Browning and the Dramatic Monologue Part 1

Browning and the Dramatic Monologue.

by S. S. Curry.

PART I

THE MONOLOGUE AS A DRAMATIC FORM

I. A NEW LITERARY FORM

Why were the poems of Robert Browning so long unread? Why was his real message or spirit understood by few forty years after he began to write?

The story is told that Douglas Jerrold, when recovering from a serious illness, opened a copy of "Sordello," which was among some new books sent to him by a friend. Sentence after sentence brought no consecutive thought, and at last it dawned upon him that perhaps his sickness had wrecked his mental faculties, and he sank back on the sofa, overwhelmed with dismay. Just then his wife and sister entered and, thrusting the book into their hands, he eagerly demanded what they thought of it. He watched them intently, and when at last Mrs. Jerrold exclaimed, "I do not understand what this man means," Jerrold uttered a cry of relief, "Thank G.o.d, I am not an idiot!" Browning, while protesting that he was not obscure, used to tell this story with great enjoyment.

What was the chief cause of the almost universal failure to understand Browning? Many reasons are a.s.signed. His themes were such as had never before been found in poetry, his allusions and ill.u.s.trations so unfamiliar as to presuppose wide knowledge on the part of the reader; he had a very concise and abrupt way of stating things.

Yet, after all, were these the chief causes? Was he not obscure because he had chosen a new or unusual dramatic form? Nearly every one of his poems is written in the form of a monologue, which, according to Professor Johnson, "may be termed a novelty of invention in Browning." Hence, to the average man of a generation ago, Browning's poems were written in almost a new language.

This secret of the difficulty of appreciating Browning is not even yet fully realized. There are many "Introductions" to his poems and some valuable works on his life, yet nowhere can we find an adequate discussion of his dramatic form, its nature, and the influence it has exerted upon modern poetry.

Let us endeavor to take the point of view of the average man who opened one of Browning's volumes when first published; or let us imagine the feeling of an ordinary reader to-day on first chancing upon such a poem as "The Patriot."

The average man beginning to read, "It was roses, roses," fancies he is reading a mere story and waits for the unfolding of events, but very soon becomes confused. Where is he? Nothing happens. Somebody is talking, but about what?

One who looks for mere effects and not for causes, for facts and not for experiences, for a mere sequence of events, and not for the laying bare of the motives and struggles of the human heart, will be apt soon to throw the book down and turn to his daily paper to read the accounts of stocks, fires, or murders, disgusted with the very name of Browning, if not with poetry.

If he look more closely, he will find a subt.i.tle, "An Old Story," but this confuses him still more. "Story" is evidently used in some peculiar sense, and "old" may be used in the sense of ancient, familiar, or oft-repeated; it may imply that certain results always follow certain conditions. If a careful student glance through the poem, he will find

THE PATRIOT

AN OLD STORY

It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad: The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, A year ago on this very day.

The air broke into a mist with bells, The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.

Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels-- But give me your sun from yonder skies!"

They had answered "And afterward, what else?"

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun To give it my loving friends to keep!

Naught man could do, have I left undone: And you see my harvest, what I reap This very day, now a year is run.

There's n.o.body on the house-tops now-- Just a palsied few at the windows set; For the best of the sight is, all allow, At the Shambles' Gate--or, better yet, By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.

I go in the rain, and, more than needs, A rope cuts both my wrists behind; And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, For they fling, whoever has a mind, Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

Thus I entered, and thus I go!

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.

"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me?"--G.o.d might question; now instead, 'Tis G.o.d shall repay: I am safer so.

that the Patriot is one who entered the city a year before, and who during this time has done his best to secure reforms, but at the end of the year is led forth to the scaffold. The poem pictures to us the thoughts that stir his mind on the way to his death. He recognizes the same street, he remembers the roses, the myrtle, the house-roofs so crowded that they seem to heave and sway, the flags on the church spires, the bells, the willingness of the mult.i.tude to give him even the sun; but he it is who aimed at the impossible--to give his friends the sun. Having done all he could, now comes his reward. There is n.o.body on the house-tops, and only a few too old to go to the scaffold have crept to the windows. The great crowd is at the gate or at the scaffold's foot. He goes in the rain, his hands tied behind him, his forehead bleeding from the stones that are hurled at him. The closing thought, so abruptly expressed, the most difficult one in the poem, is a mere hint of what might have happened had he triumphed in the world's sense of the word. He might have fallen dead,--dead in a deeper sense than the loss of life; his soul might have become dead to truth, to n.o.ble ideals, and to aspiration. Had he done what men wanted him to do, he would have been paid by the world. He has certainly not done the world's bidding, and in a few short words he reveals his resignation, his heroism, and his sublime triumph.

"Now instead, 'Tis G.o.d shall repay: I am safer so."

The first line of the last stanza in the first edition of the poem contained the word "Brescia," suggesting a reference to the reformer Arnold. But Browning later omitted "Brescia," because the poem was not meant to be in any sense historical, but rather to represent the reformer of every age whose ideals are misunderstood and whose n.o.blest work is rewarded by death. "History," said Aristotle, "tells what Alcibiades did, poetry what he ought to have done." "The Patriot" is not a matter-of-fact narrative, but a revelation of human experience.

The reader must approach such a poem as a work of art. Sympathetic and contemplative attention must be given to it as an entirety. Then point after point, idea after idea, will become clear and vivid, and at last the whole will be intensely realized.

For another example of Browning's short poems take "A Woman's Last Word."

Suppose one tries to read this as if it were an ordinary lyric. One is sure to be greatly confused as to its meaning. What is it all about? The words are simple enough, and while the ordinary man recognizes this, he is all the more perplexed. Perceiving certain merits, he exclaims, "If a man can write such beautiful individual lines, why does he not make his whole story clear and simple?"

If, however, one will meditate over the whole, take hints here and there and put them together, a distinct picture is slowly formed in the mind. A wife, whose husband demands that she explain to him something in her past life, is speaking. She has perhaps loved some one before him, and his curiosity or jealousy is aroused. The poem really const.i.tutes her appeal to his higher nature and her insistence upon the sacredness of their present relation, which she fears words may profane. She does not even fully understand the past herself. To explain would be false to him, hence with love and tenderness she pleads for delay. Yet she promises to speak his "speech," but "to-morrow, not to-night." Perhaps she hopes that his mood will change; possibly she feels that he is not now in the right att.i.tude of mind to understand or sympathize with her experiences.

A WOMAN'S LAST WORD

Let's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before, Love, --Only sleep!

What so wild as words are?

I and thou In debate, as birds are, Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking While we speak!

Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek.

What so false as truth is, False to thee?

Where the serpent's tooth is, Shun the tree--

Where the apple reddens, Never pry-- Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I.

Be a G.o.d and hold me With a charm!

Be a man and fold me With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love!

As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Think thy thought--

Meet, if thou require it, Both demands Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow, Not to-night: I must bury sorrow Out of sight:

--Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me!) And so fall asleep, Love, Loved by thee.

In this poem a most delicate relation between two human beings is interpreted. Short though it is, it yet goes deeper into motives, concentrates attention more energetically upon one point of view, and is possibly more impressive than if the theme had been unfolded in a play or novel. It turns the listener or reader within himself, and he feels in his own breast the response to her words.

All great art discharges its function by evoking imagination and feeling, but it is not always the intellectual meaning which first appears.

However far apart these two poems may be in spirit or subject, there are certain characteristics common to them; they are both monologues.