Amours de Voyage

by Arthur Hugh Clough, Julian Barnes (Preface)

Amours de Voyage is a novel in verse and is arranged in five cantos, or chapters, as a sequence of letters. It is about a group of English travellers in Italy: Claude, and the Trevellyn family, are caught up in the 1849 political turmoil. The poem mixes the political (‘Sweet it may be, and decorous, perhaps, for the country to die; but,/On the whole, we conclude the Romans won’t do it, and I sha’n’t’) and the personal (‘After all, do I know that I really cared so about her?/Do whatever I will, I cannot call up her image’). The political is important but the personal dilemmas are the crucial ones.

Claude, about to declare himself, retreats, regrets. It is this retreat, his scruples and fastidiousness, that, like a conventional novel, is the core of Amours de Voyage. The poem thus contributed something important to the modern sensibility; it is a portrait of an anti-hero; it is about love and marriage (the difficulties of); and it is about Italy.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Classics, 19th Century, Novel In Verse

91 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1849

About the author

Arthur Hugh Clough was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to Florence Nightingale. He was the brother of suffragist Anne Clough and father of Blanche Athena Clough, who both became principals of Newnham College, Cambridge.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit the case of the background to the book being more interesting than the book itself, for me anyway.
In summary: Claude hated everything until at the turn of the page he was suddenly ineptly stalking a woman all over Italy. Until he gave up. Really, his kingdom for a location marked Facebook update.

[Eline · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was only interesting to me after I had had class on this text and I could analyse what he was saying instead of just guessing and being lost. So I guess 2 stars?

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess very few people would name the epistolary novel in verse as their favorite genre. Yet I swear that this slim volume by a poet whose name was totally unknown to me has immediate appeal, at least if you like books whose central character is deeply flawed and unpleasant. In letter after letter to his friend Eustace, Claude appears snobbish, self-centered and indecisive. Roman ruins bore him. The struggle for Italian unification barely amuses him. Mary only starts to seem indispensable to him after she has gone, without a word of reproach for his inconclusive flirting with her, but his pining for her is as short-lived as all his other impulses. Incapable of any emotional or intellectual commitment, Claude quickly resigns himself to carry on drifting as a mere tourist "I suppose, with the coming of winter to Egypt." With no means of knowing that in fact, Claude has made a few feeble attempts to locate her, Mary assesses him in the following terms:
"Finding the chances prevail against meeting again, he would banish
Forthwith every thought of the poor little possible hope, which
I myself could not help, perhaps, thinking only too much of;
He would resign himself, and go. I see it exactly.
So I submit, although in a different manner."
Although Clough's deliberately colloquial style sometimes grated on my ears, overall I was quite thrilled with this spare and punchy little book.

[Ella Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

“From Capitol steps, now over Titus’s Arch/ Here from the large grassy spaces that spread from the Lateran portal,/ Towering o’er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,/ Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,/ Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring./ Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hauntest me still….. Do I sink back on the old, or do I soar from the mean?/ So through the city I wander and question, unsatisfied ever,/ Reverent so I accept, doubtful because I revere.”

//

“Tibur and Anio’s tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever,/ While the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian foundation,/ Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:-/ So not seeing I sang; so seeing and listening say I,/ Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl,/ Here with Albunea’s home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me;/ Trivoli beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone,/ Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters,/ Trivoli’s waters and rocks; and fair unto Monte Gennaro”

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somehow reminds me of Forster's Italian stories. Elliptical in its storytelling, it resembles a novel of ideas without being a novel -- maybe its poetic form helps in this aspect. 'Faith, I think, does pass, and Love; but Knowledge abideth. / Let us seek Knowledge; -- the rest must come and go as it happens.'

[Ian Cragg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The verse novel was a particularly Victorian experiment in storytelling, and in the case of Amours de Voyage, the story is slight, but it’s still a rewarding sequence of epistolary poems set against the siege of Rome.

[Alanseinfeld · Rating 4 out of 5]

A much maligned classic. It has hidden depths and Clough was ahead of time in style and genre. Worth reading and it may surprise!

[Nick Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Are you a Eustace or a Claude?

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novella in verse is surprisingly modern for something written around 1850. Claude is unimpressed by Rome and, initially, by an English family of daughters that he meets. Rome is under seige from the French and the tourists scatter. Will Claude find the girls again, and how much does he want to?