Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First off, I want to meet those critics of Robert Browning, who said he was "nothing more than the husband of a famous poet, Elizabeth Barret."

I want to point it out to them that while they may be factually correct and got the relationship right, they couldn't be more mistaken in assuming that he was "nothing more" than her husband.

I'm sorry, bring me a poet who captures the psychology and the variations of human mind better than Browning! And no, I'm not just talking about the obsessive, neurotic love of the Duke in 'My Last Duchess' or 'Porphyria's Lover' !

Look at Prospice, where he's ready to brave death, look at Fra Lippo Lippi , which is raw poetic GENIUS! And look at Childe Roland!

Just a dream, you say? I think not! This poem may have been dream-inspired but is nothing short of the pure genius Coleridge showed in Kubla Khan!

A knight-in-training led astray by an old, morally defective cripple, comes across a waste land instead of a battlefield, doubts his choice of profession, wonders whether it was wise to 'take the road frequently taken' (see what I did there?), remembers true knights who earned glory and the fake ones who stole it and then makes peace with what he has, and the dark tower he has sought to enter.

Does this speak of despair to you? Or does it sound like PB Shelley's keynote in 'Ode to the West Wind'? The triumph of hope over deapair? The will to go on?

The wasteland here is Browning's own poetic waste land, his lack of inspiration and the end note of the poem is his determination to brave the poetic waste land. He holds true poets of the past in high esteem and is glad that he did not steal poetic glory like the overrated poets of yesteryears. No, he is determined to use this wasteland as inspiration and earn whatever it gives him.

For me, it gave him an edge and made him, now, more than ever, one of my favourite poets. To hell with critics who could not appreciate him then and to hell with fools who fail to appreciate him now! Browning may have been underrated in his time but find me a better Psychological Victorian Poet, with as much range and depth as him. I double dare the world there's none!

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