Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “How Do I Love Thee?” is Sonnet 43 in Sonnets from the Portuguese.
The sonnet begins with the question “How do I love thee?” and answers it through a series of measurements, images, and declarations. The speaker describes love extending through the dimensions of her being and connecting with spiritual and moral ideals. Its final lines famously imagine loving even after death.
Sonnets from the Portuguese was published in 1850. The sequence contains 44 sonnets and follows the development of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s relationship with Robert Browning. The title was presented as though the poems were translations, helping the intensely personal sequence appear less directly autobiographical to Victorian readers.
The poem is often called by its opening line, but its formal title is “Sonnet 43.” It is also frequently confused with the sequence’s total number of poems: 43 is the number of this sonnet, while 44 is the number of sonnets in the collection.