Transcript Love Among the Ruins

Love Among the Ruins
What do we know about this poem?
What does the title tell us?
Context: This poem is about...
This poem is spoken by a shepherd in the Italian countryside,
near a ruined city. His beloved is waiting for him amongst the
ruins.
The shepherd is alone and we hear his musings.
The poem moves from a description of the landscape as it
appears in the present to how it was in the past. It then moves
to thoughts about the young man’s lover and fuses together
the past and present in the final stanza. It emphasises the
contrast between material wealth, which doesn’t last, and love,
which is eternal.
What do we know about love in Victorian times?
Context: Pastoral Poetry
• The poem is meant to evoke the pastoral poetry of
John Milton and Edmund Spenser
• In a time of industrialisation, they emphasised the
beauty of nature, often focusing on farm workers
(mostly shepherds)
• These works were highly idealised and often unrealistic
• Similar celebrations of nature are found in the works of
the Romantic poets, by whom Browning was inspired
Likely inspiration for Location: Roman
Campagna – occupied during Roman times
but abandoned due to malaria
Language
Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop–
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
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greenery
small streams
Now, -- the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed
Twelve abreast.
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Smallest amount (emphasises the absence of something)
tree
stump/
remains of
a pillar
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'er-spreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone–
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
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shrub
fruit from a pumpkin-like plant
plant with fleshy leaves
Now--the single little turret that remains
and pink flowers
On the plains,
By the caper over-rooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
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While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks–
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
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As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
followers, servants
And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave
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To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away–
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
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Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come.
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causeways
(raised
roads)
But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
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In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force–
Gold, of course.
O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
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“Love is Best”
• Anticipated by the title of the poem
• Clear and simple
• Celebrates love as a pure emotion that
transcends human desire, corruption and power
• Love is placed alongside nature as conqueror and
sustainer
• As the speaker spends most of the poem musing
about the ruins rather than his waiting love, this
statement seems like a passionate choice, not
just a meaningless utterance
Imagery
• Gold – symbol of lust, corruption and sin
• Fire – symbol of the town’s power and
destruction (irony: nature overcomes)
• Love – eternal, pure and everlasting
• Turret – ruins, symbol of corruption and
human vanity
• Sheep – symbols of peace, calm and
contentment
Form
• Monologue, but the shepherd is alone (cf.
Soliloquy)
• Does he speak the poem aloud or is this an
internal monologue?
• The speaker is preoccupied with history,
highlighting an emphasis on time and change
• Pastoral poems usually idealised the past against
the ruin of the present. This poem does the
opposite.
• Title: love is constant against the rise and fall of
civilisations (cf. Ozymandias)
Structure
• Stanzas 1-5: begins by describing present pastoral
scene, then flashes back to ancient Roman city
• Stanzas 6-7: order is reversed – starts with
ancient city, then moves to present day
• This reversal facilitates the speaker’s dismissal of
the Roman scene (it is replaced by a love scene),
paralleling Browning’s theme that ultimately love
is what prevails.
• Final line: “love is best”
Structure
• Seven 12 line stanzas
• Rhyme scheme: aabbccdd (rhyming couplets)
– jaunty, reflecting the relatively light-hearted
nature of the poem
• Long trochaic lines (TRO-chee) are paired with
short lines of three syllables: this is an original
meter which Browning invented. What is the
effect of this meter?
How does the poem develop the
theme of nature’s power? Use
examples from the text to illustrate
your answer.