Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Robert Browning
- First Published: 1855
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Castles, Painting or painters, Heroes or heroism, Knights or knighthood, Chivalry, Fortresses
The Poem
The title is a direct quotation from a song of Edgar in William Shakespeare’s King Lear (c. 1605-1606). It has traditionally been assumed that the persona is Roland, although such an assumption is unwarranted. This poem is an interior monologue, a hybrid of the soliloquy and the dramatic monologue, and the “narrator” is simply thinking aloud. The thinker-narrator is a quester of many years, something that the mythical Roland was not. Moreover, the persona does not appear to be a very young man preparing for knighthood, as the word “childe” would...
[The entire page is 1493 words long]
