Mustansiriyah University

College of Arts

Department of English Language and literature

The Victorian wasteland land in Robert

Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower
Came
A Research paper Submitted to the College of Arts, Department of English language and literature in partial
fulfillment of the Requirement for the award of Bachelor Degree in English language and literature

Presented By
Abdulrahman Rabie Jalub

Supervised by
Inst. Alia Khlaif Najm
 Dedication

I dedicate this research paper to my parents, without whom I would not have reached this
stage, as well as to my friends, who have always been there for me and to everyone else who has
offered assistance.

I also dedicate it to all the lecturers in my department (English language department)

especially to my supervisor Asst.Prof Dr. Alia Khlaif Najm

I
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

There are a lot of people I would like to thank, but a simple "thank you" will not do. Instead
of letting them know how much I appreciate them, I would like to ask them to keep working
through the instructional material without losing interest.

Special thanks for the efforts of Asst.Prof Dr. Alia Khalif Najm Without her, my research
project would not have been completed. he helped me provide information and write the research
in an integrated manner

II
 Contents

No.

1- Title
2- Dedication
3- Acknowledgment
4- Contents
5- Abstract
6- Chapter one: Introduction
1.1 Robert Browning: A biographical note
1.2 Robert Browning as a Victorian poet
7- Chapter two

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

8- Chapter three: Conclusion

9- Notes
10- Bibliography

III
 Abstract

This research endeavors to unravel the intricate tapestry of Robert Browning's poetic genius
through an in-depth exploration of his seminal work, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."
The journey unfolds across three chapters, each contributing to a comprehensive understanding
of Browning's contribution to Victorian literature.

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 CHAPTER ONE: Introduction
Through the years Robert Browning's skill as a writer of dramatic monologues has been
recognized, although he has had his share of detractors and in the first half of this century
suffered some loss of reputation. Recently, however, serious readers and critics have attempted
to re-claim Browning from the grasp of his early readers members of the Browning societies, in
particular and to establish his position as a poet of some esteem. William Devane states:

"During the first four decades of the twentieth century the critics, led by T. S. Eliot, were scornful of the
Victorian poets, but now there is clear evidence of reviving interest in them and a willingness once again to rank
the greatest of them with their peers of older times in the main tradition of English literature. Browning has
weathered the reaction, and now may be spoken of in the same breath with Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare,
Donne, Milton, Dryden, Wordsworth, and Keats."¹

Much of the current interest in Browning relates to his development of the dramatic
monologue into a subtle, distinct, and meaningful literary form. Browning is generally
considered to have contributed more than any other poet to the development of the monologue.
Browning wrote outstanding dramatic poetry with notable precision, concentration, and subtlety.

1.1 Robert Browning: Biographical note

Robert Browning was born at Camberwell, a suburb of London, on May 7, 1812, of his
birthplace no trace is to be found the only memorial of Browning's early life there [Camberwell]
is Browning Hall, once York Street Independent Chapel, where the Browning family worshipped.
Two years later, on January 7, 1814, his sister, Sarah Anna, was born. with his mother and father
and sister, there were "four who composed the household at Southampton Street.

Browning was a bright, handsome youth with long black hair falling over his shoulders. Sarah
Anna Wiedermann, Browning's mother, had in her childhood also lived in Camberwell. She
brought up her son in an atmosphere of sincere "evangelical piety and implanted in him the love
of music, and delight in a garden which were her special pleasure. Browning was very close to
his mother.

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 His father also was named Robert Browning. The elder Browning "was a senior clerk in the
Bank of England, a cultivated man who was by nature more of the quiet scholar than ambitious
businessman. In his son's words, He might have been a great man had he cared a bit about it. Not
only were the moral and social characteristics of the elder Browning extraordinary, his
intellectual prowess was another enviable trait. He was a scholar and knew Greek, as well as
Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew. He had for long the satisfaction of enjoying his
son's fame. He had a great influence on his son.

The Browning family home was a happy home, like more than one other Victorian poet,
Browning was fortunate in his early surroundings. All his life he remained devoted to his
parents, and his sister, their only other child. The influence of this happy, uncramped home life
can be felt in the spirit of confidence that runs. throughout his work.

He received his whole early education from his parents, Robert and Sarah, Robert Browning.
His school life counts for very little; of college life, he had practically none; but among his
father's books, he read voraciously. In this way, Robert became very early familiar with subjects
generally unknown to boys. Before he was even five years old, the quick-witted and precocious
child "had been removed from a neighboring school because his proficiency in reading and
spelling had roused the jealousy of the parents of the other pupils.

Browning was not happy with the curriculum of formal education, and in "Pauline" he
describes his school days and the effect that they had upon him:
Long. constraint chained down My soul till it was changed. I lost myself; And were it not that I so loathed that
time, I could recall how first I learned to turn My mind against itself; and the effects in deeds for which remorse
was vain as for the wonderings for the delirious dream; yet thence Came cunning, envy, falsehood.²

He left the school at the age of fourteen. He worked with tutors and had the run of his father's
ample library, and every opportunity was given to him for physical and mental development at
home. He read extensively among the historical works in his father's library and grew
increasingly intolerant of the ways of schools and schoolmasters. Browning was instructed in
Latin and Greek by his father, he was privately tutored in French, and Angelo Cerutti was secured
to be his tutor in Italian. The youth became interested in music because of his mother, and in time
he came under the tutelage of John Relfe, the great musician. Browning could go any place, and
to his father's library, he usually retired. Thus, the education which he received at home was
extensive.
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 Located near the Browning home was the Dulwich Gallery, the chief English public picture
gallery during the early years of the nineteenth century. The Brownings lived only two miles
from Dulwich, and his art-loving father always had tickets of admission for his son. It may be
correctly assumed that this gallery bred and maintained in Browning his intense interest in art.
Here he first learned to study and interpret painters and pictures. Browning later referred to
Dulwich as the "gallery he so loved and he was so grateful to, having been used to going there
when a child far under the age (fourteen) allowed by the regulations.

Browning began to read the works of Voltaire and Shelley, and he rapidly became a
vegetarian, a scoffer, an atheist and "gratuitously proclaimed himself everything that he was and
some things that he was not. He lacked the formal discipline that a school could provide and
developed into quite a cocksure and self-centered young man. Shelley, in particular, was to exert
a great and lasting influence upon the Victorians, and his works were to be the most potent
literary influence that Browning ever would experience. As DeVane says,
"Shelley made Browning the poet he was; he gave him poetical and political ideas, methods, and techniques,
and pointed out that the proper subject of poetry is the soul of the poet himself."³

In January 1833, Browning completed work on his first major poem, "Pauline," and his aunt,
Mrs. Silverthorne, provided the money necessary for its publication. The volume appeared
anonymously under the name of Saunders and Otley, and Browning sent twelve copies to W. J.
Fox, editor of the Monthly Repository, to be distributed for review. Distributed for review.
Although Fox sincerely praised and welcomed the poet, not a copy of the poem was sold.

In the spring of 1834, Browning took a two-month journey through Russia. He returned in
May and subsequently began to work on his second poem, "Paracelsus." In August of that year,
it was published. Although sales of the poem were not great, and generally the reviews were not
extravagant in their praise, still Browning was welcomed into the literary world of London. It
was the actor-manager Macready who suggested to Browning that the poet write him a tragedy.
This suggestion fired Browning with an ambition to make good his career as a playwright, an
aim which he faithfully pursued, but with little tangible success, for the next ten years. His first
play, Strafford, was acted five times in May 1837 and enjoyed an indifferent success. The hard
work and poor reaction of Strafford took some of the life of the young poet.

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 In January 1845, Miss Barrett received her first letter from Browning, the first letter of a
now-famous and unparalleled correspondence. The well-known story of their courtship has been
retold by dramatists, biographers, and movie-producers. On September 12, 1846, in Marylebone
Church, Elizabeth Barrett was married to Robert Browning. The following week, the couple fled
to Italy and eventually settled in Pisa. They later moved to Casa Guidi in Florence, where on
March 9, 1849, a son, Robert Wiedmann Barrett Browning, was born.

For most of the 1850s, Elizabeth's popularity far exceeded Robert's. In 1850 Elizabeth Barrett
Browning's greatest work, Sonnets from the Portuguese, was published. (Among the sonnets in
this collection is one that begins with the line "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.") The
incredible popularity of Sonnets from the Portuguese made Elizabeth Barrett Browning one of
the foremost English poets of her time. The same year, Robert Browning's long poem Christmas
Eve and Easter Day sold poorly. The work had probably been inspired by Browning's renewed
interest in religion after the death of his mother in 1849.

Though the years passed quietly and pleasantly for the family, Browning gradually became
discouraged by the reception of his poetry. Then suddenly Mrs. Browning's health began to
decline. She continued to be frail and sickly, and in June 1861, her health took a final turn for the
worse. On June 23rd, 1861, Elizabeth Barrett Browning died. The poet was only forty-five years
old when he returned to live in London after the death of his wife. He seems to have none except
the education of his son, but during the next twenty-six years, Browning was to accomplish a
great deal.

His poems were becoming increasingly popular, and by 1868 when The Ring and the Book
was published, Browning became, second to Tennyson, the most honored living poet of England.
The University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of M. A., a distinction awarded for
eminence in the field of learning.

In the winter of 1887, for the first time, Browning's friends became apprehensive about his
health. One severe head cold followed another. He paid no attention to these illnesses and went
about continuing to write. Stronger by the spring of 1888, he was busy revising some of his
poems, which appeared in monthly volumes during 1889.

While in Venice in November of 1889, Browning caught a cold, which quickly developed into
bronchitis and ultimately heart failure. Although he continued to look forward to more years of
activity, he was aware of his condition. At ten o'clock on the night of December 12, 1889, he
passed on. Robert Browning was buried in the Poet's Corner in Westminister Abbey on December
31, 1889.
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1.2 Robert Browning as a Victorian poet

While still a young boy, Robert Browning wrote his first formal poem "Pauline", a quasi-
dramatic confessional poem of just over a thousand lines, imagines a poet-speaker outlining the
course of his life to Pauline, a beautiful woman whose love has helped him recover from
depression. About that poem he once wrote:

"The first composition I was guilty of was something in imitation of Ossian, whom I had not
read, but conceived through two or three scraps in other books, I never can recollect not writing
rhymes, but I knew they were nonsense even then"⁴

After that, he wrote Paracelsus and Sordello. Paracelsus was the first publication to bear
Browning's name, and it appears to be a more carefully worked composition. It is a five-act
dramatic poem about the alchemist and occult-philosopher Paracelsus, a figure who in
Browning's interpretation straddles the transition from medieval to modern. Sordello remains the
enigma in Browning's oeuvre, more famous for its supposed unintelligibility than for anything
else. This is a densely-written narrative poem which, in six books, tells the life of the troubadour
poet Sordello, a figure Browning probably first encountered through his brief appearance in
Dante's Divine Comedy (Purgatorio, vi-ix).

Browning's first two major poems, "Pauline" and "Paracelsus," were not especially popular
with the critics. They agreed that the influence of Shelley, who had greatly influenced the nature
of the speaker of "Pauline," was not far away from "Paracelsus

During these same years, Browning was experimenting in other directions. His first dramatic
monologue was probably 'Porphyria's Lover', which may have been written as early as 1834 (it
was published anonymously in The Monthly Repository, a liberal-radical journal in 1836), and
with his play, Strafford (1836) Browning began his intense but unsuccessful involvement with the
theatre. However, Pauline, Paracelsus, and Sordello remain a powerful testament to Browning's
preoccupations as a developing writer and are interesting for readers whose concerns lie in this
area.

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 Browning wrote seven plays intended for the stage and two closet dramas, none of them very
successful. Of Browning's efforts as a playwright in the last sixty years scholarly opinion of
Browning as a playwright has been united in at least one conclusion: that he failed in his task.
Thomas R. Lounsbury summarizes five reasons for Browning's failure as a playwright:

"(1) not one of Browning's actions gives the impression of inevitable development; (2) his
human portraits are unfaithful to human nature; (3) despite powerful passages, the plays lack
sustained interest; (4) dialogue tends to obscure; and (5) although Browning's characters speak
vaguely and endlessly about their feeling, they do not act upon them."⁵

However true these reasons may be, Browning's dramatic attempts were not wasted effort for,
no more than Tennyson was Browning by nature a writer for the stage. Practice in playwriting led
to the discovery of where his special dramatic talent lay-- in the study of the single character
presented in monologue form.

That Browning's practice as a playwright aided him later in writing the subtle dramatic
monologues. The revelation of character was of paramount importance in Browning's art almost
from the beginning. The theater was an absolute necessity for Browning--granting his emergence
from it with the store of techniques necessary to write dramatic monologues.

Between 1841 and 1846, Robert Browning's creative output unfolded within the captivating
series he named Bells and Pomegranates. This literary journey commenced with the enigmatic
"Pippa Passes," a poetic drama exploring the impact of an innocent woman's presence on the
lives of various characters. In the Dramatic Lyrics of 1842, Browning showcased his versatility
with works like the chilling "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister," delving into the mind of a
malicious monk, and the dramatic monologues "My Last Duchess," revealing the possessive
nature of a Renaissance duke, and "Porphyria's Lover," exploring themes of love and possession.

The Dramatic Romances of 1845 further highlighted Browning's narrative prowess, with
standout pieces such as "Count Gismond," weaving a tale of chivalry and honor. "The Bishop
Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church" presented a vivid narrative, exploring the complexities
of artistic ambition and the desire for posthumous recognition.

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 In 1855, Browning released "Men and Women," a collection that delved into the intricacies of
human relationships. "Saul" depicted the biblical king's internal struggles, while "Fra Lippo
Lippi" offered a glimpse into the life of a Renaissance artist navigating the tension between
artistic expression and societal expectations. "Andrea del Sarto" explored themes of artistic
compromise and the pursuit of perfection.

These poems, scrutinized in numerous reviews, were widely lauded for Browning's
exceptional ability to craft nuanced characters and delve into profound themes. Each work within
the Bells and Pomegranates series and "Men and Women" stands as a testament to Browning's
literary brilliance and his keen exploration of the human psyche.

1855, however, the fifty-one poems of Men and Women have steadily grown in popularity, and
they are now recognized as perhaps representing the highest level of Browning's poetic
achievement. In May of 1864, Dramatis Personae was published, and "Rabbi Ben Ezra" was
included in this volume.

Greatly heartened, Browning aspired to write a poem of epic length in which he would employ
all his peculiar techniques and talents his mastery of the dramatic monologue in blank verse, his
ability in rein interpret fact, his defense of innocent and misunderstood virtue, his analysis of
motive and character, the variety in expression. This great work, The Ring and the Book was
published in four volumes during the years 1868 and 1869. The poem, based upon an obscure
Roman murder case of the seventeenth century, was in the form of twelve dramatic monologues
and amounted to more than 21,000 lines. The volume, called by one critic "the greatest spiritual
treasure since Shakespeare,"⁶ received immediate and unqualified praise.

Browning's poetry squarely faces the evil and inexplicable in existence, the optimism and
faith that are his answer to them remain unimpaired because they are based not on assertive self-
confidence but ultimately on humility. But Browning's optimism was not a trifling kind of
naiveté. Many of his central poetic figures are churchmen, and most of them suffer under his
pen. The Bishop at St. Praxed's, the monk of the Spanish Cloister, the church in "The
Confessional," the ecclesiastics in The Ring and the Book--all come in for a share of the poet's
scourge. Yet faith is the central core of his creed. Believing that Divine love is manifested both
in nature and in the human intellect, Browning asserted love as the catalytic force at the human
level.

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 The most obvious thing about Browning's poetry is its volume. Browning lived a full poetic
life, unhampered by material wants, we may be sure that anything he wanted to write he wrote,
nothing he could achieve was frustrated by accidental happenings Browning had immense
creative energy, uninhibited by psychological or social causes, though directed to some extent by
the nature of Victorian susceptibilities, of which his intense conventionalism made him
continuously aware.

CHAPTER TWO

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

The poem was first published in the volume called Men and Women. The poem consists of
thirty-four stanzas of six iambic pentameter lines each. It consisted of two sixty-six lines of
blank verse. The first publication was in 1855. In 1863, the poem was also included in the
Dramatic Romances. The stanzaic form of the poem is rather unusual. It is abba ba, it begins
with a pentameter line, but two lines are tagged 'a' matching with 'a' and 'b' rhymes.

Browning confessed a certain pride in having written "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower
Came," which he composed in a single day. It is now probably his most often-read poem. The
poem takes its title from Edgar's song in Act III, scene four of Shakespeare's King Lear: "Childe
Roland to the dark tower came, His word was still, 'Fie foh and fum, I smell the blood of a
British man." Edgar's "song" follows upon a speech in which Edgar, disguised as the crazed
beggar Poor Tom, laments his status by describing a journey that resonates with the ruined quest
that Browning's Roland makes

Edgar's speech and song do locate a number of the poem's overt concerns, including the
notion of the grotesque, the significance of landscape, the question of purposelessness, and,
most importantly, the notion of the failed quest.

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 The "foul fiend" Edgar speaks of prefigures the presence of Browning's "hoary cripple,"
whose encounter with Roland marks the beginning of the poem. The meeting sets in motion a
motif of suspicion that recurs throughout the poem. The visage of the cripple works in a
grotesque concert, provoking a kind of paranoia in Roland, who cannot help but notice the
stranger's crooked look and twisted mouth. But from the very first Roland is ready to second
guess himself: his sense of being lied to is a "first" thought that will be succeeded by a series of
revisions. The first stanza also opens Roland's veracity to question: does the possessive "mine"
refer only to Roland's eye, or does it refer to a falsehood he has told the cripple? Are the two
trading lies or glances or both as they angle for the upper hand?

What this initial concern with the matter of suspicion points to is the larger issue of reading
or interpretation. Roland's manifest anxiety stems from the question of how to read the man's
"word" and countenance, an inquiry which in turn gives rise to the question of what precisely he
is doing, "posted there" alone in the "dusty" wasteland.

Though Roland suspects betrayal, he acquiescingly turns as the cripple directs him, thus
establishing one of the poem's characteristic movements. Roland is an obsessive
reader/interpreter throughout his journey as if what he gleaned from his close observations
would serve him. But here as elsewhere in Childe Roland, he quests onward not because of what
his inquiries have shown him, but rather despite what they have failed to show him. Neither
pride/Nor hope compels Roland on his journey, but rather a somewhat perverse gladness that
some end might be.

Ironically, the joy success would bring possesses no attraction for Roland, indeed, this seems
to be beyond his capacity to handle. Failure draws him on, insofar as it represents an end to his
worldwide wandering. Roland compares himself to a sick man who aims only not to shame the
tender love of friends to whom he has already bid farewell, by staying alive. By focusing on the
end in itself as his goal, Roland's story turns the typical notion of the quest upside down.
Remembering the knights who came before him, Roland oddly determined to fail as they
seemed best. In Roland's inverted version of the quest, to be fit to fail ironically represents a
kind of triumph.

The poem's first movement thus closes with Roland's turning from his grisly interlocutor onto
the path he points to the Dark Tower. As in Andrea del Sarto, the time is twilight. As the day
draws to its close, Roland fancies the sunset resembles an ominous red leer, marking the
reinitiation of a readerly interest in his surroundings. The plain itself, blank though it is, Roland
succeeds in suspecting of designs that it will catch its estray means both that it reflects the sun's
ray and also that it closes on the estray or errant questor who crosses it.

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 The middle phase of the poem is largely descriptive, as Roland recounts some of the features
of the grey plain he makes a way across. Landscape occupies a central position in the poem,
creating a grim ambiance that both reflects and determines Roland's state of mind. Strangely, the
landscape acquires a kind of agency: it is, after all, the very boundlessness of the plain that
draws Roland onward, "Naught else remained to do" but continue. Yet the plain also functions to
isolate Roland's radical willfulness, how he persists in pushing onward despite the potentially
endless tract before him.

The catalog of features of the starved ignoble nature Roland meets is not an unbiased one.
Instead of merely noting the sparse vegetation he finds, he interprets it, imputing for example a
jealousy to the bents or reeds to explain why no ragged thistle-stalk ever pushed up above its
mates. Similarly, the grass is not simply scant but grows like hair/In leprosy. Roland accounts
for the whole of the dreadful scene by imagining a speech made by Nature, who declares that
only the last Judgment's fire can cure this place.

Directing his thoughts inward in search of solace or rejuvenation, Roland finds only
memories of his friends past failures. Cuthbert's reddening face comforts Roland only until he
recalls the one night's disgrace that ruined the warrior. Remembering Giles, another member of
The Band likewise brings comfort only until his having become a poor traitor resurfaces.
Nothing within or without avails Roland, who finally prefers the eerie present of the plain to the
sad past he calls up.

Throughout Roland's observations in this section of the poem lies evidence of his will in the
form of a kind of heedlessness he adopts when confronted by the inexplicable. Roland reads the
landscape, but when he strikes upon a conundrum he does not pause but pushes on. The stiff
blind horse he sees stands stupefied, but he came there, it is no matter to Roland, who means to
bring his quest to its end. In the same way, whatever wrong the river might have done to the
scrubby alders is finally unimportant like the river itself Roland is deterred no whit.

The imagery the landscape evokes becomes increasingly nightmarish. Roland imagines a
battle to explain the much-trampled shore he discovers as he fords the river. The second
movement of the poem concludes as Roland, cued by the sudden and ominous flight of a great
black bird, Though he has spent a life training for the sight of the Dark Tower, Roland is
shocked to find it directly in front of him, in the midst of the mountains.

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 Roland attempts to analyze the momentary lapse of his senses, asking "Not see?" and "Not
hear?" in succession, but drawing no adequate conclusion. Roland allegorizes his ignorance to
that of a "shipman" who learns from the "mocking elf" of the storm where dangers lurk only
when they can no longer be avoided.

The third and final phase of the poem, which begins with Roland's sudden recognition of the
tower, thematizes the notion of belatedness. Like the shipman, Roland learns too late to have the
chance to change his course. More importantly, Roland is the last and thus the latest in a series of
similar quest figures-"all the lost adventurers" whose previous exploits he is so abundantly aware
of. Roland's past frames the present, limiting or determining it, just as the past questors in the
poem constitute a "living frame" for him, who, like them, will in a moment be lost.

The Victorian wasteland in the poem has a significant meaning. The wasteland itself serves as
a metaphor for the uncertainties, anxieties, and existential struggles prevalent during the Victorian
era. As the Industrial Revolution unfolded and societal norms underwent considerable upheaval,
individuals grappled with a changing world. The wasteland becomes a canvas upon which
Browning paints the internal and external battles faced by the protagonist, Childe Roland,
reflecting the broader challenges confronting Victorian society.

Symbolism plays a crucial role in deciphering the layers of meaning within the Victorian
wasteland. The Dark Tower, a central motif, represents an elusive and ambiguous goal.
Browning's choice of a tower as a symbol carries historical and cultural weight, often associated
with aspirations, transcendence, and societal progress. Childe Roland's quest for the Dark Tower
mirrors the perpetual pursuit of meaning, identity, and fulfillment amidst the uncertainties of the
Victorian landscape.

Browning employs various literary techniques to convey the theme of the wasteland. The
poem's structure, use of vivid imagery, and dramatic monologue form contribute to its richness.
The fragmented and disjointed nature of the narrative reflects the disconcerting atmosphere of the
wasteland, while the speaker's internal reflections provide insight into the psychological toll of
the journey. Browning's skillful use of language, metaphor, and symbolism adds layers of
meaning to the exploration of the Victorian wasteland.

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 CHAPTER THREE

Conclusion

This exploration into Robert Browning's poetic landscape, particularly exemplified in Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came, it is evident that Browning stands as a luminary figure in
Victorian literature. The multifaceted layers of his work reveal not only his mastery of poetic
techniques but also his astute engagement with the complex themes of the Victorian era.

Understanding Browning as a Victorian poet was crucial to appreciating how his personal
experiences and artistic sensibilities were intertwined with the zeitgeist of the 19th century. His
ability to capture the spirit of his era, as demonstrated in Childe Roland to the Dark Tower
Came, positions Browning as a poignant observer and commentator on the tumultuous
Victorian landscape.

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came serves as a poignant reflection of the Victorian
wasteland, intertwining individual and societal struggles. Browning's masterful use of
symbolism and imagery illuminates the complexities of the era, providing readers with a
profound exploration of the human condition in the face of societal changes. The poem stands
as a testament to Browning's ability to capture the essence of the Victorian zeitgeist, inviting
readers to navigate the challenging terrain of both the wasteland and the human psyche.

The intricate interplay between Browning's biography, his role as a Victorian poet, and the
profound themes embedded in "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" unveils a poet who
not only captures the essence of his time but also transcends it through the timeless exploration
of the human condition. This research aims to contribute to a deeper appreciation of
Browning's literary legacy and the rich tapestry of Victorian thought and emotion.

12
 Notes

1- Richard S. Kennedy, Donald S. Hair, The Dramatic Imagination of Robert Browning,

University of Missouri Press, 1926, p69

2- Salgado, Ralph Henry, Robert Browning: an interpreter's analysis of selected monologues, The
University of Arizona, 1966

3- Ibide

4- Stefan Hawlin, The Complete Critical Guide to Robert Browning, Routledge, 2002, p100

5- William Clyde DeVane, A Browning Handbook, New York, 1935, p. 11

6- William C. DeVane, Robert Browning, Major British Writers II, New York, 1959, p471.

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 Bibliography

1- William C. DeVane, Robert Browning, Major British Writers II, New York, 1959, p471

2- Salgado, Ralph Henry, Robert Browning: an interpreter's analysis of selected

monologues, The University of Arizona, 1966

3- William Clyde DeVane, A Browning Handbook, New York, 1935, p. 11

4- Salgado, Ralph Henry, Robert Browning: an interpreter's analysis of selected

monologues, The University of Arizona, 1966

5- Richard S. Kennedy, Donald S. Hair, The Dramatic Imagination of Robert Browning,

University of Missouri Press, 1926, p69

6- Stefan Hawlin, The Complete Critical Guide To Robert Browning, Routledge, 2002,
p100

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