The Speaker

The speaker of the poem writes to her beloved after asking a rhetorical question, "How Do I Love Thee?". She dedicates the entirety of the poem to exploring the myriad ways that she loves her partner. While it is generally considered a fallacy to equate a poem's speaker with its author, "How Do I Love Thee?" is often interpreted by critics as Elizabeth Barrett Browning's love letter to her husband, Robert Browning. Regardless, the speaker of the poem is highly devoted to her beloved, suggesting that their love is powerful enough to transcend time and space. She even suggests that their love is consecrated by God, and the experience of loving her partner is similar to the experience of religious worship.

The Beloved

The speaker's beloved is the implied addressee of the poem, though he never speaks. Instead, the speaker writes about her undying devotion to their...