A Death-Scene
"A Death-Scene" is a poem by English writer Emily Brontë. It was written on 2 December 1844 and published in 1846 in a book collecting poetry by Brontë and her siblings. Poem excerpt Context The poem appears to be a Gondal poem from the writing style, but there is nothing in the poem to confirm this theory. The narrator is an anonymous woman. There is no known character by the name of Edward in the Gondal Saga, and the one vague reference to "Arden's lake" is unhelpful because it is not a known place in either the Gondal world or the Glass Town Confederacy. Gondal was an imaginary world created by Emily and Anne Brontë in their childhood. Initially, all four siblings—Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell—created an imaginary world called "Angria", where each sibling ran an island with a town by the name of "Glasstown". They named it "the Glass Town Confederacy". Later Emily and Anne broke off and created their own world of Gondal. Gondal also had two islands, Gaaldine and Angora. The northern island was the Kingdom of Angora, and was commonly referred to as Gondal. It was a cold region with moorlands and mists. The southern island was Gaaldine, and it was a colony of mainland Gondal. Gaaldine had a more tropical climate, with greenery and sunlight. Gondal is surrounded by choppy seas. Gondal's most well known character is Queen Augusta Geraldine Almeda (A.G.A.). She has a number of lovers, including Alexander, Lord of Elbe; Alfred Sidonia; and Fernando de Samara, all of whom are killed. There is no record of a lover by the name of Edward. Poetic techniques Structure The poem has a rhyme pattern of ABAB and stanzas 1–7 are in quotation marks, this could show that Augusta is directly addressing her husband, Edward, as she calls to him with this name. Gondal references The poem uses frequent references to water: "Arden's lake" in stanza 3, "eternal sea" in stanza 4 and "Eden isles" in stanza 6. This water is most probably Emily referring to the water surrounding Gondal. There are other parts of nature that are touched upon in this poem, primarily in stanza 10, these could showing how Augusta is turning to nature to help her cope with the oncoming and unavoidable grief. Analysis The poem describes Augusta's sorrow over her dying husband, describing the journey of his final movements. In the second stanza Augusta is trying to convince herself that he will survive, using positive words such as "youthful", "cheerful" and glowing. In the third stanza, she is willing him to awake from his endless sleep. Emily describes the surroundings of the pair as a "golden evening" and the lake as being "warm and bright" – yet more positive imagery. The fourth stanza shows how close the couple are. True love could be what Augusta is feeling when she describes him as her "dearest friend" and wants "one hour delay" on his fate. In stanza five, Augusta describes the surroundings more