The subject is romantic, but that, I think, is all the romance in it.

It is not Rudel who speaks but Browning.

It is not the twelfth but the nineteenth century which has made all that analysis and over-worked illustration.
There remain, on this matter, _Childe Roland_ and the _Flight of the Duchess_.

I believe that _Childe Roland_ emerged, all of a sudden and to Browning's surprise, out of the pure imagination, like the Sea-born Queen; that Browning did not conceive it beforehand; that he had no intention in it, no reason for writing it, and no didactic or moral aim in it.

It was not even born of his will.