Childe Roland and Other Poems

The title poem was inspired by various images which Browning saw while living in Italy, an old tower in the Carrara Mountains, a painting in Paris and a horse on a tapestry in his home near Florence. These called to his mind the line from Shakespeare's King Lear spoken by Edgar in his feigned madness "Childe Roland to the dark tower came". The poem, full of surreal imagery, evokes the worlds of the 11th century epic poem "The Song of Roland" and of the Arthurian Legends with their notion of the "quest", a journey undertaken by a Knight into unknown hostile territory in search of a mysterious goal. - Summary by Alan Mapstone