Appreciation of Meeting at Night

Meeting at Night is beautifully written by Robert Browning, a noted poet for his dramatic monologue poetry. In Meeting at Night, the poet employs the first person “I”, facilitating a spontaneous, smooth and authentic poetic expression, which achieves the effect of bringing the readers closer to the internal world of “I”. Hence, the reader can better resonate with the poet.

In Meeting at Night, Browning creates a vivid character of flaming passion, eagerness and longing for love, who is quite pining for his girl and therefore endeavors to sail across the sea alone at late night just to meet his lover. “I”, a single character in the poem, is delivering his intensely passionate and hot-blooded pursuit of personal love. The poetic character, to some degree, can be assumed to have originated from an impassioned Browning himself whose crazy enthusiasm and bravery for love can be realistically proven by his courtship with Elizabeth Barrett who was then far more famous and six years older than him. Despite of external hindrances, their strong belief and faith in love transcended all objections and obstacles, spurring the two lovers to elope to Italy and get married. Meeting at night exhibits an image of man filled with fervor for love and gives the true revelation of the character’s emotional world through the delicate and exquisite description of various beauteous images such as moon, waves, sand, and beach.

This poem is composed of two stanzas, each of which comprises six lines written in anapestic tetrameter with the rhyme scheme of a b c c b a. Condensed as is the poem, it fully conveys the inmost thoughts of the poet.

In the first two lines, a tranquil picture is unfolded that the yellow half-moon is gently raining its soft light upon the grey sea and black land when the world is in sound sleep. The grand images of “sea” and “land” suggest a sense of vastness and boundlessness, which implies the long distance to the destination. “Grey” and “black” create an atmosphere of darkness and coldness; however, the warm color “yellow” softens the dark night. Therefore, the contrastive hues produce an extraordinary tuneful sight and visualize a harmonious nature. “Half-moon” is likely to have represented its extended meaning of “incompleteness”, reflecting the mood that “I” am alone and lonely due to the separation from “my” lover. Thus, “I”, regardless of long journey, make efforts to meet “my” lover by crossing the sea and land alone in late night.