Browning's Shorter Poems Part 32

Note the hero's mood of doubt and despair. At what point in his quest do we see him? What does he do after meeting the cripple? How does the landscape seem as he goes on? What _moral_ quality does it seem to have? See lines 56-75. What new elements are introduced to add to the horror of the scene? What memories come to him of the failures of his friends? Was their disgrace in physical or moral failure? How does he come to find the Tower? Why does Browning represent it as a "dark tower"? Does his courage fail at the end of his quest? Or does he win the victory in finding the tower and blowing the challenge?

AN EPISTLE. (PAGE 183.)

The Arabs were among the earliest in the cultivation of mathematical and medical science. This fact, together with their monotheism, makes Karshish an appropriate character for the experience of the poem.

1-14. An ancient and oriental idea of the soul and its relation to the body.

15. =Sage=. Abib, to whom the letter is sent.

17. =snake-stone=. A stone used to cure snake-bites.

19. =charms=. Note here and elsewhere the mixture of science and superst.i.tion.

21-33. The poet has given local color to the journey.

28. =Vespasian= was appointed general-in-chief against the insurgent Jews in 67 A.D., and began the great siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The date of the poem and the length of time since Lazarus's return to life may thus be estimated.

37-38. Note the vividness gained by making Karshish keep the physician's point of view.

44. =falling-sickness ... cure=. Epilepsy. Karshish is already admitting into his letter the story of Lazarus.

48. Not only spiders, but many other animals or parts of animals were formerly used as medicines.

64-65. Karshish, still half ashamed of his interest in the marvellous story he has to tell, first gives this as a pretext, and then, in the next lines confesses.

171 ff. Belief in magic survived in some degree among the educated until a century or two ago.

177. =Greek-fire=. A violently inflammable substance, supposed to have been a compound of naphtha, sulphur, and nitre, which was hurled against the enemy in battle. As it was first used in 673, in the siege of Constantinople, Browning is guilty of an unimportant anachronism.

252-255. A good touch, to make the earthquake mean to Karshish an omen of the gravest event within his ken.

268-269. Karshish, still unconvinced by the story of Lazarus, naturally regards it as irreverent.

304-311. This comes to Karshish as an afterthought, a corollary to the idea in the body of the poem.

How is the general style of the verse-letter maintained? What is Karshish's mission in Judea? How does he show his devotion to his art?

Point out instances of local color. Are they in harmony with the main current of the poem, or do they detract from the interest in the story? Why does Karshish work up to his story so diffidently? Why has the incident taken such hold upon him? What do you conceive to be his character and worth as a man?

What of Lazarus? What change has been wrought in him? Is he in any way unfitted for this life? To what does Karshish compare him, with his sudden wealth of insight behind the veil of the next world? Which of the two men is better fitted for the condition in which he is placed?

What religious significance does the story of Lazarus come to have to Karshish? What parallel ideas do you find in Rabbi Ben Ezra and in this poem? Compare George Eliot's story, _The Lifted Veil_.

SAUL. (PAGE 196.)

This is generally regarded as one of Browning's greatest poems. Even his detractors concede to it beauty of form, fervor of feeling, and richness of imagery. The incident upon which it is based is found in 1 Samuel, chapter xvi. Saul is in the depths of mental eclipse, and David has been summoned to cure him by music. The young shepherd sings to him first the songs that appeal to the gentle animals; then the songs that men use in their human relationships,--songs of labor, of the wedding-feast, of the burial-service, of worship; then he sings the joy of physical life, ending in an appeal to the ambition of King Saul. Saul is roused, but not yet brought to _will_ to live. So David sings anew of the life of the spirit, the spirit of Saul living for his people. Then a touch of tenderness from the king flashes into David a prophetic insight: If he, the imperfect, would do so much for love of Saul, what would G.o.d, the all-perfect, do for men? And so he reaches the conception of the Christ, the incarnation.

The poem is full of echoes of the Old Testament, fused with the spirit of modern Christianity and modern thinking. It is touched here and there with bits of beauty from Oriental landscape. The long, even swell of the lines carries one along with no sense of the roughness so common in Browning's verse. Rising by steady degrees to the climax, we feel, like David, some sense of the "terrible glory," some sense of the unseen presences that hovered around him as he made his way home in the night.

ONE WORD MORE. (PAGE 224).

_One Word More_ was appended to Browning's volume _Men and Women_ (1855), by way of dedication of the book to his wife. It is characteristic of its author in its reality of feeling, in its seeking an unusual point of view, in its parenthetic and allusive style, and its occasional high felicity of expression. Those who feel overpowered by Browning's vigor and profundity of thought, might stop here to note the exquisite inconsistency between the examples cited and the thing thus ill.u.s.trated. The painter turning poet, the poet turning painter, the moon turning her unseen face to a mortal lover; these are compared to Browning the poet,--writing another poem. The only difference in his art is that the poet here speaks for himself in the first person, and not, as usual, dramatically in the third person. The idea of the poem may be found, stripped of digression and fanciful comparisons, in the eighth, twelfth, fourteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth stanzas.

Something of the same idea appears in _My Star_.

5. =Rafael,= etc. More commonly spelled Raphael. Born in Italy in 1483, died in 1520; generally regarded as the greatest of painters.

The Sistine Madonna, at Dresden, is considered his greatest work. See lines 21-24.

Only four of his sonnets exist. A translation of these is given in Cooke's _Guide Book to Browning_. There is no authentic record of such a "century of sonnets" having ever existed.

10. Tradition is dim and uncertain as to the ident.i.ty of this love of Raphael's.

27. =Guido Reni= (1576-1642). A celebrated Italian painter. Berdoe says that the volume owned by Guido Reni was a collection of a hundred drawings by Raphael.

32-33. =Dante= (1265-1321). The greatest of Italian poets. His _Divina Commedia_, consisting of the _Inferno_, _Purgatorio_, and _Paradiso_, is his most famous work. His romantic pa.s.sion for Beatrice (p.r.o.nounced B[=a]-[.a]-tr[=e]-che) is referred to in his _Divina Commedia_, and is recounted in his _Vita Nuova_.

37-43. In allusion to the fact that Dante freely consigned his enemies, political and personal, living or dead, to appropriate places in his _Inferno_ and _Purgatorio_.

45-48. This interruption of his work is described in the thirty-fifth section of the _Vita Nuova_. The hostile nature of the visit seems to be of Browning's invention.--COOKE.

57. =Bice=. Beatrice.

74 ff. In allusion to Moses smiting the rock and bringing forth water.

See Exodus, chapter xvii.

95. =Egypt's flesh-pots=. See Exodus, chapter xvi.

97. =Sinai's cloven brilliance=. See Exodus, chapter six. 16-25.

101. =Jethro's daughter=, Zipporah. See Exodus, chapters ii and xviii.

136. =Cleon=. See the poem of that name. =Norbert=. See _In a Balcony_.

138. =Lippo=. See _Fra Lippo Lippi_.

150. =Samminiato=. San Miniato, a church in Florence.

160. =Mythos=. In reference to the myths of Endymion, the mortal with whom the G.o.ddess Diana (the moon) fell in love. See a cla.s.sical dictionary, and Keats's poem _Endymion_.

163. =Zoroaster=. The founder of the Persian religion. Reference is here made to his observations of the heavenly bodies while meditating on religious things.

164. =Galileo= (1564-1642). The great Italian physicist and astronomer.

165. =Keats=. See note on line 160.

174. =Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu=. See Exodus, chapter xxiv.

186. Compare the idea in _My Star_.