Name: Vaishali Hareshbhai
Jasoliya
Roll No. : 28
Enrollment no.:
PG14101019
Topic: Poem Analysis of
the Robert Browning
Paper No.: 6 Victorian
Literature
Submitted to: MAHARAJA
KRISHNAKUMARSINHJI
BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
∎ Introduction:
Robert Browning was born at Cornwall on May 7, 1812. He was the son
of a clerk in the bank of England.Browning is one of the greatest love poets in
English poetry. He is not concerned with divine love or the love of God, love
of country, love of family, but with only kind of love-the love between man and
women. He has produced a host of poems dealing with love on the physical plain.
Browning’s poems of love give expression to all phases of physical love varying
from the fierce animal passion of Ottima in Pippa Passes to the
romantic love or Queen worship of The Last Ride Together and RudelTo
The Lady of Tripoli.
Browning’s love poetry is intensely realistic
in character. A man loves a woman not for her spiritual qualities, but for her
physical charm and passion. Browning’s heroes love their beloveds because they
are women with passion, having all the persuasive charm of winning ladies.
Realism is the central working force of Browning’s love poetry. The imagery of
his love poetry is that of suburban streets, straws, garden-rakes, medicine
bottles, pianos, and fashionablefurcoats.
“Browning’s
love poetry is the finest in the world because it does not talk about raptures
and ideals and gates of heaven."SaysG. K. Chesterton“ but about window
panes and gloves and garden walls. It does not deal with abstractions. It is
the truest of all love poetry, because it does not speak much about love. It
awakens in every man the memories of that immortal instant when common and dead things had meaning
beyond the power of any millionaire to compute.”
Browning’s love poetry
is both complex and comprehensive dealing with cases of successful as well as
unsuccessful love. Of the poems whose subject is physical love, about two third
represent the feelings of man, and one third the feelings of woman. The love
poems thus deal more with man’s feelings than woman’s.
Here, we find some love
poems of Robert Browning. Poem title is
My Last Duchess
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ‘twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half – flush that dies along her throat”: suchstuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart- how shall I say?-too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir,‘twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace-all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good! But thanked
Somehow-I know not how-as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. 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 as 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 tours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir 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.Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
∎Analysis:
Here we can say that, this
poem is loosely based on historical events involving Alfonso, the Duck of
Ferrara, who lived in 16th century.
Underneath the title “My
Last Duchess” is the name Ferrara, and the poem’s sole speaker is the Duke of
Ferrara, a character based in part on Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara (in Italy) in
the sixteenth century. Alfonso’s wife, a young girl, died in 1561, and Alfonso
used an agent to negotiate a second marriage to the niece of the Count of
Tyrol.
In Robert Browning’s poem,
the Duke of Ferrara speaks to an agent representing the count. The duke begins
by referring to “my last duchess,” his first wife, as he draws open a curtain
to display a portrait of her which ishanging on the wall. She looks “alive,”
and the duke attributes this to the skill of the painter, Fra Pandolf. After saying
that he alone opens the curtain, the duke promptly begins a catalog of
complaints about the way his wife had acted.
The joyous blush on her
cheek that can be seen in the portrait was a result, the duke says, of her
reaction to Fra Pandolf’s compliments about her beauty. The duke blames his
late wife for smiling back at Fra Pandolf, for being courteous to everyone she encountered,
for enjoying life too much. She failed to appreciate his name, which can be
traced back nine hundred years, and she failed to see him as superior to
others. The duke would not condescend to correct her attitude. She should have
known better, he says, and “I choose/ Never to stoop.”
The final characterization
the duke gives of his former duchess reveals his obsessive possessiveness and
jealousy. He acknowledges that she smiled when she saw him, but complains that
she gave much the same smile to anyone else she saw. His next statement reveals
that he caused her to be killed: “I gave commands; then all smiles stopped
together.” He does not elaborate further. There is her portrait, he says,
looking as if alive. The duke tells the agent that they will next go downstairs
to meet others. Then, in not quite five lines, the duke refers directly to the
proposed marriage arrangement. In the same suave tones he has used throughout,
he suggests that because the count is so wealthy there should be no question
about his providing an “ample” dowry for his daughter to bring to the marriage.
The duke adds, however, that it is “his fair daughter’s self” that he wants. As
the duke and the count’s agent start down the stairs, the duke points out a
bronze statue of Neptune taming a seahorse and notes that it was made especially
for him by Claus of Innsbruck. Although this appears to be a change in subject,
it summarizes the duke’s clear message to the agent. In addition to the wealth
she must bring, the second wife, like the seahorse, must be “tamed” to her role
as his duchess. The clear implication is that if she does not meet his
requirements, she may well end up like the last duchess, “alive” only in a
portrait.
“Porphyria’s Lover”
The rain set early in
tonight,
The sullen wind was
soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops
down for spite,
and did its worst to
vex the lake:
I listened with heart
fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out
and the storm,
And kneeled and made
the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the
cottage warm;
Which done, she rose,
and form her form
Withdrew the dripping
cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled
gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the
damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat
down by my side
And called me. When no
voice replied,
She put my arm about
her waist,
And made her smooth
white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow
hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my
cheek lie there,
And spread, o’er all,
her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she
loved me-she
Too weak, for all her
heart’s endeavor,
To set its struggling
passion free
From pride, and vainer
ties dissever,
And give herself to me
forever.
But passion sometimes
would prevail,
Nor could tonight’s
gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of
one so pale
For love of her, and
all in vain:
So, she was come
through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at
her eyes
Happy and proud; at
last I knew
Porphyria’s worshiped
me: surprise
Made my heart swell,
and still it grew
While I debated what
to do.
That moment she was
mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and
good: I found
A thing to do, and all
her hair
In one logy yellow
string I wound
Three times her little
throat around,
And strangled her. No
pain felt she;
I am quite sure she
felt no pain.
As a shut bud that
holds a bee,
I warily oped her
lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes
without a stain.
And I untightened next
the tress
About her neck; her
cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath
my burning kiss:
I propped her head up
as before
Only, this time my
shoulder bore
Her head, which droops
upon it still:
The smiling rosy
little head,
So glad it has its
utmost will,
That all it scorned at
once is fled,
And I, its love, am
gained instead!
Porphyria’s love: she
guessed not how
Her darling one wish
would be heard.
And thus we sit
together now,
And all night long we
have not stirred,
And yet God has not
said a word!
∎Analysis:
“Porphyria’s Lover,” which first
appeared in 1836, is one of the earliest and most shocking of Browning’s
dramatic monologues.
⧈ Symbols, Imagery,Wordplay:
Here, we find the land of symbols, imagery, and wordplay. Before you
travel any further, please know that there may be some thorny academic
terminology ahead.
⧈ Form and Meter:
The meter of “Porphyria’s Lover” is fairly regular iambic tetrameter.
Wait: before you zone out, let us explain. The meter refers to the pattern of
stressed and unstressed syllables in the line.
⧈ Setting:
The poem takes place in a house near
a lake, probably out in the country somewhere. There are trees around, and it’s
probably a pretty nice to visit when the weather’s good. Too bad the wealth…
⧈Sound Check:
“Porphyria’s Lover” is so rhythmic that it’s easy to be drawn in. The
poem seems designed to full the reader into complacency.
Browning’s dramatic
monologues. The speaker lives in a cottage in the countryside. His lover, a
blooming young woman named Porphyria’s. Comes in out of a storm and proceeds to
make a fire and bring cheer to the cottage.
∎ My Star
All that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that datles the red and
The blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a
flower, hangs furled:
they must solace themselves
with the Saturn above it.
What matte to me if their star is
a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me;
therefore I love it.
It
means that life is not good all the time, we may encounter bad experiences that
teaches us lessons to ponder and to reflect with.
Here we can say that, the speaker
tells of “a certain star” of which he knows nothing except that “it can throw”
beautiful red and blue darts of light. Because of his enthusiasm, his friends
ask to see it.
But
when they look, it stops. The friends instead fix their attention on Saturn,
which sits “above” the star. The poet is unfazed by their disinterest, for his
star “has opened its soul to [him]” and so he loves it.
∎ Analysis:
A short and simple poem published as part of Men and Women in 1855, “My Star” is
impressive in its concise contemplation of love’s singularity. It puts forth
the idea that love is an intensely subjective experience that is appreciated
differently by each person. It is more than likely that Men and Women, Browning’s first collection in years after marrying
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is meant to comment on their relationship. To
whatever extent that might have inspired it, the poem is undoubtedly a love
poem, the message of which suggests that the beauty any person might hold for
another is entirely in the eye of the beholder, and that to love is to lose
interest in how the beloved is viewed objectively. The speaker does not care
that his star is viewed with indifference by his peers, but rather takes the
occasion to admit for the first time his “love,” a much greater feeling than
the enthusiasm suggested by the first stanza.
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