The James Kilgour BlogA Life Blog.

After analyzing three dramatic monologues by Robert Browning; ‘My Last Duchess’, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’, I will determine whether ‘Mr Browning has the power of a great dramatic poet’, as John Forster believes in the extract from ‘Robert Browning’s Poetry Critical Edition’.

‘My Last Duchess’ is a Dramatic Monologue by Browning, which uses the Speaker to create drama. The speaker is a selfish, ostentatious Duke, who has had his wife killed: “I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together.” He tells the reader this, through the dramatic monologue, in which the Duke is speaking to a messenger who has come to arrange a Dowry for the Duke’s future wife. The speaker treats his Duchess as a possession: ‘That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall’. The personal pronoun here emphasizes the ownership the Duke felt towards the woman. This technique emphasizes the selfish, egotistical and dominating personality of the speaker to the reader, which makes the poem more dramatic. Browning also uses enjambment throughout the poem; ‘Fra Pandolf’s hands… worked busily a day, and there she stands’. This technique creates a rhythm, which drives the reader through the poem. It creates the atmosphere of the Duke being very self-indulgent and one sided, informing the messenger of his story, without allowing comment, question or response from the messenger. This again makes the poem more dramatic and powerful. The monologue reads like a one-sided conversation: “A heart – how shall I say? – too soon made glad”. The parenthesis here creates the effect that the Duke is speaking directly to the reader; including rhetorical questions which makes the piece seem very current. This atmosphere is similar to that created by live drama, as it “reaches out from the page”. In the monologue, the Duke is particularly egotistical, as he says “as if she ranked my gift of a nine-hundred-years-old-name with anybody’s gift”. The use of the hyphens here is particularly effective, as it emphasizes the line, making him seem very self-important. From this line, the Duke is feeling unappreciated and jealous, as if she ranks him the same as anybody else. The end of the monologue reads “Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!” The line is particularly poignant as it moves on quickly, as if the Duke feels no regret for his actions, as is simply showing the messenger his art collection. The line is also boasting, which matches the character’s ego. Importantly, the monologue ends in the word ‘me’. This suits the Duke’s unashamed self-absorption. The exaggeration and emphasis on the speaker’s character in the poem makes the monologue more dramatic, and entertaining.

‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is another dramatic monologue by Browning. It starts off by creating a sinister atmosphere: “The rain set early in to-night, the sullen wind was soon awake, it tore the elm-tops down for spite.” The opening acts as a bad omen, personifying the wind which creates the imagery of evil beings, such as witches. The last word, “Spite” also involves harsh consonance, which matches the “bad omen” atmosphere. When Porphyria arrives in the monologue, the atmosphere of the piece changes to one of comfort; “When glided in Porphyria; straight, she shut the cold out and the storm, and kneeled and made the cheerless grate”. The rhyme which appears here creates rhythm, which drives the piece on and makes it fast paced. This leads to the monologue seeming very urgent and dramatic. The monologue moves on to become more sensual: “Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, and laid her soiled gloves by… and let her damp hair fall”. This unveiling of herself to the speaker is very intimate, and shows that Porphyria is comfortable with her lover. As we learn how from the speaker, the relationship is unstable: “And all her yellow hair displaced”. This line creates a garish ugly imagery, which surprises the reader, and alludes to something odd. This creates a lot of drama for the reader. The speaker is obviously obsessed with Porphyria; he says “Porphyria worshipped me; surprise made my heart swell, and still it grew… That moment was mine, mine, fair, perfectly pure and good”. The speaker is “surprised” to find that Porphyria loves him. This alludes to the fact that he has a self-confidence issue. The repetition of “mine” and the alliteration of ‘perfectly pure’ also leads to the imagery that the speaker is obsessive over Porphyria; perhaps he has been hurt before? This obsession with her leads to her murder: “And strangled her. No pan felt she”. The murder is particularly gruesome as it comes without much warning, and seems entirely without real motive; she loves him after all. The short sentence structure of the physical murder also emphasizes the shock of the situation, and when he says “I am quite sure she felt no pain”, it’s almost as if he is trying to justify himself, which increases the readers idea that he is obsessive. This response to the character of ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is similar to that of ‘My Last Duchess’, which also features an exaggerated, “evil” speaker.

Finally, ‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’ is another dramatic monologue by Browning. The main speaker is again exaggerated, being a monk who hates his fellow Monk, Brother Lawrence, because he is envious and resentful of him. He starts of saying “My heart’s abhorrence!” which uses the personal pronoun, making the poem very personal, and the powerful word “abhorrence”, here meaning extreme disgust. The speaker also uses angry sarcasm throughout the monologue, or Soliloquy: “What’s the Latin name for “parsley”? What’s the Greek name for “swine’s snout”?” This again is very personal, as it shows private, angry thoughts. This Monologue is very different to the other two; it features anger as a main theme, instead of ego or obsession, and is direct to the reader as to the speaker’s intention: “Or, my scrofulous French novel, on gray paper with blunt type! Simply glance at it, you grovel”. Here, the speaker is plotting to trick Brother Lawrence into looking at a “French Novel”, a form of erotica, for which Monks are not permitted. This however brings up the question, as to how the monk himself knows of such content. The plot of the monologue makes the piece incredibly dramatic: a monk who wants to condemn his fellow to hell. This coupled with the Soliloquy’s irony; a monk of all individual’s should not have such amoral feelings, makes the piece very powerful in demonstrating morality to the reader, a feature of all the poems. In ‘My Last Duchess’, the moral is the pitfalls of a big ego (losing your wife to it), and in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’, the moral maybe to avoid harming those who really love you.

I believe, after analyzing these three Dramatic Monologues, that Robert Browning has the power of a great Dramatic Poet. I believe the vividness of the imagery he creates, and the exaggerated characters mean that the three Monologues could easily be translated to a dramatic performance. I also believe that the three pieces convey meaningful morals and ideas through hyperbole. As John Forster says in the extract, “We never think of Mr Browning while we read his poem: we are not identified with him but with the persons of whom he has flung his genius”. I agree with this, as in all three monologues, Browning has created characters of whom the reader becomes interested in, and who entertain the reader; thus meaning we need not think about the piece’s writer. Forster also says “In the agitation of the feelings, sight is given to the imagination”. I think this is especially true of Browning, because in all three monologues, we wish to know more, thus using our imagination, of either the events that take place before the Monologue, or in the case of ‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’ after it. (The poem ends with the Monk being interrupted, being called to Vespers). Overall, I think Browning is a poet, who without the slightest hesitation we can name “at once with Shelley, Coleridge, [and] Wordsworth”.

JK