Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Love in a Life by Robert Browning - Coggle Diagram
Love in a Life by Robert Browning
Notes from the Internet
Poem was published in the volume "Men and Women" in 1855 - dedicated to Elizabeth, Brownings wife
Written dring the couples time in Italy, setting is touchingly domestic - references to theri furniture and her wives dress
conceit - poet searching through the house to find his wife - wife seems to elude him
poem written in 2 stanzas with matching rhyme patterns
In stanza 1, reflects the stages of his search - the short lines as he moves from palce to place, hurriedly searching / longer lines as he looks at the place and realises that she has been there
His wife was in poor health throughout their married life, she had three miscarriges before giving birth to their only son in 1849
They both were never apart since the day they got married so for robert, her absese or fear of it must have haunted him - Elizabeth died in 1861
Key language devices
Alliteration
"Love in a Life"
Personification
talks to the house
Modal verb
"Shalt find her"
sinesthesia
"couches perfume"
personification
"mirror" - shows desperation
sibilance
"closets to search"
Key structural devices
repetition
"room after room" - shows search on a loop
Enjambent - uncertainty
fullstops - shows certainty
rhetorical questions - shows disorientation / lost / alone
Caesurae - shows still neverending search / stopping and starting
Mirroring - 3 short lines - 6 long lines repeated patterm - desperation
Shifts in tone
There is not a sharp shift in tone but from the start to the end the tone gradually gets tenser showing the mans desperation
Poems deeper meaning
The man feels like he has lost his wife and he feels desperate to find her / fear she is going to die and leave him
Objects the speaker thinks his wife has left an impression upon
curtains
couch
rooms
corners
heart
Key points for paragraphs
Time seemed to be running out
Seems to be present in a ghostly manner - elusive he cant catch her
He talks to his heart and objects shows lonelyness + isolation