“A Face” Summary

“A Face” Themes

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  Female Beauty and Male Misogyny

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• 

  Art and Immortality

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “A Face”

• Lines 1-3

  If one could have that little head of hers
  Painted upon a background of pale gold,
  Such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 4-7

  No shade encroaching on the matchless mould
  Of those two lips, which should be opening soft
  In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,
  For that spoils all:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-10

  but rather as if aloft
  Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff’s
  Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss
  And capture ’twixt the lips apart for this.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-13

  Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,
  How it should waver on the pale gold ground,
  Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 14-16

  I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts
  Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb
  Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 17-22

  But these are only massed there, I should think,
  Waiting to see some wonder momently
  Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky
  (That’s the pale ground you’d see this sweet face by),
  All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye
  Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

  

  

  

  

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“A Face” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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“A Face” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• The Tuscan
• Encroaching
• Matchless mould
• Yon
• Hyacinth
• Burthen
• 'Twixt
• Lithe
• Correggio
• Mass
• Rifts
• Orb
• Momently
• Wink

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “A Face”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“A Face” Speaker

“A Face” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “A Face”

More “A Face” Resources

• External Resources

  • Paintings by Correggio — Get an idea of the kind of sensual Renaissance portraiture the speaker imagines in this overview of Correggio's work.

  • Dramatis Personae — See images of the poem as it first appeared in Browning's important 1864 collection Dramatis Personae.

  • A Brief Biography — Learn more about Browning's life and work via the Poetry Foundation.

  • More on Browning — Visit the Victorian Web to learn more about Browning.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Browning

  • A Light Woman

  • Among the Rocks

  • A Toccata of Galuppi's

  • A Woman's Last Word

  • Confessions

  • Epilogue

  • Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

  • How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

  • Life in a Love

  • Love Among the Ruins

  • Love in a Life

  • Meeting at Night

  • My Last Duchess

  • Pictor Ignotus

  • Porphyria's Lover

  • Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

  • The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church

  • The Laboratory

  • The Last Ride Together

  • The Lost Leader

  • The Lost Mistress

  • The Patriot

  • The Pied Piper of Hamelin

  • Women and Roses