Analysis

Throughout the poem, Elizabeth Barrett Browning uses extravagant comparisons to the amount of love she feels for her lover. The lines, "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/My soul can reach"(2-3) expresses that her love is limitless, it reaches no boundaries. The outlandish remarks in the poem makes the point known that she loves her husband, Robert Browning, more than anything she imagines. She compares her love to men's freedom, one of the most coveted things in life. She believes her love to be greater than the need for freedom. Shes expressed her love with her whole being saying, "I love thee with the breath,/Smiles, tears, of all my life!(12-13). The speaker's entire life, all the things that make her alive, is as important as her love. With the use of the exaggerate comparisons, Browning conveys her love as so the reader would understand the gravity of it.