"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is a poem by Robert Browning, written in 1855 and first published that same year in the collection entitled Men and Women. The title, which forms the last words of the poem, is a line from William Shakespeare's play King Lear.
The poem opens with Roland's speculations about the truthfulness of the man who gives him directions to the Dark Tower. Browning does not retell the Song of Roland; his starting point is Shakespeare. The gloomy, cynical Roland seeks the tower and undergoes various hardships on the way, although most of the obstacles arise from his own imagination. The poem ends abruptly when he reaches the tower, so what he finds there is never revealed. In this case it is more important to travel than to arrive.
Browning explores Roland's journey to the Dark Tower in 34 six line stanzas with the rhyme form A-B-B-A-A-B and iambic pentameter. It is filled with images from nightmare but the setting is given unusual reality by much fuller descriptions of the landscape than was normal for Browning at any other time in his career. In general, however, the work is one of Browning's most inaccessible. This is, in part, because the hero's story is glimpsed slowly around the edges; it is subsidiary to the creation of an impression of the hero's mental state.
Cad Goddeu
Cad Goddeu (English: The Battle of the Trees) is a sixth century Welsh poem from the Book of Taliesin. It is set during a battle fought between Gwydion and Arawn, the god of the underworld, Annwn, in which Gwydion animates the trees of the forest to fight for him. According to a summary of the story preserved in Peniarth MS 98B, the fight breaks out after the divine plowman Amaethon, steals a dog, a lapwing, and a roebuck from Arawn, and Gwydion ultimately triumphs by guessing the name of one of Arawn's men, Bran (possibly Bran the Blessed).
Graves's interpretation of this tale and other Welsh mythologies has been separately contested by Welsh scholars Marged Haycock and Mary Ann Constantine. Both subscribe to the idea that Cad Goddeu does not encode heresies about ancient pagan religions as Graves believed, but that the poem is a burlesque, a grand parody of bardic language. Francesco Bennozo argues that the poem represents ancient fears of the forest and its magical powers. While such arguments are far more measured than Graves's theories, they may represent a simplification of the difficult and bewildering poem.
John Williams used a version of Cad Goddeu translated into Sanskrit for the score to the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. He also directly based the second movement of his 2004 Horn Concerto off the "Battle of the Trees." The motif of an army of trees was possibly well known in British folklore; it appears in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (which itself was an inspiration for Tolkien's Ents in The Lord of the Rings as well as C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian.)
Graves's interpretation of this tale and other Welsh mythologies has been separately contested by Welsh scholars Marged Haycock and Mary Ann Constantine. Both subscribe to the idea that Cad Goddeu does not encode heresies about ancient pagan religions as Graves believed, but that the poem is a burlesque, a grand parody of bardic language. Francesco Bennozo argues that the poem represents ancient fears of the forest and its magical powers. While such arguments are far more measured than Graves's theories, they may represent a simplification of the difficult and bewildering poem.
John Williams used a version of Cad Goddeu translated into Sanskrit for the score to the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. He also directly based the second movement of his 2004 Horn Concerto off the "Battle of the Trees." The motif of an army of trees was possibly well known in British folklore; it appears in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (which itself was an inspiration for Tolkien's Ents in The Lord of the Rings as well as C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian.)
Beowulf
Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship. This work of Anglo-Saxon literature dates to between the 8th and the 11th century, the only surviving manuscript dating to circa 1010. At 3183 lines, it is notable for its length. It has risen to national epic status in England.
In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists: Grendel, who is attacking the Danish mead hall called Heorot and its inhabitants; Grendel's mother; and, later in life after returning to Geatland (modern southern Sweden) and becoming a king, an unnamed dragon. He is mortally wounded in the final battle, and after his death he is buried in a barrow in Geatland by his retainers.
Beowulf was written in England (north), but is set in Scandinavia. It is an epic poem told in historical perspective; a story of epic events and of great people of a heroic past. Although the author is unknown, its themes and subject matter are generally believed to be formed through oral tradition, the passing down of stories by scops (tale singers) and is considered partly historical.
At the same time some scholars argue that, rather than transcription of the tale from the oral tradition by a literate monk, Beowulf reflects an original interpretation of the story by the poet. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt argue in their introduction to Beowulf in the Norton Anthology of English Literature that, "The poet was reviving the heroic language, style, and pagan world of ancient Germanic oral poetry it is now widely believed that Beowulf is the work of a single poet who was a Christian and that his poem reflects well-established Christian tradition."
In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists: Grendel, who is attacking the Danish mead hall called Heorot and its inhabitants; Grendel's mother; and, later in life after returning to Geatland (modern southern Sweden) and becoming a king, an unnamed dragon. He is mortally wounded in the final battle, and after his death he is buried in a barrow in Geatland by his retainers.
Beowulf was written in England (north), but is set in Scandinavia. It is an epic poem told in historical perspective; a story of epic events and of great people of a heroic past. Although the author is unknown, its themes and subject matter are generally believed to be formed through oral tradition, the passing down of stories by scops (tale singers) and is considered partly historical.
At the same time some scholars argue that, rather than transcription of the tale from the oral tradition by a literate monk, Beowulf reflects an original interpretation of the story by the poet. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt argue in their introduction to Beowulf in the Norton Anthology of English Literature that, "The poet was reviving the heroic language, style, and pagan world of ancient Germanic oral poetry it is now widely believed that Beowulf is the work of a single poet who was a Christian and that his poem reflects well-established Christian tradition."
La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad
"La Belle Dame sans Merci" (French: "The Beautiful Lady without Pity") is a ballad written by the English poet John Keats. It exists in two versions, with minor differences between them. The original was written by Keats in 1819, although the title is that of a fifteenth century poem by Alain Chartier.
Although "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is short (only twelve stanzas of four lines each, with an ABCB rhyme scheme), it is full of enigmas. Because the knight is associated with images of death—a lily (a symbol of death in Western culture), paleness, "fading", "wither[ing]"—he may well be dead himself at the time of the story. He is clearly doomed to remain on the hillside, but the cause of this fate is unknown. A straightforward reading suggests that the Belle Dame entraps him, along the lines of tales like Thomas the Rhymer or Tam Lin. More recent feminist commentators have suggested[citation needed]. that the knight in fact raped the Belle Dame, and is being justly punished — this is based on textual hints like "she wept, and sigh'd full sore". Ultimately, the decision comes down to whether Keats wrote the poem as a simple story, or as a story with a moral: given his other work, this may be more an evocation of feeling than an intellectual attempt at moralising.
The poem describes the encounter between an unnamed knight and a mysterious fairy. It opens with a description of the knight in a barren landscape, "haggard" and "woe-begone". He tells the reader how he met a beautiful lady whose "eyes were wild"; he set her on his horse and she took him to her "elfin grot", where she "wept, and sigh'd full sore". Falling asleep, the knight had a vision of "pale kings and princes", who cried, "La Belle Dame sans Merci hath thee in thrall!" He awoke to find himself on the same "cold hill's side" where he is now "palely loitering".
Although "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is short (only twelve stanzas of four lines each, with an ABCB rhyme scheme), it is full of enigmas. Because the knight is associated with images of death—a lily (a symbol of death in Western culture), paleness, "fading", "wither[ing]"—he may well be dead himself at the time of the story. He is clearly doomed to remain on the hillside, but the cause of this fate is unknown. A straightforward reading suggests that the Belle Dame entraps him, along the lines of tales like Thomas the Rhymer or Tam Lin. More recent feminist commentators have suggested[citation needed]. that the knight in fact raped the Belle Dame, and is being justly punished — this is based on textual hints like "she wept, and sigh'd full sore". Ultimately, the decision comes down to whether Keats wrote the poem as a simple story, or as a story with a moral: given his other work, this may be more an evocation of feeling than an intellectual attempt at moralising.
The poem describes the encounter between an unnamed knight and a mysterious fairy. It opens with a description of the knight in a barren landscape, "haggard" and "woe-begone". He tells the reader how he met a beautiful lady whose "eyes were wild"; he set her on his horse and she took him to her "elfin grot", where she "wept, and sigh'd full sore". Falling asleep, the knight had a vision of "pale kings and princes", who cried, "La Belle Dame sans Merci hath thee in thrall!" He awoke to find himself on the same "cold hill's side" where he is now "palely loitering".
Endymion
Endymion is a poem by John Keats first published in 1818. Beginning famously with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever", Endymion, like many epic poems in English (including John Dryden's translations from Virgil and Alexander Pope's translations from Homer), is written in rhyming, or 'heroic', couplets. Keats based the poem on the Greek myth of Endymion, the shepherd who falls in love with the moon goddess Selene. The poem elaborates on the original story and renames Selene "Cynthia" (an alternate name for Artemis).
Endymion received scathing criticism after its release, and Keats himself noted its diffuse and unappealing style (see, for example, The Quarterly Review April 1818 pp. 204-208; John Gibson Lockhart, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine August 1818). However, he did not regret writing it, as he likened the process to leaping into the ocean to become more acquainted with his surroundings; in a poem to Haydon, he expressed that "I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest."
Not all critics disliked the work. The poet Thomas Hood wrote 'Written in Keats' Endymion',in which the "Muse..charming the air to music...gave back Endymion in a dreamlike tale". Henry Morley said, "The song of Endymion throbs throughout with a noble poet's sense of all that his art means for him. What mechanical defects there are in it may even serve to quicken our sense of the youth and freshness of this voice of aspiration."
Endymion received scathing criticism after its release, and Keats himself noted its diffuse and unappealing style (see, for example, The Quarterly Review April 1818 pp. 204-208; John Gibson Lockhart, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine August 1818). However, he did not regret writing it, as he likened the process to leaping into the ocean to become more acquainted with his surroundings; in a poem to Haydon, he expressed that "I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest."
Not all critics disliked the work. The poet Thomas Hood wrote 'Written in Keats' Endymion',in which the "Muse..charming the air to music...gave back Endymion in a dreamlike tale". Henry Morley said, "The song of Endymion throbs throughout with a noble poet's sense of all that his art means for him. What mechanical defects there are in it may even serve to quicken our sense of the youth and freshness of this voice of aspiration."
Charge of the Light Brigade
The Charge of the Light Brigade was a disastrous cavalry charge led by Lord Cardigan during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War. It is best remembered as the subject of a famous poem entitled The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose lines have made the charge a symbol of warfare at both its most courageous and its most tragic.
In response to the order, Lucan instructed Cardigan to lead 673 (some sources state 661) cavalry men straight into the valley between the Fedyukhin Heights and the Causeway Heights, famously dubbed the "Valley of Death" by the poet Tennyson. The opposing Russian forces were commanded by Pavel Liprandi and included approximately 20 battalions of infantry supported by over fifty artillery pieces. These forces were deployed on both sides and at the opposite end of the valley. Lucan himself was to follow with the Heavy Brigade.
The brigade was not completely destroyed, but did suffer terribly, with 118 men killed, 127 wounded. After regrouping, only 195 men were still with horses. The futility of the action and its reckless bravery prompted the French Marshal Pierre Bosquet to state "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." ("It's magnificent, but it isn't war.") Rarely quoted, but he continued: "C'est de la folie"- "it's madness." The Russian commanders are said to have initially believed that the British soldiers must have been drunk. The reputation of the British cavalry was significantly enhanced as a result of the charge, though the same cannot be said for their commanders.
In response to the order, Lucan instructed Cardigan to lead 673 (some sources state 661) cavalry men straight into the valley between the Fedyukhin Heights and the Causeway Heights, famously dubbed the "Valley of Death" by the poet Tennyson. The opposing Russian forces were commanded by Pavel Liprandi and included approximately 20 battalions of infantry supported by over fifty artillery pieces. These forces were deployed on both sides and at the opposite end of the valley. Lucan himself was to follow with the Heavy Brigade.
The brigade was not completely destroyed, but did suffer terribly, with 118 men killed, 127 wounded. After regrouping, only 195 men were still with horses. The futility of the action and its reckless bravery prompted the French Marshal Pierre Bosquet to state "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." ("It's magnificent, but it isn't war.") Rarely quoted, but he continued: "C'est de la folie"- "it's madness." The Russian commanders are said to have initially believed that the British soldiers must have been drunk. The reputation of the British cavalry was significantly enhanced as a result of the charge, though the same cannot be said for their commanders.
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer is a sonnet by English Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) written in October 1816. It tells of the author's astonishment at reading the works of the ancient Greek poet Homer as freely translated by the Elizabethan playwright George Chapman.
The poem has become an often-quoted classic, cited to demonstrate the emotional power of a great work of art, and the ability of great art to create an epiphany in its beholder.
This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, divided into an octave and a sestet, with a rhyme scheme of a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a-c-d-c-d-c-d. After the main idea has been introduced and the image played upon in the octave, the poem undergoes a volta, a change in the persona's train of thought. The volta, typical of Italian sonnets, is put very effectively to use by Keats as he refines on his previous idea. While the octave offer the poet as a literary explorer, the volta prompts in the discovery of Chapman's Homer, the subject of which is further expanded through the use of imagery and comparisons which convey the poet's sense of awe at the discovery.
As soon as he beheld the South Sea stretching in endless prospect below him, he fell on his knees, and lifting up his hands to Heaven, returned thanks to God, who had conducted him to a discovery so beneficial to his country, and so honourable to himself. His followers, observing his transports of joy, rushed forward to join in his wonder, exultation, and gratitude" (Vol. III). John Keats simply remembered the image, rather than the actual historical facts.
The poem has become an often-quoted classic, cited to demonstrate the emotional power of a great work of art, and the ability of great art to create an epiphany in its beholder.
This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, divided into an octave and a sestet, with a rhyme scheme of a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a-c-d-c-d-c-d. After the main idea has been introduced and the image played upon in the octave, the poem undergoes a volta, a change in the persona's train of thought. The volta, typical of Italian sonnets, is put very effectively to use by Keats as he refines on his previous idea. While the octave offer the poet as a literary explorer, the volta prompts in the discovery of Chapman's Homer, the subject of which is further expanded through the use of imagery and comparisons which convey the poet's sense of awe at the discovery.
As soon as he beheld the South Sea stretching in endless prospect below him, he fell on his knees, and lifting up his hands to Heaven, returned thanks to God, who had conducted him to a discovery so beneficial to his country, and so honourable to himself. His followers, observing his transports of joy, rushed forward to join in his wonder, exultation, and gratitude" (Vol. III). John Keats simply remembered the image, rather than the actual historical facts.
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