describe the air around at the time of celebration of the patriot
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The Patriot: About the poem
The Patriot is a dramatic monologue written by the renowned English poet and playwright Robert Browning. He is well known for his dramatic monologues and is widely celebrated as one of the foremost poets of the Victorian era. In this poem, Browning talks about Politics, Patriotism, Religious faith, and the harsh reality of the leaders who are true to their sense of patriotism. It speaks about the sacrifice of such leaders who are misunderstood by the people.
The speaker of the poem is a patriot. The poem is a monologue of this ‘patriot speaker’ who narrates his tale to us as he has been taken to the scaffold to be executed publicly for his ‘misdeeds’. He tells us of his situation: how he was once well loved by everyone, and how he is now despised by the same people. The patriot is innocent of having done any misdeeds, and it is only out of the misunderstanding of the people that he is being put to death. His death sentence is for the wrong reason, and although he’s tried to persuade the people to listen to him, it has done him no good.
‘The Patriot’ is a harsh critique on public sentiment and morality. It stresses on the point that not all decisions made or supported by the people are the right decisions, or even in their own interest. The poem has a sense of universality to it as history has witnessed the rise and fall of many such ‘patriots’ throughout its course — a grim reminder that life is uncertain!.
Form and structure of the poem
The Patriot has a curious structure of six stanzas of five lines each. A quick scansion reveals that the poem in not based on a strict metre. The length of a majority of lines is nine syllables, with a few going a syllable or two beyond that mark. Instead of the metre the musical quality is achieved by the careful placement of words.
The poem has a clear rhyme scheme of ababa which is carried and maintained throughout all the stanzas of the poem. As with any good poem with a definitive rhyme, this one too seems to have made a prodigal use of assonance and consonance.
In the first two stanzas the poem introduces the conditions of the past. The third stanza is the poet’s revelation on how and why the conditions changed, and that too against him. The fourth and the fifth stanza contrasts the past with the present. The last stanza is the poet’s acceptance of his condition and an expression of his hope. It can be seen that the poem follows an orderly sequence of a story where the conditions of the past are told, the impetus for the change is discussed, the present state is shown and a final conclusion is drawn on all things as a whole. This makes the sub-title of the poem ‘An old story’ all the more relevant.