Two in the - PowerPoint Presentation

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