In his poem Prospice, how does Browning present the idea that death is a necessary part of life?
One of Robert Browning’s major themes within his poems is death. Many poems consider the imminent nature of death as a melancholy context to balance the joy of life. Other poems find strength in the acceptance of death, like ‘Prospice,’ and go on to present the idea that death is a necessary part of life. Some poems – like ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘Porphyria's Lover,’ – simply consider death as an ever-present punishment.
In ‘Prospice,’ Browning voices that the end of life is inevitable, and how life is merely a journey; death is the pinnacle of the adventure; “For the journey is done and the summit attained, and the barriers full.” Browning is portraying the popular religious views in the 1800’s, that there is a purpose to life, and once the purpose has been fulfilled in the time of living, you must be acceptant to death. Furthermore, the metaphor of life being a ‘journey’ reveals that it will always end (death), similar to a journey having an end destination. In addition, how death comes once everything you want in life has been achieved

“When the snows begin, and the blasts denote.” Here, Browning’s use of pathetic fallacy, attributing his feelings in his literature, was one of the key ways that Browning creates imagery through nature. Although Browning’s work generally represents the urban lifestyle of the times, he also wrote about factors from lucid dreams to the nature of art and even the meaning of existence – this links to the Victorian obsession with the natural world. Furthermore, in the 1800’s when religion highly influenced people’s lives, they believed that there was a purpose to life therefore

Life is temporary; death allows you to be reunited with your loved ones for eternity. “Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp