Browning and the Dramatic Monologue Part 30

The monologue, however, has its dangers. The play has the experience of centuries of criticism, and constant discussion, but to the critics, the monologue is new. It may be well said that no adequate criticism of any interpreter of a monologue has yet been given.

Not only this, but various cheap and chaotic performances have been called monologues, simply for lack of a word. These are often a mere gathering together of comic stories and cheap jokes, and have nothing really in common with the dramatic monologue.

Such perversions, however, are to be expected. The lack of critical discussion, the lack of definition and true appreciation of its possibilities lead naturally to such a confused situation.

The interpreter of the monologue must be a serious student, for he is creating or establishing a new art. If he is careless and superficial, and yields to that universal temptation to exhibition which has been in every age the danger of dramatic art, he will fail, and bring the monologue into consequent contempt. He must study the spirit underlying all great art and take his own work seriously, thinking more of it than of himself.

The monologue has, also, literary limitations. It can never take the place of the play, nor must it lead us to disparage the play. The play has its function and in some form will forever survive. The monologue interprets certain aspects of character which can never be interpreted in any other way; but it can never show as adequately as the play the complexity of human life. It cannot portray movement as well as the play.

The monologue, however, has its own sphere. It can reveal the att.i.tude of one man towards life, towards truth, towards a situation, towards other human beings, more fully than is possible in any other form of art. Its theme is not the same as that of the play. How can a play express the subjective struggles and heroism embodied in "The Last Ride Together?" (p.

205). What form of art could so effectively unmask the arch hypocrite in the "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" (p. 58)? Try to put this theme into a play, or even into a novel, and Browning's short monologue will show its superiority at once. The monologue can absorb one moment of attention, paint one picture, which, though without the movement of a drama, may yet the more adequately reveal the depths of a character. What an inspiring conception is found in "The Patriot" (p. 3); if expanded into a play, its purpose would be defeated. The tenderness and atmosphere of home in "By the Fireside," no stage could present.

Did not Kipling choose wisely his form of art in portraying the character of Tommy Atkins? Is there any more effective way of making known to the world the character and emotions peculiar to a man when soldier subordinates man?

After even a superficial study of modern poetry, who can fail to realize that the monologue is a distinct form of literature? How vast the range of subjects and emotions expressed, and yet underneath we find a form common to them all. This form has served to unfold the peculiar actions of Mrs.

Caudle's mind and also the sublime convictions of Rabbi Ben Ezra. It gives us the point of view and the feeling, not only of Tommy Atkins, but the high ideals and exalted emotions of Abt Vogler. It has been used to immortalize "Tray," a "mere instinctive dog," as well as to express the resolute spirit of Job and the cold, calculating counsel of his friends.

It has even imaged the sublimest thoughts and emotions of the Psalms.

Surely a form that has proven itself so adequate, so universal a help to human expression, is worthy of being regarded and carefully studied as one of the permanent modes of embodying human experience.

XVII. SOME TYPICAL MONOLOGUES FROM BROWNING

APPEARANCES

And so you found that poor room dull, Dark, hardly to your taste, my Dear?

Its features seemed unbeautiful: But this I know--'twas there, not here, You plighted troth to me, the word Which--ask that poor room how it heard!

And this rich room obtains your praise Unqualified,--so bright, so fair, So all whereat perfection stays?

Ay, but remember--here, not there, The other word was spoken! Ask This rich room how you dropped the mask!

ANDREA DEL SARTO

(CALLED "THE FAULTLESS PAINTER")

But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia! bear with me for once: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.

You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?

I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, Treat his own subject after his own way, Fix his own time, accept too his own price, And shut the money into this small hand When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?

Oh, I'll content him,--but to-morrow, Love!

I often am much wearier than you think, This evening more than usual: and it seems As if--forgive now--should you let me sit Here by the window, with your hand in mine, And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, Both of one mind, as married people use, Quietly, quietly the evening through, I might get up to-morrow to my work Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.

To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!

Your soft hand is a woman of itself, And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.

Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve For each of the five pictures we require: It saves a model. So! keep looking so-- My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!

--How could you ever p.r.i.c.k those perfect ears, Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet-- My face, my moon, my everybody's moon, Which everybody looks on and calls his, And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, While she looks--no one's: very dear, no less.

You smile? why, there's my picture ready made.

There's what we painters call our harmony!

A common grayness silvers everything,-- All in a twilight, you and I alike --You, at the point of your first pride in me (That's gone, you know)--but I, at every point; My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.

There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top; That length of convent-wall across the way Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything.

Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape, As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece. Love, we are in G.o.d's hand.

How strange now looks the life he makes us lead; So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!

I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!

This chamber for example--turn your head-- All that's behind us! You don't understand Nor care to understand about my art, But you can hear at least when people speak: And that cartoon, the second from the door --It is the thing, Love! so such things should be-- Behold Madonna!--I am bold to say.

I can do with my pencil what I know, What I see, what at bottom of my heart I wish for, if I ever wish so deep-- Do easily, too--when I say, perfectly, I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge, Who listened to the Legate's talk last week; And just as much they used to say in France.

At any rate 'tis easy, all of it!

No sketches first, no studies, that's long past: I do what many dream of, all their lives, --Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, And fail in doing. I could count twenty such On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, Who strive--you don't know how the others strive To paint a little thing like that you smeared Carelessly pa.s.sing with your robes afloat,-- Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, (I know his name, no matter)--so much less!

Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.

There burns a truer light of G.o.d in them, In their vexed, beating, stuffed and stopped-up brain, Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.

Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, Tho' they come back and cannot tell the world.

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.

The sudden blood of these men! at a word-- Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.

I, painting from myself and to myself, Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?

Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-gray, Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!

I know both what I want and what might gain, And yet how profitless to know, to sigh "Had I been two, another and myself, Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.

Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth The Urbinate who died five years ago.

('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and thro' his art--for it gives way; That arm is wrongly put--and there again-- A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, He means right--that, a child may understand.

Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: But all the play, the insight and the stretch-- Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?

Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!

Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think-- More than I merit, yes, by many times.

But had you--oh, with the same perfect brow, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare-- Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged "G.o.d and the glory! never care for gain.

The present by the future, what is that?

Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!

Rafael is waiting: up to G.o.d, all three!"

I might have done it for you. So it seems: Perhaps not. All is as G.o.d over-rules.

Besides, incentives come from the soul's self; The rest avail not. Why do I need you?

What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?

In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power-- And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, G.o.d, I conclude, compensates, punishes.

'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict, That I am something underrated here, Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.

I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.

The best is when they pa.s.s and look aside; But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.

Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time, And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!

I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, In that humane great monarch's golden look,-- One finger in his beard or twisted curl Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile, One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, I painting proudly with his breath on me, All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,-- And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, This in the background, waiting on my work, To crown the issue with a last reward!

A good time, was it not, my kingly days?

And had you not grown restless ... but I know-- 'Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said; Too live the life grew, golden and not gray: And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.

How could it end in any other way?

You called me, and I came home to your heart.

The triumph was--to reach and stay there; since I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?

Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!

"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; The Roman's is the better when you pray, But still the other's Virgin was his wife--"

Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows My better fortune, I resolve to think.

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as G.o.d lives, Said one day Agnolo, his very self, To Rafael ... I have known it all these years....

(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, Too lifted up in heart because of it) "Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how, Who, were he set to plan and execute As you are, p.r.i.c.ked on by your popes and kings, Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"

To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong.