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Poems and Dramatic Monologue
In contrast to Tennyson’s poems with appealing and
elegant cadences, Browning was much fond of a colloquial style and the
dramatic monologue in exploring human psychology. Thus, sometimes he was
criticized for obscurity. In fact, he could also be simple and clear. A good
illustration may be “Parting at Morning”:
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain’s rim;
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.
Another example is “Home Thoughts, from Abroad”, the first
stanza of which reads:
Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
However, Browning’s greatest contribution to
English poetry lies in the new form he introduced into Britain, the dramatic
monologue. A dramatic monologue, to paraphrase M.H. Abrams, is a poem with a
speaker who is clearly separate from the poet, who speaks to an implied
audience that, while silent, remains clearly present in the scene. (This
implied audience distinguishes the dramatic monologue from the soliloquy--a
form also used by Browning--in which the speaker does not address any
specific listener, rather musing aloud to himself or herself). The purpose
of the monologue (or the soliloquy) is not so much to make a statement about
its declared subject matter, but to develop the character of the speaker.
Each character in the poem exposes his or her innermost thoughts and
emotions through monologues one by one.
The best example of dramatic monologue in the
ninetieth century was Browning’s “My Last Duchess” (1842). At the beginning,
a duke in Italian Renaissance period was introducing a portrait of his last
wife to the messenger from a Count, whose daughter he was going to take as
his second wife.
That’s my last duchess painted on the
wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
However, this elegant connoisseur had
actually murdered his last wife due to his jealousy:
Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will
Quite clear to such a one, and say, “Just this
“Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
“Or there exceed the mark”—and If she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive.
In the poem, the ruthlessness and
greed of the duke was vividly and completely exposed through his own
monologue.
The best and longest poem of
Browning, The Ring and the Book was also written in dramatic
monologue. It contains twelve long monologues of 20,934 lines in twelve
volumes. The narrative was based on a 17th century trial on murder. Count
Guido Francheschini, greedy and brutal, murdered his wife, Pompilia, and her
foster parents because he failed in enriching himself through the marriage
with her and suspended her of liaison with a Priest, Caponsacchi. In the
poem, each of the personages, including Pompilia, Caponsacchi, three Romans,
the lawyer of each side, Guido and the Pope spoke in the court in succession
through monologues to expose their inner thoughts and feelings concerning
the trial. The work not only presents a full-scale vindication of Browning's
intuitional psychology, but also embodies the author's moral and aesthetic
philosophy.
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