Talk:Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

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Wikipedia is not the place for sources! This page sould be about the poem, not the poem itself - Tarquin 16:30 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm taking out the poem, leaving in the encyclopedic content. -- ESP 05:10 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I took out the following non-information:

The poem's significance has been widely studied and variously interpreted.

Most poems have been studied and interpreted, widely, variously, or otherwise. There's no value in this sentence.

"Childe" Roland is a knight seeking his destiny.

Unless a more indepth discussion of the poem is merited, this one-off sentence doesn't do much. A summary of the poem followed by an analysis -- preferably NPOV, and probably with some attribution to an actual scholar -- would be nice. Otherwise, this throwaway sentence doesn't add much.

If someone wants to add those back in, I'd appreciate a justification on the talk page here. -- ESP 17:07 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Lear quote[edit]

I was going to drop in the actual quote from King Lear, but since it's pretty much exactly the same as the title of the poem (except "Rowland" instead of "Roland"), I figured there wasn't a point to it. I gave the act # and scene # instead. --ESP 03:37, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Unnecessary mystificativisticalism. Just quote the line: don't send us to the library. — in addition, the passage includes a dreadful usage: "That line, part of a nonsense stanza recited by Edgar, is thought to have been a reference to the ballad." Good grief! Such imagined passive "thinking" that takes place impersonally in the void, apparently without human intervention, is a symptom of brain-washing. --Wetman 15:54, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Roland/Rowland[edit]

Which is it? Right now we have the article title saying one thing and the lead sentence saying another. This poem was written in English, surely it has only one proper English title. . . Jgm 23:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My sources show it without the "w" so I have changed the one instance in the lead. —Theo (Talk) 11:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Elidor[edit]

As far as I recall, Elidor (sited as influenced by this poem) is in fact heavily based on the folk tale, not this poem. It even starts with 3 brothers and a sister playing football by a church, Roland kicking the ball over and the sister going missing. However, I'm not familiar with the poem, and it is possible that the book is in fact based on it. Alan Gardner may have said something in an interview. So, if anyone has a reason to include this as an influenced work, speak now! 88.144.79.120 18:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Misquote[edit]

Actually the line “When that passage was written, only God and Robert Browning understood it; now, only God understands it.” (per the 1934 film The Barretts of Wimpole Street among others) is spoken of Sordello, not Childe Roland. Isengrim01 06:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That was what I thought, too. Sordello is much harder to understand than Childe Roland. It's not a plausible quote, referring to Childe Roland. So, since it's unsourced, I'm just taking it out. I'd say that at best, the line refers to Sordello: at worst, it's simply apocryphal junk that's applied to whatever Browning work someone happens to be talking about. Marieblasdell 06:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Inaccessible?[edit]

I'm not at all comfortable with this sentence: "In general, however, the work is one of Browning's most inaccessible." Browning wrote some spectacularly challenging poetry. Now, it's certainly mysterious, but that's another word, although it'd still be unsourced criticism. I was very tempted to clip out the sentence, but it's nicely integrated into the paragraph, and I wanted to see what other people thought. Any thoughts on the matter? Marieblasdell 07:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Sordello is much more inaccesible. I think this sentence stands out badly on the page - it's opinion, not fact. So I've removed it. Bertaut (talk) 16:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Child[edit]

I have read that Child or Childe is a term of address for a boy of noble birth who is awaiting knighthood. This might be the alternative reason behind the use of the word. MicheleFloyd (talk) 21:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

slug-horn[edit]

Should "slug-horn" in the synopsis really link to a harry potter character name listing? 2.28.103.79 (talk) 19:41, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct, and I just removed that link. Thanks for pointing that out! Yitz (talk) 22:10, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]