Robert Browning

Master of the Dramatic Monologue (The Bus 4.6)

Welcome aboard The Bus!

The Stop

Robert Browning (1812-1889), was a major English poet of the Victorian age and considered master of the dramatic monologue and this form’s unique method of psychological portraiture. Noted for his intelligent use of dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, irony, characterisation and challenging vocabulary and syntax, in his lifetime Browning’s reputation varied, but by the end of his life he was recognised as both a ‘sage and philosopher-poet who had fed into Victorian social and political discourse.’¹

The only son of Robert – a clerk in the Bank of England - and the devoutly religious Sarah, Browning was strongly influenced by his mother’s ‘piety and love of music’ and his father’s ‘scholarly interests and unusual educational practices.’ Unhappy at school, most of his education was ‘conducted at home by his father,’ thus explaining the ‘wide range of unusual information the mature poet brought to his work.’² Browning’s father had a personal library of over 6,000 volumes – many of them ‘collections of arcane lore and historical anecdotes’ which he encouraged his young son to read - and he also had a uniquely modern approach to education. For example, when he was five Browning asked his father about a book he was reading and, to explain the siege of Troy, his father invented a game in which the ‘family pets were assigned roles and furniture was recruited to serve for the besieged city.’ Once his son had begun playing the game with his friends, his father then introduced him to Alexander Pope’s translation of the Iliad which, in turn, inspired the boy to learn Greek to read the original. This self-guided education worked: by the time he was 14, Browning was fluent in English, French, Greek, Italian and Latin and already exceedingly well-read.

While still a young child, Browning decided to become a poet, and ‘never seriously attempted any other profession.’ Supported fully by his family, he set his heart on this endeavour and – with the exception of a very short term at the University of London - lived with his parents in London until 1846 when, after a secret marriage to his lover, the poet Elizabeth Barrett, he moved with his new wife to Italy.³ The couple lived at first in Pisa and then moved to Florence where they stayed until Elizabeth’s death in 1861, when Robert and their then 12-year-old son (also Robert) returned to England and London’s literary society.

Though he wrote prolifically before his marriage, he produced relatively little poetry during his years in Italy as he was occupied with caring for Elizabeth.⁴ However, he was fascinated by the art and atmosphere of the country, and later described Italy as his ‘university.’ Returning to London, he threw himself back into his work and in 1868 published his ‘most ambitious project … [and] his greatest work’: The Ring and the Book. Based on a late 17th century Roman murder, the 12-book poem is a collection of ten lengthy dramatic monologues narrated by various characters who reveal their individual perspectives (and individual selves) as they recount the unfolding events. Both commercially and critically successful, Browning finally received the recognition he had sought for nearly 40 years. For the next 20 years, he published and travelled extensively, frequently visiting Italy (though never Florence), and eventually dying at his son’s home in Venice on 12 December 1889. He is buried in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey in a grave next to Alfred Tennyson.

Throughout his life, Browning wrote many types of poetry and plays, and while he is probably best remembered generally as the author of the children’s poem ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin,’⁵ in literary terms he is revered as a master of the dramatic monologue. A poem written in the ‘form of a speech or narrative by an imagined person, in which the speaker inadvertently reveals aspects of their character while describing a particular situation or series of event,’ one of his most famous monologues is the widely anthologised ‘My Last Duchess.’ Which is, if you’re interested in reading it, today’s Recommendation.

The Detour

Today’s Detour is to Manuel Bravo’s ‘Venice Explained’, a documentary/tour guide (18:29) exploring the history, canals and squares of Venice to understand its architecture and fascinating urban design. It’s a well-done - and very interesting - dive into this most amazing city.

Venice Explained

The Recommendation

Lucrezia de’Medici/Allesandro Allori/1560/Public Domain

Today’s Recommendation is Robert Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ (1842). It is a classic example of a dramatic monologue in that the speaker is clearly detached from the poet, the audience is suggested but never appears in the poem, and the revelation of the true character of the Duke giving the speech is the primary purpose of the poem. Based on true-life ‘incidents in the life of Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara … who’s first wife, Lucrezia, a young girl, died in 1561 after three years of marriage,’ the poem takes the form of the Duke’s address to the agent of the Count of Tyrol who’s niece (and her dowry) he’s hoping to marry. Reading the poem is like overhearing a private, one-sided conversation and piecing together the clues to infer what ‘sort of woman the Duchess really was, and what sort of man is the Duke.’ In short: she was lovely, and he was most certainly not. It’s a tale of power, control, jealousy, and (more than likely) murder. And if he marries this new woman, the chance is good the cycle will repeat itself again. After all, that’s his last duchess in the painting - there may have been more before her; there’s certainly going to be at least another one.

'My Last Duchess' (Robert Browning, 1842)

The Sounds

Today’s playlist is a selection of five of my favourite tracks from Genesis’s Duke (1981):⁶ ‘Behind the Lines’, ‘Duchess’, ‘Misunderstanding’, ‘Heathaze’ and ‘Turn It On Again’. Enjoy!

The Thought

Today’s Thought is a vividly physical image of inspiration taken from Robert Browning’s ‘A Death in the Desert’:

‘Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.’

If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:

And that’s the end of this Stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!

Thanks to everyone who subscribes - your interest and support is truly appreciated. If you like The Bus, please SHARE it with a friend or two. 

If you haven’t climbed aboard The Bus, please do!

If you like The Bus, why not check out other newsletters?

The Sample sends out articles from blogs and newsletters across the web that match your interests. If you like one, you can subscribe with one click.

Until the next Stop …

1. I liked ‘My Last Duchess’ when I read it in high school (I remember my English teacher - Alicia Odom - stressing that it was his LAST duchess) and again in university, and I’m sure I taught it in senior English in the 90s - but only as a gloss as the survey was enormous and there was too much material to get through to do more than a dangerously shallow dive. But here in England, less breadth and more depth is what’s needed, so last year - when I started teaching it again for the first time in over 20 years - I had an opportunity to look into both the poem - and its poet - with new eyes. Sources for today’s Stop include Robert Browning (Poetryfoundation.org), Robert Browning (Britannica), Robert Browning (Wikipedia) and Abrams, M. H. Gen Ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 5th Ed. Vol. 2. New York: W W Norton and Company, 1986.

2. As a young man, the elder Browning had been sent to St Kitts, in the West Indies, to begin his career on the family’s sugar cane plantation, but found the slave economy abhorrent and returned to London an abolitionist. The subsequent fallout with his father resulted in the loss of his inheritance, so he had to relinquish his dreams of a ‘career in art and scholarship’ to support himself and his family.

3. Barrett was an invalid, ‘confined to her room and thought incurable,’ and under the total control of her father. By all accounts, Mr Barrett was a ‘dominant and selfish’ tyrant who was so jealous of his daughter’s success that he took advantage of her illness in order to coerce her into depending on his love for her survival. Despite being ordered by her doctors to travel to Italy for health reasons, her father ‘refused to allow her to go,’ so she and Browning decided to marry in secret and leave the next week for Pisa. The result was that her father - who ‘disapproved of marriage for any of his children’ - disinherited her (as he did each of his children who married).

4. One exception is his two-volume Men and Women (1855) which, though it made little impact on publication, is well known today.

5. Browning held the poem in ‘little esteem’ and evidently only included it in the published book because of the need for ‘additional verse to fill out the 16-page pamphlet.’ It certainly doesn’t fit the tone and weight of the dramatic monologues alongside it in the pamphlet, including ‘My Last Duchess.’

6. I admit it’s a rather tenuous connection to Browning, but the playlist works and - connection or not - these are great tracks. Especially ‘Misunderstanding’ and ‘Heathaze’ - probably my two favourite Genesis songs of all time.