1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Amours de Voyage," Arthur Hugh Clough explores the intersection of love and travel through a series of poignant poems that illuminate the complexities of human emotion. Written in a reflective and often conversational style, Clough employs a blend of vivid imagery and introspective narration, capturing the nuanced experiences of relationships in various locales. This work is situated within the context of 19th-century Romanticism, drawing comparisons to contemporaneous poets who wrestled with themes of love, longing, and the transformative power of place. Arthur Hugh Clough, an influential figure in Victorian literature, was deeply shaped by his experiences at Oxford and the intellectual currents of his time, including his associations with the likes of Matthew Arnold and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His personal experiences of love and loss, combined with a keen awareness of the socio-political landscape, inform the rich emotional tapestry of this collection. Clough's later ambivalence towards organized religion and societal norms further deepens his exploration of personal versus public life in the realm of love. "Amours de Voyage" is an essential read for those who appreciate the intertwining of travel and romance in literature. Clough's adept handling of emotion and eloquent observations render this work not only a reflection of his time but also a timeless exploration of the human condition. Readers seeking insight into the intricacies of love should certainly immerse themselves in Clough's melodic verses. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Ähnliche
Amours De Voyage
Table of Contents
Introduction
A traveler’s scrupled self-examination collides with history’s urgency, as the desire to love meets the fear of choosing in a landscape unsettled by political change and by the restless motion of the modern mind.
Amours de Voyage, by Arthur Hugh Clough, is a long narrative in verse cast as an exchange of letters, a hybrid of epistolary fiction and poem. Composed in 1849 and set in Italy amid the upheavals associated with the revolutions of 1848–1849, it places private feeling against a shifting civic backdrop. The work reached readers in the mid-Victorian period, first published in 1858 in The Atlantic Monthly. Its world is cosmopolitan yet unsettled: galleries and ruins, streets and encampments, where art, tourism, and politics intermingle and test the traveler’s conscience as much as his affections.
The premise is simple and exacting: an educated English visitor, writing from Italian cities, records his observations about a possible attachment and about events that surround him, weighing action against hesitation in the intimate theatre of correspondence. The voice is lucid, skeptical, and self-aware, alternating between ironic detachment and guarded yearning. Written in supple, long-lined verse that feels at once classical and conversational, the poem’s epistolary structure creates a rhythm of advance and retreat, confession and revision. Readers encounter a travel narrative of the mind as much as the map, a measured, introspective experience rather than a melodramatic plot.
Themes emerge from the gaps between letters: the difficulty of decision; the ethics of watching rather than doing; the friction between private desire and public duty. The poem probes how language frames feeling, how analysis can harden into evasion, and how distance—geographical, social, and emotional—shapes what we permit ourselves to attempt. Travel exposes the narrator to beauty and ruin alike, yet the chief terrain is inward: motives sifted, impulses delayed, ideals tested by circumstance. The result is a study of modern subjectivity, where sincerity competes with self-presentation and where the very act of describing life can displace the living of it.
For contemporary readers, the poem speaks to recognizable predicaments: paralysis amid too many choices, the mediation of experience by messages, and the uneasy role of the observer in times of crisis. It raises questions that remain pressing: When do reflection and prudence become alibis for inaction? What do we owe to others when our lives, like our journeys, cross contested ground? By staging intimacy within a world of rapid movement and unsettled politics, the work invites us to consider whether clarity arrives through distance or through commitment, and how to act ethically without surrendering the self to impulse or to fashion.
Form and craft reinforce these concerns. The long, measured lines encourage patience and scrutiny, letting arguments turn and counterturn before they settle, if they settle at all. The letter as a vehicle of verse sharpens tone—candid yet composed, provisional yet polished—so that the mind’s changes are audible without dissolving into chaos. Description is exact but never ornamental for its own sake; cities, churches, and landscapes register as occasions for moral testing as much as for aesthetic pleasure. Throughout, a quiet humor keeps abstraction human, balancing skepticism with sympathy and giving the poem its distinctive blend of poise and restlessness.
Amours de Voyage offers the pleasures of a verse novel—character, scene, and movement—without sacrificing the reflective density of lyric meditation. It stands as a notable achievement of Victorian poetry, showing how narrative can thrive in letters and how love and politics can be thought together without sensationalism. Readers who value intellectual candor, stylistic finesse, and the slow burn of inward drama will find it rewarding. Approached as a conversation rather than a riddle to be solved, the poem invites rereading, its questions remaining alive precisely because it refuses easy resolutions, preferring the exacting honesty of attention to both heart and world.
Synopsis
Amours de Voyage, by Arthur Hugh Clough, is an epistolary poem set in Italy during the political upheavals of 1849. Written in flexible blank verse, it unfolds through letters exchanged among English travelers, presenting intertwined accounts of sightseeing, social encounters, and the pressures of a continent in crisis. At its center is Claude, a reflective tourist whose observations on art and history intersect with personal uncertainty. Countervoices include a young Englishwoman, Mary Trevellyn, and members of her family, whose correspondence records the practicalities and proprieties of travel. The poem blends travel narrative and romance with a contemporaneous chronicle of the Roman Republic and its uneasy aftermath.
The opening letters situate Claude in Rome amid galleries, churches, and ruins, where he measures ancient grandeur against modern disorder. He writes to a friend at home, sifting impressions of statues, frescoes, and street life with the deliberate cadence of self-scrutiny. His tone is detached yet curious, noting the mingling of tourists, exiles, and soldiers as the city shifts toward conflict. The letter form preserves immediacy and selection, allowing him to record half-decisions and passing moods. Early on, he hints at potential companionship among his countrymen, although he hesitates to define what he seeks, balancing comfort in solitude with the allure of connection.
Mary Trevellyn enters through her own letters, composed with restraint and attentive to family routine. Traveling with relatives, she comments on Rome’s sights and the etiquette governing mixed company abroad. Her perspective contrasts with Claude’s speculative habit, favoring steadiness, duty, and clear feeling. Meetings among the English visitors are formal and tentative, shaped by chaperonage and the rhythms of guided excursions. Mutual curiosity grows through repeated encounters in churches and public gardens, where shared itineraries offer occasions for measured conversation. The correspondence tracks these social proximities without overt revelation, presenting two sensibilities circling one another within the constraints of decorum and circumstance.
Political tension soon intensifies as the short-lived Roman Republic faces external pressure and military intervention. Rumors harden into troop movements; barricades, patrols, and proclamations alter the tourist’s map. The English community, unnerved by closed gates and shellfire, considers departure routes, passports, and safe-conducts. Letters become practical as well as reflective, noting couriers, delays, and the sudden fragility of plans. The upheaval imposes decisions that leisure had postponed, testing temperaments. Some travelers leave quickly; others hesitate, weighing comfort against caution. In this atmosphere, every social gesture acquires urgency, and the possibility of separation reframes casual acquaintance as a choice that must be made or lost.
Claude’s inward debate sharpens under pressure. He tests the claims of impulse, sincerity, and propriety against his instinct for precise reasoning. Potential moments of avowal or initiative arise, yet he pauses, mistrusting emotional rhetoric while fearing self-deception. The verse captures this oscillation in a measured, analytic music, where each argument answers itself. He questions whether modern consciousness permits straightforward action, and whether love can survive the scrutiny that intellect demands. Even as circumstances demand swifter resolution, he seeks ideal conditions for candor and reciprocity. The habitual tourist’s catalogue becomes a ledger of motives, with admiration, doubt, and pride entered in competing columns.
Mary’s letters counterbalance Claude’s irresolution with disciplined clarity. She considers family obligations, the expectations of the traveling English, and the value of consistency in conduct. Without naming feelings, she observes behavior: attentions paid, silences kept, departures announced. The war outside the windows narrows choices and distills sympathies, making courtesy seem either sufficient or insufficient, depending on the hour. Practical matters of luggage, lodgings, and escorts coexist with reflections on trustworthiness and tact. She seeks counsel from her confidante while guarding reputations, aware of how quickly rumor travels among expatriates. Her voice gathers firmness as she weighs what constancy requires when plans and places change.
Movements scatter the cast: departures from Rome, halts in hill towns, transfers to coastal steamers or northern roads. Letters trace zigzagging itineraries through familiar names on a map, each stop a chance to meet or miss. Claude pursues, then checks himself; messages arrive late or not at all; mistakes of timing harden into wider gaps. Meanwhile, travel itself reshapes perceptions, as churches grow plainer, landscapes cooler, and the sense of contingency stronger. Side characters advise caution or boldness, but decisions remain personal and provisional. The poem records these near-crossings and reversals without melodrama, focusing on how resolution can dissolve in the mechanics of transit.
