Year 12 AS Level Literature
The Patriot
By Robert Browning
Independent Study assignment
Read the following poem through twice. Remember that when studying Literature, and in particular poetry, there is no right or wrong answer, though usually people will agree on some things.
The Patriot
An Old Story
I.
It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.
II.
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels---
But give me your sun from yonder skies!"
They had answered, "And afterwards, what else?"
III. Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep!
Nought man could do, have I left undone:
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.
IV. There’s nobody on the house-tops now---
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles’ Gate---or, better yet,
By the very scaffold’s foot, I trow.
V. I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year’s misdeeds.
VI. Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
Me?"---God might question; now instead,
‘Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
This poem has both a title ‘The patriot’ and a subtitle ‘An old story’. Both of these have cultural associations and various possible meanings. Make a list of your initial responses to these 2 titles.(You may want to use a dictionary?)
Click Here to see some suggestionsClearly a fictional persona narrates this story. It is not Browning. He can’t be hanged at the end. In two columns list
- What Browning allows you to find out about the actions of the central character or persona?
- What you do not find out but ideally might like to know.
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Complete the following table on how the poet creates the central character
| What do we learn about the patriot’s attitudes values and characteristics? | Quotation to support your assertion |
Describe the conclusion to the poem. How does this compare to the opening?
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