Who is childe roland

Roland sees no way to approach the mountains, but suddenly has an intuitive realization that "this was the place! He is overcome with both visual and auditory sensations even though he cannot recognize the source of either, and as he approaches, the names and lives of all the adventurers who failed in their attempt come to him.

As he arrives at the Tower, he looks to see these failed adventurers lined along the hill-sides, watching him. He raises his horn to his lips and blows what could be his final cry: "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.

This poem, published in as part of Browning's collection Men and Women , was said by the poet to have come to him by dream and to have been written in a single day. This genesis helps to understand both the fact that it lacks the thematic cohesion of work like "My Last Duchess" and its impressively evocative and mystical nature.

Of all of Browning's best-known work, "Childe Roland" is arguably the most resistant to easy meaning, even though the poem is not difficult to read. It offers itself to myriad interpretations. No matter how one approaches the poem, however, it is best to first consider its place in the genre of heroic journey. The archetypes of a hero's journey, best articulated in the work of Joseph Campbell, are most simply explained as follows: a hero is led to a supernatural or extraordinary place via a guide; he learns lessons through his struggle there; and he brings those lessons back to mankind as a blessing.

Understood through this lens, Browning's vision is revealed to be truly pessimistic. In medieval terms, a "childe" describes a man who has yet to earn his knighthood and who is therefore likely to be in search of adventures to engender that end. So by title, Roland is on a quest for some sort of salvation and recognition, and yet perhaps the most resonant irony is that he does not seem interested in success.

He is more than content to fail as those before him did and would consider such failure to be success enough. In many ways, it is tempting to interpret the journey as a journey towards death. For Roland, life is but a prolonged struggle towards inevitable demise. It is to the reader to determine whether Roland, who moves on not from fierce willpower but solely because "nought else remain'd to do," is driven by bravery, cowardice, or stupidity.

However one answers, the fact is that Roland is uninterested in the distinction. All he knows is perseverance, and therefore he perseveres. But Roland does achieve what "the Band" before him has failed to do: he reaches the Tower. As might be expected, though, the Tower promises nothing redeeming.

Instead, it is closed off, windowless and recognized solely by its "turret" a symbol of war. Roland stands atop it and surveys the ghostly figures of the knights who have died before him, but does not share whether he feels triumph or loss at the sight.

Instead, he perseveres again, blowing his horn to signify the goal, perhaps unsure himself of what such an act should mean. Considered in terms of the hero's quest, there is something depressing about the idea that the goal promises no enlightenment; all that mattered was the quest itself, and the poem makes abundantly clear that the quest is quite terrible.

It is also tempting here to consider that perhaps Roland has not achieved anything that others have not, and that reaching the Dark Tower is merely a symbol for having finally reached death. So instead of transcending the accomplishments of "the Band," he is merely joining them — as they traveled through a dry, empty life towards death, so has he until he has finally reached it.

What perhaps most confounds the traditional journey story, however, is the idea that this journey is not about the world at all, but rather about the individual. Browning's conception of an individual as necessarily cut off through his personality from the world around him manifests significantly here.

Although they are depopulated and remote, they serve as a stand-in for the city. In this way his journey speaks to the anonymity and isolation of the modern individual. The inspiration is an empty performance, just as the quest described here is an empty adventure. Shakespeare is, of course, the patriarch of all English literature, particularly poetry; but here Browning tries to work out his own relationship to the English literary tradition.

He also tries to analyze the continued importance of canonical works in a much-changed modern world. Via his reference to Shakespeare and to medieval themes, Browning places especial emphasis on these two eras of literature. He suggests that while the Shakespearean and medieval modes still have aesthetic value, their cultural maintains a less certain relevance. Indeed, the poem laments a meaninglessness so all-pervasive that even the idea of the wasteland cannot truly describe modern life or make a statement about that life; it is this sense of meaninglessness that dominates the poem.

SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Themes Motifs Symbols. Complete Text I. My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the workings of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. What else should he be set for, with his staff? What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare All travellers who might find him posted there, And ask the road?

If at his counsel I should turn aside Into that ominous tract which, all agree, Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly I did turn as he pointed, neither pride Now hope rekindling at the end descried, So much as gladness that some end might be.

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, What with my search drawn out through years, my hope Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring, I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring My heart made, finding failure in its scope. When some discuss if near the other graves be room enough for this, and when a day Suits best for carrying the corpse away, With care about the banners, scarves and staves And still the man hears all, and only craves He may not shame such tender love and stay.

So, quiet as despair I turned from him, That hateful cripple, out of his highway Into the path he pointed. All the day Had been a dreary one at best, and dim Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.

For mark! I might go on, naught else remained to do. So on I went. Browning described the composition of "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" in terms that attest to its deep source in his own psyche.

Childe Roland came upon me as a kind of dream. I had to write it then and there, and I finished it the same day, I believe. I do not know what I meant beyond that, and I do not know now. But I am very fond of it. This doesn't mean, of course, that the tale was entirely Browning's invention. It triumphantly avoids any sort of period pastiche. As in the best horror stories and movies, a naturalistic setting and narrative style allow terror and dismay to emerge all the more convincingly.

The leisurely build-up is another effective device. The first three stanzas simply show Roland debating with himself whether or not to follow the directions of the sinister, "hoary cripple" he has met on the road. The poem's very formality, with its regular and Roman-numbered stanzas marching on with a consistent, dignified, iambic tread, emphasises the seriousness of Browning's project.

But is his intention mainly to tell a chillingly good story? Though he denied writing conscious allegory, it is tempting to read the poem as an exploration of an inner state of mind, or even an account of "the battle with depression". Many critics have read it that way, for instance the poet Thomas Blackburn.

In an excellent introductory book, Robert Browning: A Study of His Poetry The Woburn Press, , Blackburn also wrote that Browning was "more aware of evil, the shadow side of human nature, than any other poet of his age". I would go further and suggest that Browning was exceptionally aware of all human psychology. His genius lay in his ability to contain so many unaccommodating aspects of the self in verse, and to give them fresh forms of expression for example, the dramatic monologue , as well as old forms revitalised.

He could be didactic, hearty, clumsy: he wasn't immune to the faults of Victorianism. But his major poems are lit by a blazing intelligence, openness and courage. His range of subjects and ideas is thrilling.