15/04/2004 Luke Bullen FHH
Demonstrate what the dramatic monologue form allows Robert Browning to achieve in his poetry
The dramatic monologue form, widely used by Victorian poets, allows the writer to engage more directly with his reader by placing him in the role of listener. Robert Browning utilised the form to a famously profound effect, creating a startling aspect to his poetry. In poems such as “Porphyria’s Lover,” and “My Last Duchess,” for example, Browning induces a feeling of intimacy by presenting the reader as the ‘confidant’ to the narrator’s crimes; in “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” the reader is more a witness to the narrator’s increasing instability. Thus, Browning is able to use the dramatic monologue form both to expose the narrator’s frailties, and as a channel for them to relinquish their sins. Furthermore, the form allows for a direct insight into the character’s thinking, thus creating an atmosphere of urgency and drama whilst the narrator’s contemplate their situations and actions. Thus, Browning’s use of the dramatic monologue form allows him to both deepen and dramatise the action developing within the poems.
It is interesting to note that traditionally high-standing members of society narrate many of Browning’s dramatic monologues. Browning utilises the form to expose the frailties of these characters. He reveals the envy of The Duke in “My Last Duchess”; the lust of the monk in “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”; and an excessive amount of greed and pride in “The Bishop [who] Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church”. The Duke’s requirements of his wife seem unreasonable, exposing an aspect of instability within his supposedly impeachable character. He complains that “’t was not/ Her husband’s presence only, called that spot/ Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek,” appearing to imply that his wife’s happiness should only be induced by him. Browning immediately makes this attitude appear ridiculous by demonstrating the Duke’s bullish approach to the painter of his wife’s image. The Duke condemns the “earnest glance” required by the painter’s profession in exaggerating its “depth and passion.” The Duke seems to interpret his wife’s happiness as an affront to his “gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name,” complaining that “She had/ A heart… too soon made glad, / Too easily impressed.” The envy stems from a materialistic fixation similar to that of the Bishop in “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church,” whose holiness is undermined with an obsession for an extravagant resting place. “Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!” declares the Bishop in the poem’s opening line, setting the tone for the rest of the monologue. The Bishop appears transfixed with the idea of an overstated tomb that would undermine the “paltry onion-stone” of that of his rival, Old Gandolf. He interrupts his philosophising to declare that the tomb should be “Peach-blossom marble all… True peach/ Rosy and flawless.” Later though, he supersedes even this outrageous demand, asserting “All lapis, all, my sons,” referring to the incredibly rare lapis lazuli, “Big as a Jew’s head” and “Blue as a vein o’er the Madonna’s breast” that he had stolen from the church. The requests seem outrageous for a man who has vowed to live in poverty. However, the most despicable examples of his vanity are demonstrated by the implicit comparisons he makes between himself and the divine figures of God and Jesus. The lapis lazuli should “poise between my knees, / Like God the Father’s globe on both his hands,” and Jesus should be depicted “at his sermon on the mount.” One notes the lower-case ‘h’ of ‘his’ and wonders quite how pious the Bishop really is. Similarly, the monk in “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” exhibits the irreverent attribute of lust in his descriptions of young girls with hair of “Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,” and possession of a “scrofulous French novel.” Thus, the tones of the dramatic monologues are such that the listener is exposed to the frailties of the characters through the intimacy of their narration.
