Robert Browning

Reading from the Longman Anthology is not the first time I have encountered Robert Browning's poetry, and more specifically: "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." Anyone familiar with Steven King's writing may know of his famous book series: The Dark Tower. There are seven novels of this series and the series is in many ways an interpretation, at least to King, of Browning's poem. In the novels the main character is Roland Deschain: a knight. Except where the Childe Roland of Browning's poem assumedly used a broad sword, the Roland of Steven King's Dark Tower series used a pair of six-shooters. In the novels, King excerpts certain portions of Browning's poem for his own uses. This has provided me with a somewhat indirectly extensive relationship with this poem, as I have read all seven of the Dark Tower novels.
Moving away from the lackluster style of horror writing of Steven King and moving on to the enigmatic and most likely allegorical writing of Robert Browning, I can say that I was deeply satisfied with this particular poem. While I may haven no clue what Browning meant in the poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" I do think I grasped the general mood depicted in the poem. In the line "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," Browning provides a sense of moroseness and acerbic anger at the world that pervades the entire poem. While I am unsure of what the intended allegory actually is, and I am only assuming there is one, I do understand the mood of the setting and the tone of the poem. In my opinion, the mere tone of this poem makes it far more frightening than the novels of King. The world is seen by Browning's Roland as a terrible and dreary place and the picture Browning paints with his words are most impressive.