(Just FYI: Percy Bysshe Shelley was married to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein.)
"Memorabilia"
by Robert Browning
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you?
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
But you were living before that,
And you are living after,
And the memory I started at—
My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about:
For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather—
Well, I forget the rest.
Discussion Questions:
1. What connection is there between the two events of a man meeting a great poet and a man finding an eagle feather?
2. What are some poetic devices Browning uses in this poem?
3. Have you ever picked up a simple item while on a trip that became an important bit of memorabilia for you?
1. Well he says "And the memory I started at -- my starting moves your laughter", meaning the man who had met Shelley laughed that Browning cared so much about just meeting someone who'd met Shelley, something that couldn't profit him at all. And so Robert Browning told him a story about a feather he once picked up in the middle of a long and wide piece of land. Something that the man also probably would be surprised at Browning remembering and caring about. But, like meeting this man who'd met Shelley, who's works he admired a lot, the feather was different and more noticeable than the rest of everything around him. He says: "I crossed a moor, with a name of its own And a certain use in the world no doubt" by which I think he means that everyone else in the world probably has use, but the feather/meeting someone who's met Shelley, was more than the moor/everybody else. And even if the man would laugh at how he picked UP the feather, no one would blame him at least for noticing it. It clearly stands out against every other thing. So I think he's trying to show the man that it's not ridiculous to take note of and even marvel at different and beautiful things, and to be glad to have a part in them, even if it's so small as picking up a somewhat interesting feather that belonged to a VERY interesting bird, or being excited by meeting someone who's met someone interesting, even if you don't ever get to meet him yourself.
ReplyDeleteExcellent analysis. And it feels so realistic, doesn't it? Some people are naturally good and noticing the beauty around them, or things that are out of place, and they can be pleased by or excited by things that other people don't even see. Like being extremely excited to meet someone who had met someone you admire.
Delete2. Alliteration: see and Shelley, stop and speak, strange and seems. Enjambment: I crossed a moor, with a name of its own And a certain use in the world no doubt. I don't know, but this whole poem seems somewhat like one whole, big metaphor.
ReplyDeleteGood ones. And the whole poem definitely feels like it has a larger meaning than the surface story.
DeleteProbably 😅
ReplyDeleteLol! It's not something everyone does, which is why I asked.
Delete1. It's not common - I don't know how often you find an eagle feather - so it may even be uncommon/rare. Life goes on the same even after you've found an eagle feather, and MEETING a famous poet isn't going to make you famous, same as finding an eagle feather on the moor doesn't really change your life any, but it's MEMORABLE. You remember doing it even if nothing else changes.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I've put things in capital letters because I can't italicize anything.
DeleteI think part of the reason he chose an eagle is because we consider them such majestic, cool birds -- even to people who aren't Americans, they obviously are special and powerful. (Think of Tolkien and the eagles!)
DeleteHere in the US, we actually have laws about who is allowed to own eagle feathers and eagle parts -- if you are not a Native American, you aren't supposed to have them. Isn't that interesting?
If you want to put things in italics, I can teach you. But putting them in caps works too.
2. Lots of alliteration in the first verse: see, Shelley, stop, speak, speak, strange, seems. And (I'm trying so hard not to copy Nadia) since it's a dramatic monologue, there's a narrator.
ReplyDeleteI know, it's so hard not to copy! I try just not to read what you write before I write mine, because when I do, I always just end up being like, yup. That's what I was thinking lol. Also narrator is good! Didn't catch that one
DeleteI read yours before writing mine and was like, 'oh dear, better find something else so I don't just cheat off you' :D
DeleteHaha! I trust you both not to be cheating off each other. It's fine if you find similar answers to these kinds of questions -- every poem has a finite number of poetic devices, after all.
DeleteAnd yes, those are good ones, Sadie. Especially that it's a dramatic monologue -- good catch!
3. Yeah. It's not exactly IMPORTANT, but I picked up a rock shaped like a heart while hiking in the Badlands with the Kovacinys. (No, it's not an anatomically-correct heart-shaped rock.) I do think about that trip when I see it, though. I'm sure there's other random bits of junk I've picked up but that's clearly the most important, seeing as I remember it.
ReplyDeleteRight -- the object doesn't have to be important in and of itself as to be important to you or remind you of something important.
Delete