Sunday, March 30, 2008

If thou must love me (276) Devices

Browning uses repetition with the words "to love me." She really wants the reader to recognize her aspiration is to truly be loved, not infatuated with, or lusted after, but to experience the purity of love. Love is a special and rare thing to come by, and she does not want her message to be mistaken for being wanted or admired, but instead to be held preciously in the heart of her significant other.
The author also uses a dash ( - ) throughout the poem. I think this portrays her sudden bursts of inspiration, like as she is writing another idea pops into her head and she has to capture that moment and thought. She feels so strongly on the subject of love, that she has an abundance of examples of what she desperately wants out of a relationship and what she could not bear to endure.
Browning is aware of how much she has to offer and she does not want that to go unnoticed, however, she does not want to be loved for the wrong reasons, or be under the impression that what they feel is love, when they are really mistaken. These devices just add to the poem because it emphasizes her message of love and her desire to experience true love, but her strong will not to sacrifice and settle for what society believes is the right thing to do.