Life in a Love by Robert Browning

This is my poem analysis; Life in a Love by Robert Browning. I hope you enjoy my earlier poem analysis; My Star by Robert Browning. I really enjoy myself writing the analysis of his poems. What I love about him is the inseparable love of him and his wife, who is a prominent poet also, Elizabeth Bennet. They are such an example of eternal love which does exist (sometime).


The poem:

Escape me?
Never---
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again, ---
So the Chase takes up one's life ' that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me---
Ever

Removed!


Summary:

This poem tells us about the speaker who is so desperate in fighting for his lover to be his own love. Though, he rather expresses about the tenacity of pursuing his love as it is his fate. It has written in the skies that he will keep pursuing his love, whoever it may be. Even he has no more hope for her love, he will keep trying, struggling at his best to make her turn her look at him; he also described himself as a creature in the dust and dark. Too hyperbole as it connects us to the fate itself; that it is men's jobs to pursue women (lovers).


Intrinsic Elements:

1.   Speaker and tone: struggle, surrender, acceptance resulting in dissatisfaction.

2.  Diction: There are figurative languages; personification and simile. The chosen words are simple and based on experience; daily life-used.

3.  Structure: Open structure, 22 lines, free verse.

4.  Syntax: Simple sentence and simple present tense.

5.  Rhyme: The rhyme is quite unique. We can seem the uniqueness from the sound, not the latter word for each line. We can see from the three-first lines, the rhyme is ABB, but then for the next 4 lines until the three lines from the bottom, they are rhymed uniquely (CDDC, BBBB, EFEF, GHGH). As for the last three lines, the rhyme scheme is the same with the three first, ABB. This scheme cannot be categorized to any scheme, since Robert made a mess this scheme > CDDC, BBBB, EFEF, GHGH. It would be an alternate rhyme scheme if there was ABBA at the first four-line.

6.  Symbol: the Chase, the dust and the dark.

7.   Figurative language: Personification (so the Chase takes up one’s life takes up one’s life that’s all, no sooner the old hope goes to the ground) and hyperbole (at me so deep in the dust and dark).

8.   Imagery: There are kinesthetic (one eludes, the other pursue, laugh at a fall, get up, I shape me) and visual imageries (while, look but once from your farthest bound).

9.   Theme: Rejection, loss, dissatisfaction.


Extrinsic Elements:

1.    Author’s state of mind and emotion when working on this poem: Browning was in the state of madly in love with his wife. This poem was made after his five-year of hiatus, so even though this poem couldn’t make a big sell at the time, but in today’s era, this poems collection, including this poem so relatable to anyone’s romance life, don’t you think? This poem is also related to one of his poems; Love in a Life, which is connected. The inseparable love of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Bennet is the base of these poems existed.

2. Poem’s Setting: This poem was made around 1849 in Florence, when Browning got so much inspiration in making poems. The exact date is unknown.


source

That is my analysis for Life in a Love by Robert Browning's poem. I hope you do enjoy my analysis. There will be a lot of poems analysis come this week. So, you have to patiently wait. :)

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