Great Regulars: The rhetorical heft gained by framing

her feelings in a rhetorical question enriches not only the artistry of the sonnet but also adds intensity to the feelings themselves. The emotion is magnified by the question format. Instead of adding intensifiers such as "of course" or "definitely," her rhetorical question combines those tools into a dramatic concentration of explosive sentiment.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Barrett Browning's Sonnet 8

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The speaker spells out her concern that by giving him such gifts as copious tears and unsmiling lips she has to be "counted with the ungenerous." She wishes it were otherwise; she would like to give gifts as rich as the ones she receives.

But because she is incapable of returning equal treasure, she again insists that her lover leave her; she cries, "Out, alas!" Again, elevating her lover to the status of royalty, she insists, "I will not soil they purple with my dust."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Barrett Browning's Sonnet 9

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In the first stanza, the speaker makes the perspicacious claim that the soul has no race, no class, and no religious affiliation. These classifications are delusions belonging to the mayic realm of existence which is under time's sway, "These--are Time's Affair." That such classification is artificial and at best a tool of material existence can be inferred from their banishment through death.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dickinson's Color--Caste--Denomination

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The speaker then philosophizes that there are, in fact, many folks who have suffered and continue to do so; of course, she knows this only by word of mouth, not possessing the quality of omniscience. She also has been told that there are many reasons for all this suffering, and "Death" is only one cause, and besides even though "Death" is touted as a onetime affair, in fact, death "only nails the eyes." It does nothing to mitigate the suffering that the real self might be experiencing.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dickinson's I measure every Grief I meet

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By giving the moon its freedom and then demonstrating that mankind possesses even greater freedom, he has already offered all those "sorts of wonder" that "follow" from the possession of that free will and freedom of expression. Human freedom, he has demonstrated, is unequivocal and eternal.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Frost's The Freedom of the Moon

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The speaker feels on safer ground to say that the first historian "Herodotus felt danger/only when Xerxes was around." Herodotus, of course, wrote about the Persian King Xerxes' invasion of Greece in the fourth century B.C. Another example of past fears vs. today's fears is that back in the past "Young women/were afraid of wingèd dragons, but felt/relaxed otherwise." Now, of course, women are fearful every time they venture out.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Winch's Social Security

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