Campagna What do we know about this poem What does the title tell us This poem is about Infinite passion and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn Two in the Campagna explores the fleeting nature of love and ideas ID: 256997
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Slide1
Two in the Campagna
What do we know about this poem?What does the title tell us?Slide2
This poem is about...
"Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn."
“Two in the
Campagna
” explores the fleeting nature of love and ideas.
The speaker is a man who yearns for the ultimate union with his lover. He
regrets that, just as he cannot ever perfectly capture an idea, he cannot achieve total communion with his lover, despite the helpful erotic suggestions of nature. Though our hearts be finite, we yearn infinitely; the resulting pain serves as a reminder of human limitations.
"There is a solemnity and beauty about the
Campagna
entirely its own. To the reflective mind, this ghost of old Rome is full of suggestion; its vast, almost limitless extent as it seems to the
traveller;
its abundant herbage and floral wealth in early spring; its desolation, its crumbling monuments, and its evidences of a vanished civilization, fill the mind with a sweet sadness, which readily awakens the longing for the infinite spoken of in the poem." (
Berdoe
,
‘Browning Cyclopaedia’) Slide3
Context: The Roman Campagna
The “Campagna” refers to the countryside around Rome. Until the middle of the twentieth century it grew fairly wild and unclaimed. Because its swampy areas nurtured mosquitoes carrying malaria, the conventional English tourist largely avoided the
Campagna
, leaving it to the Italian peasants, who farmed sections of it. However, in nineteenth-century literature the
Campagna
also symbolized a sort of alternative space, where rules of society did not apply and anything could
happen. Cf. Pastoral poetry.
In this poem, the Campagna seems to suggest to the speaker that he can in fact transcend his human limitations to put his subtle ideas into poetry or see the world through his lover’s eyes. However, in suggesting this the wild space merely plays a cruel trick; teased and disappointed, the speaker is left more melancholy than ever.Slide4
Language and ImagerySlide5
II wonder do you feel today
As I have felt since, hand in hand,We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land,This morn of Rome and May
? 5
II
For me,
I touched a thought
, I know
Has tantalised me many times,(Like turns of thread the spiders throw Mocking across our path) for rhymesTo catch at and let go. 10Slide6
III
Help me to hold it! First it left The yellowing
fennel
, run to seed
There, branching from the brickwork's
cleft
,
Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weedTook up the floating weft, 15 IVWhere one small orange cup amassed Five beetles, - blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal: and last, Everwhere on the grassy slopeI traced it. Hold it fast
!
20
herb
Thread/ interweaving; crossing from side to side
opening
‘cup’ of a flower
nectarSlide7
VThe
champaign with its endless fleece Of feathery grasses everywhere!Silence and passion, joy and peace, An everlasting wash of air –Rome's ghost since her decease
. 25
VI
Such
life here, through
such
lengths of hours, Such miracles performed in play,Such primal naked forms of flowers, Such letting nature have her wayWhile heaven looks from its towers! 30
Flat,
o
pen countrysideSlide8
VIIHow say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,As earth lies bare to heaven above! How is it under our controlTo love, or not to love? 35
VIII
I would
that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more,
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the coreO' the wound, since wound must be? 40
I wish(sense of uncertainty)Slide9
IXI would I could
adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heartBeating by yours, and
drink my fill
At your soul's springs
, -
your part my part
In life, for good or ill
. 45XNo. I yearn upward, touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul's warmth, - I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speak –Then the good minute goes. 50
I wish
(sense of uncertainty; impossibility)Slide10
XI
Already how am I so far Out of that minute?
Must I go
Still like the
thistle-ball
, no bar,
Onward, wherever light winds blow
Fixed by no friendly star? 55XIIJust when I seemed about to learn! Where is the thread now? Off again!The old trick! Only I discern –
Infinite passion, and the painOf finite hearts that yearn. 60Slide11
Form
Dramatic monologue but seems like a soliloquy – his lover is present but does not speak Is he really meditating on his inability to sustain the moment of connection with his lover? Flowing lines and enjambment represent thoughts spilling over, out into the fields of the
Campagna
The romantic ideal is overwhelmed by reality: the human heart beats aloneSlide12
Structure
12 stanzas of 5 lines eachFirst four lines in tetrameter (4 feet) and final line in trimeter (3 feet)Rhyme pattern:
ababa
Regular layout and rhyme pattern = lover’s repeated attempts to capture a harmony with his lover
Enjambment means sentence breaks do not necessarily coincide with line breaks – this weakens the rhyme
Sections of poem in regular iambs but this often breaks down: the speaker can’t quite capture this, just like he can’t capture his lover