Love in a Life

Lose yourself in Robert Browning’s twisted labyrinth.

“We may be friends always… & cannot be separated.”
Elizabeth Barret Browning, in a letter to Robert Browning, before they were married.

If you enjoy haunted house ghost stories, you’ll love today’s poem by Robert Browning. In the
style of an Edgar Allan Poe gothic mystery, we meet a man who is looking for his wife.
Presumably she’s just popped into another room for a moment. To begin with, his voice is full of
confidence, as if he expects to find her. Fear nothing, he exhorts himself. But as time passes,
and he continues to search through his sprawling – but empty – mansion, she’s always one step
ahead of him, slipping out of the room as he bursts in, leaving only the faintest traces of her
passing. These clues glimmer at the edges of perception: a gleam of light in the mirror, a faint
whiff of perfume on the couch, a gently waving curtain. Will he ever find her? Read the poem
and find out for yourself…

Room after room,

I hunt the house through

We inhabit together.

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her –

Next time, herself! – not the trouble behind her

Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume!

As she brushed it, the cornice wreath bloomed anew:

Yon looking glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.

II

Yet the day wears,

And door succeeds door;

I try the fresh fortune –

Range the wide house from the wing to the center.

Still the same chance! She goes out as I enter.

Spend my whole day in the quest, – who cares?

But ‘tis twilight, you see, – with such suites to explore,

Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune.

All the fun in this poem comes from the ambiguity. What has happened to the man’s wife?
Where has she disappeared to? Is she still there, hiding in one of the house’s many rooms? Or
has something more sinister happened to her? Perhaps all those years of reading Poe has
prepared me for an unreliable speaker, because, as the man’s search continues indefinitely, I
start to doubt his sanity – and perhaps even his honesty. He seems far too intent on his task,
following the faintest of trails like a bloodhound coursing his prey. There’s a noticeable lack of
concrete information about who exactly he’s looking for. I’m assuming it’s his wife, but the
speaker only refers to she and her and gives us only bare clues such as, we inhabit together.
Her name, the word ‘wife’, her position in the house? We find out nothing. The way he speaks to
himself (heart, thou shalt find her) implies that, whoever she is, he’s been discombobulated by
her sudden and inexplicable disappearance. Given that, for much of her life, Robert’s wife
Elizabeth suffered from illness (he wrote this poem in 1855 while they were convalescing in Italy
in a vain attempt to restore her health; Elizabeth would die in 1861) we can say with some
conviction that the fear of loneliness and separation propels his desperate search and is the
energy that fuels the poem.

Let’s return to that setting: an eerie house straight out of a Gothic nightmare. It sprawls ahead of
the speaker like a vast labyrinth:

Room after room

I hunt the house through

We inhabit together.

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her -

The sense of an endless, metaphysical mansion begins with the first line: room after room, as if
the house stretches out in front of him as far as the mind can imagine. The impression of a
twisting, turning maze is created through form: lines invariably enjamb (run on from one to the
other without break or pause) or are fractured confusingly by caesura (deliberate breaks in the
middle of lines or verses of poetry). I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many commas in a single line
of poetry as in the fourth: Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her – and to top it off, the
whole line itself is isolated between two caesura; a full stop and a hyphen. The fractured and
confusing punctuation reflects the speaker’s state of mind, thrown into sudden turmoil by his
wife’s disappearance.
For a detailed breakdown of the rhythmic, formal and structural features of the poem, visit the
shop and find the Study Bundle for Love in a Life. As well as a line-by-line analysis of all the
poetic and technical devices in the poem, you’ll find worksheets, activities, study questions and
help with your essay writing.

The poem is presented in two mirrored stanzas (it’s interesting that the word ‘stanza’ comes
from Italian for ‘little room’; in this poem each stanza reflects the wings of the house) each of
which begins with three short lines followed by five longer lines. Those first three shorter lines
have two beats, so we call them dimeters; the rest of the lines in each stanza has four beats
(tetrameters). The abrupt change between the third and fourth lines creates the sense of a
sudden unfolding, as if the speaker is calmly checking one room with methodical actions – then
suddenly uncoils, springing to his feet and rushing into the next. Alternatively, you might think
the way the line suddenly lengthens reflects the physical distortions of the house; at several
points in the poem physical space seems to shift dimensions, the house growing and spreading
malevolently. Whether short or long, the prevailing meter of the lines is iambic; an iamb is a
pattern of two syllables, the first of which is weak and the second strong. Throughout the
poem, iambic rhythms brings to mind the speaker’s obsessive pacing as he marches from
room to room, as well as the frantic beating of his lonely heart. The weak-strong duality of an
iamb too suggests the poem’s central dynamic: the frantic, stressed husband searching for his
invisible wife. Rhythmic variations include anapaests (measures of three syllables which create
the effect of a sudden acceleration as he lurches from room to room) and trochaic reversals:
read the phrases thou shalt find her and trouble behind her out loud to hear how the lines
actually end on a weaker beat, undermining the confidence of his words and letting the element
of doubt creep into the poem right from the very start.

Of what he might be afraid is a fair question to ask at this point. I’m always sceptical when a
speaker or narrator exhorts himself to fear nothing; it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself
he’s not afraid when he most certainly is. The repetition of heart plays into this point as well, as
if he’s trying to lower his own racing pulse through force of will or persuasion. Directly
addressing his own heart personifies it as something separate from himself, creating the
impression that his body and emotions are not properly under his own control. Another detail
from the same line: the modal shalt (a variant of ‘shall’) means ‘will’ and refers to a future in
which the outcome is certain (thou shalt find her). Modal verbs express degrees of certainty or
strength of feeling and shalt is on the strong side – too strong, in fact. It’s another example of
the speaker trying to convince himself of something that is, actually, far from certain. The
possibility of his search ending in failure, despite his protestations to the contrary, is a fear that
will drive his actions right up until the end of the poem – and beyond.

Browning’s speaker hovers on the edge of reason and insanity, an impression borne out by
some peculiar uses of diction in the early part of the poem (diction refers to the writer’s
deliberate choice of words). Firstly, the word hunt is incongruous, more suited to describing that
bloodhound with the scent of prey in his nostrils than a man casually looking through an
ordinary house for his wife. One doesn’t innocently hunt a wife, one ‘looks’ or ‘searches’ for her.
In stanza two the word ranged achieves a similar effect; it’s a verb that suggests an expansive
hunt through open fields rather than a search through an ordinary house, no matter how wide it
might be. The word through subtly alters the feeling of the opening lines as well, with
its connotations of ‘thoroughness,’ as if he’s leaving no stone unturned, no nook or cranny
unchecked. Perhaps it’s this word which sows the first thematic seed of obsession – or
premature grief? – into the poem? There’s a definite ambiguity in the speaker’s phrasing in the
opening sentence, especially in the juxtaposition of I and we in the same position on
subsequent lines. The singular I suggests he’s alone in the house, while plural we implies there
is more than one: which is it? There’s something odd about the choice of word inhabit, too,
which comes across a little off-kilter. Think about the alternatives: ‘live together’, ‘dwell’ or even
‘reside’ aren’t quite as clinical or cold. Inhabit is just that tiny bit uncomfortable. But Browning
doesn’t want you to feel comfortable – he wants that little shiver down your spine, the queer
feeling that something isn’t quite right, and that the house, or the speaker – or both – are
strange… or suffering.

The unusual and disturbing atmosphere of the opening lines is amplified by sound. Right from
the outset, Browning employs a particular type of alliteration called aspirant. Made with H
sounds (hunt, house, inhabit, heart, heart, her, herself, behind), aspirant mimics the sound of
breathing, the sweaty panting and snuffling of the speaker’s hunt through the empty rooms. At
the same time, the faint wisps of aspirant also suggest the hint of a ghostly, insubstantial
presence that may or may not be sharing the house with him. Other sounds – particularly
long assonant OO sounds (room, room , through, thou, bloomed) – are eerie and haunting,
effortlessly evoking the spooky, atmosphere of a Gothic mansion that may be haunted.

The first stanza ends with a sequence of vague images that convey the faintest of sensory
impressions – as if she passed through the room just moments before him, always one step
ahead and just out of sight:

– not the trouble behind her

Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume!

As she brushed it, the cornice wreath bloomed anew:

Yon looking glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.

The speaker follows a trail of mysterious clues: her scent lingers on the sofa, a gleam of light in
the mirror, the curtain sways. But he’s always one step behind.

I read the word trouble to mean ‘disturbance’ – suggesting the way a still atmosphere can carry
the impression of someone passing through moments before, even if she’s not there now. The
mention of a curtain is straight out of the Gothic horror playbook; as he runs in the room is
empty – except for the almost imperceptible swaying of the curtain. Has someone left a window
open, or does it mark the passing of a person sweeping hastily by? Browning mixes sensory
images to maintain that delicate impression of ‘something’ hovering on the edge of perception,
never quite materialising into view. One moment there is a vague abstract impression (trouble
left in the curtain); the next moment he catches a whiff of perfume from the couch, as if she just
got up and left. Later he thinks he detects a gleam in the mirror, a faint visual clue, again
straight out of Horror-101. How many movies have you seen where someone looks in a mirror
only to doubt that what they see is real? Mixing up or moving rapidly from one type of sense
perception to another is a technique known as synaesthesia (perfume is perceived by smell;
light gleamed in the mirror is visual; brushed and the wave of her feather are both tactile and
kinaesthetic). On one hand, the thick mixture of sensory images gives the impression that his
wife is (was?) the one who brings life to the house, particularly in the phrase bloomed anew. On
the other… I don’t know about you, but this part of the poem makes me feel like the house itself
is alive – and is tempting him ever deeper into its depths by leaving a trail of clues for him to
follow. Techniques we’ve seen before maintain the poem’s unpredictable feel; for
example, caesura (made with a colon and an exclamation mark) keeps us always off-balance;
hard guttural alliteration (curtain couch, cornice, glass, gleamed) hint at something malign
hidden in the darkness; diction such as yon looking glass implies the mirror is waaaaaaay over
there, on the far side of a bizarrely large room…

The house seems to grow and expand, leading the speaker ever deeper into its maze-like
corridors.

As the speaker’s search continues, the suspicion that there’s nobody there to find becomes
stronger and stronger. Concrete images of the kind we’ve just discussed vanish from the
second stanza, as a ghost or spirit might simply dissolve away. Halfway through stanza two, I’m
convinced of the house’s hostility and the success of the trap it has laid. In defiance of natural or
physical laws, the dimensions of the house grow: rooms and rooms is reiterated by doors and
doors and the speaker’s journey takes him ever inwards from the wings to the center. Yet, no
matter how far he goes, he never reaches the middle of the house. Remember how the switch
between shorter and longer lines alters the dimensions of the house? Spatial form (or shape)
is when the very layout of the words on the page implies meaning. It’s like Browning’s speaker
is stuck on a moving escalator; the house expands at the same speed he runs so he never gets
anywhere. Time is similarly illogical: yet the day wears, spend the whole
day and twilight suspend the speaker in a grey limbo that is perpetually fading away.

The speaker enters a twilight world of obsession and madness. The house has distorted into an
Esher painting and he’s lost inside.

The little phrase – who cares? marks the moment the speaker finally rejects any remaining
rationality: twilight signals the end of the day and it’s time to rest, but he’s consumed by his
obsessive need to track down his wife. He thinks he’s barely one step behind (she goes out as I
enter) and the house has him convinced that, if he only moves that little bit faster, he’ll catch
her. You’ll have noticed that the hunt has become a quest: the use of this word alludes to other
doomed literary quests (such as King Arthur’s futile search for the Holy Grail. We all know how
that turned out: Arthur’s obsession ultimately brought about the downfall of his kingdom and his
own death).

The poem twists and turns back on itself so far that the borders between reality and madness
finally disappear. The end of the poem reminds me of one of those old anthology horror TV
shows that explore the outer reaches of the human psyche, like an episode of The Twilight
Zone. The camera pulls out and the man becomes smaller and smaller until he’s lost in the
twisting, maze-like corridors of his ever-expanding mansion. He disappears into the darkness
telling us that he’s going to keep searching:

- with such suites to explore,

Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune.

Rooms have multiplied into suites, closets and alcoves. His hunt has become an ‘exploration,’
as if he’s discovering hidden places that he’s never been to before.
The triple repetition of such suggests he’s fallen into an ever-increasing vastness. Despite all
the rhythmic variations in the poem until now, the final phrases actually reinforce the prevailing
iambic rhythm. It’s as if the speaker fixes his determination – or obsession – unerringly on the
goal of finding his wife. We’re left the impression that he isn’t going to give up, no matter how
long the search will take. Importune is an interesting word, meaning ‘to beg’ or ‘to plead.’ Finally,
the house is directly personified, exercising its macabre power over the speaker, luring him
ever onward into the maze of corridors. It’s also a strange, polysyllabic word that creates the
effect of the poem ‘fading out,’ as the speaker vanishes into the distance, madly intent on his
futile quest. By this time, the house resembles an Escher painting – breaking all laws of reality
and becoming a symbol for madness, obsession, or fear of loneliness. We might fairly ask: is
his wife really there or is she simply a figment of his imagination? Has she long since died?
What’s motivating his desperate search: loneliness, sorrow, guilt?

The poem offers up all these possibilities and more, while keeping the answers hidden in the
shadows.