19 pages • 38 minutes read
The Land of Counterpane
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"The Land of Nod" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
Stevenson published this poem in his 1885 collection A Child’s Garden of Verses. As with “The Land of Counterpane,” this particular poem is also about worldbuilding. The speaker escapes into their dream realm at night, the Land of Nod, where they are the sole authority “With none to tell me what to do” (Line 6). This land is one where the strange and wonderful can be experienced, including “many frightening sights” (Line 11). “The Land of Counterpane” and “The Land of Nod” seem almost to be parallel worlds.
"The Dumb Soldier" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1913)
In “The Land of Counterpane,” the speaker imbues life into his toy soldiers, imagining and “making” them march and conduct drills. Similarly, the speaker in “The Dumb Soldier” attributes a consciousness to their small toy figurine, exhibiting the power of the imagination. In this particular poem of Stevenson’s, the speaker takes a toy soldier and hides it in a small hole in the earth. After spring and harvest time make the hole containing the soldier reappear, the small toy will have witnessed the “starry hours” (Line 25) and “fairy things that pass” (Line 27), leaving the soldier unable to articulate these things, thus forcing the speaker to spin the tales for their inanimate friend.
"The Light Keeper" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1807)
This particular poem of Stevenson’s is especially interesting given the poet’s background. Stevenson’s family came from a long line of lighthouse engineers. After entering university to study engineering, Stevenson decided that this direction wasn’t for him and studied law instead. It is even more fascinating, then, that he chose to write a poem from the perspective of someone from within this structure. The keeper of the lighthouse experiences solitude just as the child in “The Land of Counterpane,” though each deals with this solitariness in very different ways.
Further Literary Resources
"Stevenson’s Sick Children: A Child’s Garden of Verses and the Therapeutic Imagination" by Christy DiFrances Remein (2020)
Remein notes that “One area of Stevenson’s work that frequently has been overlooked involves his sensitive portrayal of childhood imagination as a coping mechanism of pediatric illness.” The two poems which Remein specifically analyzes are “The Land of Counterpane” and “The Land of Nod,” both of which originally appeared in the 1885 volume A Child’s Garden of Verses. Both poems highlight the possibilities the imagination offers for “transformation” and “wanderings.”
"Conceptualising Childhood: Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses"by Jean Webb (2002)
The abstract to Webb’s article describes how the author “discusses the construct of childhood in Robert Louis Stevenson’s collection of poems [...] by employing notions of child development.” Webb questions the nature of childhood which Stevenson relates, connecting it to a specifically Romantic notion of childhood combined with “Modernist sensibility.” Webb analyzes the way that Stevenson employs both a physical and an imaginative landscape to represent childhood.
"Robert Louis Stevenson’s South Seas Crossings" by Ann Colley (2008)
Colley analyzes how Stevenson’s trip to the South Seas “encouraged him to discard generalities, to revise traditional oppositions, and to honor, instead, the restless, uneasy moments that accompany the comingling of cultures and that allow for the possibility of entering into new worlds.” Since Stevenson’s poem “The Land of Counterpane” focuses on adventure, including imagined sea travel, Colley’s article provides necessary background and biographical information to understand Stevenson’s writing inspirations throughout his life.
Listen to Poem
An illustrated and animated video plays out the action observed from the speaker’s sickbed as described in Stevenson’s poem.
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By Robert Louis Stevenson
