Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came?

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is a poem by English author Robert Browning, written in 1855 and first published that same year in the collection entitled Men and Women. The title, which forms the last words of the poem, is a line from William Shakespeare's play King Lear. In the play, Gloucester's son, Edgar, lends credence to his disguise as Tom o' Bedlam by talking nonsense, of which this is a part:

Child Rowland to the dark tower came,

His word was still 'Fie, foh, and fum

I smell the blood of a British man.

King Lear, Act 3, scene 4

Shakespeare took inspiration from the fairy tale "Childe Rowland", although the poem has no direct connection to the tale. Browning claimed that the poem came to him, fully-formed, in a dream.

"Childe Roland" has served as inspiration to a number of popular works of fiction, including:

American author Stephen King for his The Dark Tower series of stories and novels (1978-2004).

Welsh science fiction author Alastair Reynolds for the "Diamond Dogs" novella (2001).

Canadian science-fiction author Gordon R. Dickson for his "Childe Cycle" series of novels (1959-2001).

American science-fiction author Andre Norton for the fourth novel in her "Witch World" series (1967).

The 'Doctor Who' Twentieth Anniversary special 'The Five Doctors' takes much imagery and several key phrases from the poem which has been cited as a source by screenwriter Terrance *****.

British novelist A. S. Byatt for the character Roland Michell (and perhaps his formidable love interest Maude Bailey ("bailey"="tower")) in her novel Possession: A Romance (1990).

Willa Cather's The Burglar's Christmas.

John Connolly's novel The Book of Lost Things (2006).

Roger Zelazny's novel Sign of the Unicorn (1975) refers to the song and the poem (part of The Chronicles of Amber series).

Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poem I Am Waiting refers to Childe Rowland coming 'to the final darkest tower'.

P.G. Wodehouse's novel The Code of the Woosters: Jeeves uses the phrase 'Roland to the dark tower came' to describe Bertie Wooster's arrival at Totleigh Towers. Bertie does not understand the reference.

Neil Gaiman's Sandman character, Charles Rowland, one of the Dead Boy Detectives, is a reference to Childe Roland, particularly in his Children's Crusade (Vertigo Comics) miniseries (1993), which prominently features a dark tower, a motif later picked up by the Books of Magic series.

Molley T is exactly right. He based the character's name, Roland, on the main character of the poem, and the final book, The Dark Tower, has the poem in it at the very end. It is actually really interesting. It has minor references to the series, but nothing huge other than the obvious.

Have you read the poem itself? I had to do an extensive analysis (26 pages) on this as an assignment for a course I took last semester. In most respects, I hate poetry, but I did really like this poem. Just read it and think about it. It's pretty deep without having any real meaning.

I also only chose this poem because I read and loved the Dark Tower series. Enjoy!

I had no idea that these books were inspired by Browning's poem, nor do I know any of his poetry. However, I'll have to check it out at some point because I really enjoyed both of these series of books.

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