‘The Patriot’ is one of the many poems English A level will have to study. Like with many of Browning’s poems, this is a dramatic monologue being that the character is talking to himself in a ‘dramatic’ way. The poem tells the story of somebody’s execution in front of the public: for which he is being misunderstood and should not be killed. It relates very much to the fall of leaders who, like the patriot, are misunderstood and killed because of this. Here is an analysis of Robert Browning’s poem, ‘The Patriot’ which features a step-by-step guide to each stanza.
You might find reading my essay, How Does Browning Tell the Story in The Patriot? helpful too.
The analysis starts in the very title, ‘The Patriot’. A patriot is someone who fights/works for their country. They love their country and will do anything for their country too.
‘The Patriot’ Analysis
Stanza One
The first stanza is used to set the scene of the poem creating contrasting setting. It starts with, ‘It was roses, roses, all the way’ which are known for being beautiful and a theme of love. However, the stanza describes how the ‘house-roofs seemed to heave and sway’ which suggest the setting is cramped with houses. This is our first signs of the poem being based in a town where people are living in poverty. This was common in the Victorian times which introduces a time to this poem too unlike alot of Auden’s poems such as O What Is That Sound.
Stanza Three
The second stanza hasn’t got much analysis from my part (sorry, I’m an A level student myself and using my notes on the poem to write this article!). However, the third stanza does. There is reference to a old tale of Icarus on the first line, ‘it was I who leaped at the sun’. Icarus attempted to fly by sticking feathers to his arm with wax. However, the closer he flew to the sun, the more the wax melted until he fell from the sky. Browning uses this story to introduce an ideology to not be too ambitious which unfortunately the patriot was. Throughout the whole of stanza, the patriot is reflecting and thinking . He states, ‘Nought man could do, have I left undone’. He feels he done everything he could have possibly done. We gather he also has power, ‘what I reap’ illustrating how he has collected his rewards in from the work he has done.
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Thanks! it really helped me, since my teacher ditched us at the last minute!
Thanks! helped me alot, since my stupid teacher ditches us at the last minute!
a good summary but for the second stanza i think it is a continuation of the first one wherein the patriot describes how he was welcomed and how he was recognized as a hero, that whatever he asks for they give it to him to the point that he thinks that if he asked for the sun they would still respond with "and afterward, what else?"
.. this is very helpful thanks a lot 🙂
A good analysis of the second stanza, thanks for all the positive comments!
thanks! for describing so nicely! 😀
thankss
Thanks its really helpfull..
All much welcome!
really appreciate this!
very helpful .. thank you 🙂
This was really helpful, thanks Will! 🙂
thanks will, you are not a patch on walpole
Good work
saved my life!! so recommending this to my a level buddies thankssss
nice
Extremely helpful for my catching up work, thank you! 🙂
Thank you very much for this William.
Love from Saba Hussain
you're the best. Thanks a mil
Thankyou great work, needed this analysis to get through. Good work!
it's a ballad not dramatic monologue as there is no clear sense of audience
I can understand why you think it is a ballad. However, it is a dramatic monologue since it is a speech by the patriot who reveals aspects of his character through telling a story about what he has done to get to where he is.
thankyou for this fine analysis.I got some new shades of meaning.
it's a dramatic monolgue for me as a student
actually I want some of the examples from Robert Browning's poetry showing that he was not a patriot.
You have a few good ideas, I will grant you, but you seem to have surrounded the good ideas with some rubbish, such as the rain 'represents corruption'. Your last sentence, also, is a lot of waffle with very little meaning, if any. But nonetheless, a helpful essay, keep working.
Kollam kidulamm
HOWEVER… It is of course arguable that The Patriot is actually a heinous criminal. He describes the way in which 'whoever has a mind' flings stones at him for his 'year's misdeeds'. Perhaps he is actually deserved of his hanging. The way The Patriot leaves untold gaps in his narrative suggests even he cannot face what it was that he did wrong, only adding to the ominous nature of the poem. He 'reaps' his 'harvest': again suggesting his hanging is as a result of his doing. He seems to accept his crime but not his punishment. Perhaps he is deluded, driven mad by his power and the 'crowd and cries' of adoration he received in the first and second stanza. This has led him to commit heinous crimes for which he never thought he'd be punished.
helped a lot in my exam!! thanks will!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thank you so much
Can plz anybody send me this full poem.
Really wonderful analysis of the poem
Thanks, actually this is the answer to the question arising in my mind as to what would have happened within one year which brought him so much down in the eyes of the public . Yes , I have seen similar fate of Muzibbur Rehman of Bangladesh.He too was killed in a coup within three years of getting his country independent . And no body shed any tear on his death
Yeah are you happy
I am a student of class 9 bt still it is in my syllabus!
What were the patriot’s misdeeds?
thak you so much..the good summary this was really helpful