, “through”, “you” and “woo” all have the same ending sound, this makes it catchy for the reader and is also a way of rhyming, it also gives a very passionate feel to the poem.
Barrett Browning also uses the technique of rhyming in Sonnet 43, which gives the same effect. In Sonnet 43 Elizabeth Barrett Browning expresses her love to her husband through a variety of different imagery. The phrase “I love thee to the depth breadth and height/my soul can reach” suggests that her love for him is limitless. She says that she loves him to the depth and breadth and height, which indicated that her love is long lasting. The image “by sun and candlelight” that Barrett Browning creates, is that her love may be ordinary ike the sun, but its continuous since the light keeps shining day and night, which is why she uses the candlelight to represent the light she has for him is still on at night. Another image that Barrett Browning conveys is “I love thee freely, as men strive for Right, I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise”. This line shows that her love for him is of her own free choice and she compares it to the nationalists that fight for their countries, indicating that their love is as strong as a person’s love is to their country.
Barrett Browning also says, “I love thee with the passion, put to use/In my old greifs… and with my childhood’s faith” here, the poet redirected her emotions from her past concerns onto her love. She states that her she loves him with her childhood’s faith, which could mean that she loves him with unquestioning confidence, just like a naive child might. Mimi Khalvati uses a wide range of words and phrases that are inspired by nature. “If I am the grass and you the breeze, blow through me. Nature is a very beautiful and passionate thing, which might explain why Khalvati chose to use it to associate her love with. She also says, “If I am the rose and you the bird, then woo me” this line is also inspired by nature as she mentions flowers and birds, which are also very love-related. The line can also be seen as quite sexual, she is trying to get the rose and the bird to represent her wanting him to seduce her. Khalvati also indicates that she softens him by saying “If yours is the iron fist in the velvet glove”.
Iron and velvet show an extreme contrast as iron is a very hard and heavy object, and velvet is a very soft, luxurious thing so she’s trying to say that she can perhaps make him a nicer person, and she uses a fist and a glove to represent that, since gloves are made to fit onto your hands and keep to them warm, this shows that their love would be perfect for each other. Khalvati thinks that she would complete her lover “If I am the laurel leaf in your crown, you are/the arms around my bark, arms that never knew me. ” Once again, the poet uses nature to express her love.
She says that she is the laurel leaf and that he is the crown, which endorse one another implying that they are meant for each other. Also, she uses a crown to represent her lover, which would mean that she sees him at a very high status. By saying “arms that never knew me” Khalvati suggests that their love is unrequited and that he is actually unaware of her and he does not essentially feel the same way as she does. On the other hand, Barrett Browning expresses her love through religious imagery. This might be to represent the era in which they lived in, as it was very strict and most people were extremely religious.
She says, “if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. ” She suggests that if God chooses and they go to heaven, she will love him even more in the after life. “I love thee with the love I seemed to lose/With my lost Saints” here, she implies that she now loves her lover with the faith she used to have for God. The poet adds some of her personal experiences to her poem as well; by lost saints, she refers to her brother that had passes away and how she used to have a very special bond with him, but since God took him away from her, she might perhaps no longer feel the same relationship for God as she used to.
Barrett Browning portrays that she loves him when he is happy or sad, “I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life. ” She suggests that her love for him would sum up her life and that she would love him and support through everything. Sonnet 43 and Ghazal both make the use of enjambment. “I love thee with the breath/Smiles, tears, of all my life” the way Barrett Browning presented it as a list makes it seem like their love is made up of many different things and the effect of enjambment emphasizes that her love for him is limitless and that it carries on.
Similarly, Khalvati says, “Be heaven and earth to me and I’ll be twice the me/I am” here, the use of enjambment is used to show that he would complete her and also to express that her love carries on and has no limits. To conclude, both Sonnet 43 and Ghazal use a variation of different techniques which sums up their love towards the person the poem is directed to. All the techniques used create an image in the reader’s mind of how special this person is to the poet. Both poets link some of the poem to part of their lives, which I think is really effective as it makes the poem more personal and meaningful.