At the Sea-Side

It is important to consider Robert Louis Stevenson’s background while reading “At the Sea-Side” to provide context for the work. As earlier stated in this guide, Stevenson came from a line of lighthouse engineers. Therefore, he had a relationship with the sea from a very young age. However, the ambivalence and ambiguous themes related to the sea in “At the Sea-Side” connect as well to Stevenson’s lukewarm views of his intended profession. Though he initially entered college to be an engineer and enter the family business, he had no desire to pursue his career and turned to studying law to appease his father. This complicated relationship with his family’s heritage and the expectations for his career path imposed upon him by his father could account for Stevenson’s desire to write about the sea. This may also be the reason for the lack of purely joyful or apparent happy emotions in the poem. By the time Stevenson published “At the Sea-Side” in A Child’s Garden of Verses in 1885, he had already traveled extensively: to France, to Switzerland, to the United States, and back to Scotland. Not all these traveling experiences were for pleasure or holiday; on many occasions, Stevenson had to travel due to illness.