Question

Both Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 14” and Pablo Neruda’s ‘Sonnet 17” discuss love in terms of negatives—things that are not, or should not be, or that the poet does not know. Yet both poems are powerfully positive about love itself. Compare each poem’s ideas about love as they progress through the poem, including how the negatives play a part in the poem. Answer in two or more paragraphs.

Answer 1

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's and Pablo Neruda's sonnets both use negations to convey a profound love that goes beyond surface-level expressions or comparisons to precious objects, ultimately affirming love as essential and unconditional.

Step-by-step explanation:

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 14 and Pablo Neruda's Sonnet 17 both engage with the concept of love through a litany of negations that paradoxically assert the depth and authenticity of their affection. Browning's sonnet begins with a plea for love that is not contingent on external validations such as 'smiles' and 'praise,' moving towards a more mature, unconditional love that transcends superficial expressions. The use of negation emphasizes the profundity of love that Browning seeks, one based on the meeting of equals, of minds, and of the will to endure together despite life's challenges.

Similarly, Neruda's sonnet utilizes negation to highlight the ineffable nature of his love. By saying 'I don't love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,' he negates comparisons to known precious objects, suggesting that his love is beyond the material and incomparable. The poem culminates in a powerful affirmation of love as a 'survival instinct,' a force that is innate and essential, much like the necessity of a plant reaching towards the light. Both poets, through their use of negation, ultimately arrive at a powerful positive declaration of a love that is deeply understood, felt, and essential to human experience.

Answer 2

Both Browning's and Neruda's sonnets present love as a feeling that should not cling to anything temporary or transient. They try to tell us what love is by telling us what it shouldn't be. Browning introduces the following negatives: smile, look, gentle manners, the need for comfort. She points out that these things may pass. Even though they are conventionally understood as signs of love, she wants something better and more stable than that. She wants to be loved for love's sake, as love is eternal.

For Neruda, on the other hand, love is something he can't describe by likening it to particular, specific, well-known things or feelings. It is indescribable and unknowable, and therefore indefinite. It escapes any kind of attempt to fixate it by connections to this world.