Explain how Robert Browning's "Childe Roland Ran to the Dark Tower" can be seen as a poem of optimism.

At the start, it seems at first difficult to find anything
optimistic in the reading of Robert Browning's poem, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower
Came." (Some believe this is the story of Rolande, the knight, but others argue that it
is not—but simply anyone's journey in life.)

The mood of
the poem is set with the description of the man (or a demon? Death?) who gives the
narrator directions regarding which path he should
choose.

My
first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary
cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of
his lie

On
mine...

The very appearance
of the old man throws the narrator off, and makes him suspect that the old man is moved
by malice to send the narrator on this particular path, dangerous though it may be. Even
so he continues, not sure what lies ahead—though it might even be
death.

As the narrator continues his journey (which may
actually take years), the scenery he passes is particularly depressing. There is no
color in the countryside; everything is grey and seemingly dead. The narrator comes to a
place where there is water, but here, too, death seems to
linger.

For a short moment, the narrator wants to remember
the past and the way things were: even to find beauty in the world around
him.

I shut
my eyes and turned them on my heart.

As a man calls for
wine before he fights,

I asked one draught of earlier,
happier sights...

However, he
is met with images of those he has known. Cuthbert, who one night did something
disgraceful, and their friendship ended. Then the narrator turns to Giles, "a brave and
honorable man," who sometime later is hanged as a traitor. In retrospect, the narrator
chooses to remain with the unpleasant present, rather than the heart-breaking
past.

And so he moves on to the Dark Tower: seen either as
a knight's challenge or that of "every man." This is where the poem
ends.

It is easy to see that this poem
might be allegorical for the passage of one's life, especially as
one may approach the latter years, when younger days seems so much more pleasant and
hopeful, but reality reveals that they had their pain as well. Or it could refer to the
hope that one loses when surrounded so long by things which seem to drive us to our
knees. However, Browning himself said this was not an allegory.
Though we can admit that what an author intends with his art and the life the art takes
on when separated from the artist may be two very different
things.

The optimism is found in the narrator's arrival at
the castle. We do not know what will happen, while we do know the
journey has been hard. However, we realize that through all of this, the narrator has
been steadfast, moving forward without losing sight of his goal. Having arrived, we are
also able to find optimism that anything is possible. Contrary to
the mood promoted throughout the poem, the speaker has achieved something amazing in
simply reaching his goal, and we can hope that he whatever he will face in the tower,
that his perseverance will reward him, as is often the case in tales of heroes and
knights—and dedicated people.

Additional
Source:

http://books.google.com/books?

id=G2NLAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=

cuthbert,+disgrace,+browning&source=bl&ots=2bLLyrxx-

o&sig=oWDZ4w526gqMqPlMe-

JMJiI_wHc&hl=en&ei=OEVITtCjLojZgAf3j_zUBg&sa=

X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=

0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false