Textuality » 4A Interacting
The title IfThou Must Love Me, Let Be It For Nought before reading the sonnet creates the love she
feels to him. From the title the reader can understand the sonnet by ElizabethB. Browning is part of a collection because the title bears the same firstline. The structure consists into 3 quatrains and in to a couplet, so thesonnet follows the Elizabethan model, the first quatrain introduces the dialogue
between the two lovers: the woman, the speaking voice, and her husband. She invites him (the poetess uses the imperative) to love her not ONLY (key word, it stay in the middle of the second line.) for her ecstatic qualities, but only for the like to love (inner qualities). The invitation is built on the semantic field the approach between a woman and a man (smile, look, way of speaking). The man in approaching seeing only the heartily qualities, she want he loves her forever, so he should falls in love for eternal qualities: the main theme discuss is the courteous love. The second quatrain the ma gives his answer. He want to change, he wants to love she for her values, her soul. The use of open sounds vowel creates a sense of distance between the speaking voices: the same distance between heartily and heavenly things. This contrast inthe main problem of courteous love.