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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. (Sonnet 43)

Personified Abstractions

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, like a few other Victorian poets we could name, loves to describe beautiful abstract qualities with semi-personified capitalized words: "the ends of Being and ideal Grace" (4), "Right" (7), and "Praise" (8) are the four that show up in this poem. Although poets other than Barrett Browning do this, the combination of personified abstractions with an Italian sonnet makes it certain that this is her poem.