Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Matthew Arnold
- First Published: 1855
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: Religion, Spiritual life or spirituality, Christianity, Death or dying, Faith, Loneliness, Romanticism, Monasteries, monks, or monasticism, Alps, Rationalism, Belief or doubt, Autumn
The Poem
“Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse” is a philosophical poem of thirty-five stanzas, each of which contains six lines of iambic tetrameter verse, rhyming ababcc. The poem is deeply personal, describing Matthew Arnold’s own struggles to find a faith that would give his life meaning.
The poem begins as a narrative. The setting is a mule trail in the Alps, and the time is right before dark on a windy, rainy autumn day. Arnold, a guide, and an unnamed companion or companions are riding slowly up the trail toward the monastery of the Carthusians, who...
[The entire page is 1304 words long]
