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Six Great Dramatic Monologues
by Robert Browning

by Brian Yapko

The dramatic monologue is a unique type of poem: the poet enters the mind of a specific character—usually historic or literary—and then crafts the poem to be entirely in that character’s voice. This allows for many types of monologues, including those which are spoken aloud to a silent interlocutor, those which are in epistle form, and those in which a solitary speaker addresses no one but himself—much like the soliloquy in a play. Given this last point, it can be readily seen that the dramatic monologue may owe as much to dramaturgy—the monologues, speeches and soliloquies of the theater—as to poetry. Nonetheless, there are important differences. A theatrical soliloquy or speech must fit into the larger context of a play. And it must be performed (or performable) by a live actor. In contrast, dramatic monologues live primarily as printed words on the page and are meant to stand alone rather than as part of a larger theater piece. When we think of soliloquies, the first name that comes to mind is William Shakespeare and his speeches for Hamlet, Macbeth and Henry V. But when it comes to dramatic monologues, all roads lead to Robert Browning (May 7, 1812- December 12, 1889).

Though Robert Browning did not invent the dramatic monologue, he is the poet most associated with this demanding form—and the quality of his art ranks him high among Victorian poets. By the time of his death in 1889 he was seen as a sage and philosopher in Victorian social and political discourse. Societies for studying his work were founded in Britain and the United States and some have survived to the present day. It is difficult to overstate Browning’s influence on both his contemporaries (including his accomplished wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning) and later writers such as Henry James, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, G.K. Chesterton, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Graham Green, Evelyn Waugh, Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov.

What is it that makes Browning such a special and influential poet? It is, in part, because so many aspects of Browning’s work are exceptional: his sense of form, his vocabulary, his use of poetic devices. But most of all, it is the utterly unique way he disappears into his characters. In this sense, he is not only a consummate poet but a superb playwright. Each poem is carefully crafted with so strong a sense of character, detail, vocabulary and style that the words of each poem can only fit that particular speaker. It is for this reason that Oscar Wilde praised Browning as the “most Shakespearian creature since Shakespeare… [whose] sense of dramatic situation was unrivalled, and, if he could not answer his own problems, he could at least put problems forth, and what more should an artist do? Considered from the point of view of a creator of character, he ranks next to him who made Hamlet.”

Browning didn’t just write poems. He captured humanity, warts and all, in poetry which allowed historical and fictional characters to speak for themselves. And each poem presents something of a mystery as the reader is forced to read between the lines and weigh aspects of the speaker’s personality without being overtly told what to think of him or her. As when meeting someone for the first time in real life, Browning forces the reader to decide for himself what is admirable and repulsive about each character.

A sampling of Browning’s dramatic monologues is a must for any serious student of poetry. As many of Browning’s best pieces are longer than can comfortably be anthologized in this publication, the following six poems have been selected both for quality and—necessarily—for brevity. But they will give the reader a meaningful introduction to one of the greatest poets in English literature.

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1. Porphyria’s Lover

Dating from 1836, this is one of Browning’s earliest dramatic monologues and, along with “My Last Duchess” (which was recently discussed in another essay at the Society of Classical Poets) is one of his most anthologized—due, in no small part, to its shocking ending. In iambic tetrameter with an a-b-a-b-b rhyme scheme, the speaker describes a visit from his passionate lover, Porphyria. After realizing how much she cares for him and how perfect the moment is, he decides to “preserve” this perfection by strangling her and propping her lifeless body up next to him. He then concludes the poem by announcing that God has yet to punish him for this murder. This poem begs the question of whether the speaker is sane or mad. Let the reader decide.

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The rain set early in to-night,
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 from 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 endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night’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 worshipped 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 long 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!

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2. Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

“Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” from 1842 is a darkly funny revenge fantasy set in a Spanish monastery and spoken by a rather unchristian monk. Presented in 72 lines of trochaic tetrameter with an a-b-a-b- rhyme scheme, we are privy to the speaker’s dark ruminations about fellow monk Brother Lawrence tending his garden. In the speaker’s eyes, Brother Lawrence is the worst of men. But as the reader soon realizes, all the sins the speaker complains of in his rival are really his own. This poem is a quintessential Browning dramatic monologue as the speaker reveals more about himself than he intends to. And do note the delightful, onomatopoeic growl which opens the piece.

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Gr-r-r—there go, my heart’s abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God’s blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims—
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

At the meal we sit together:
Salve tibi! I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:
What’s the Latin name for “parsley”?
What’s the Greek name for Swine’s Snout?

Whew! We’ll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps—
Marked with L for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
—Can’t I see his dead eye glow,
Bright as ’twere a Barbary corsair’s?
(That is, if he’d let it show!)

When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu’s praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange-pulp—
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
While he drains his at one gulp.

Oh, those melons! If he’s able
We’re to have a feast! so nice!
One goes to the Abbot’s table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange!—And I, too, at such trouble
Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

There’s a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails:
If I trip him just a-dying,
Sure of heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?

Or, my scrofulous French novel
On gray paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe:
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in ‘t?

Or, there’s Satan!—one might venture
Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
As he’d miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine
‘St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratiâ,
Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r—you swine!

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3. A Toccata of Galuppi’s

“A Toccata of Galuppi’s” from Browning’s 1855 collection Men and Women is delightful for, among other things, the tarantella rhythm Browing pulls out of a trochaic tetrameter locked into tercets. This dramatic monologue tells a tale of music’s transporting power. As he listens to a performance of a toccata by Galuppi, an 18th-century Italian composer, the poem’s speaker is overwhelmed with romantic visions of classical Venice and its festive young nobility. A sad note creeps into the music and the poem as the speaker begins to reflect that all of these young people are now dead and gone—as will be the speaker one day. This poem considers the idea that music has the power to both speak of, and transcend, death.

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Oh Galuppi, Baldassare, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I take your meaning, ‘t is with such a heavy mind!

Here you come with your old music, and here’s all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,
Where St. Mark’s is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

Ay, because the sea’s the street there; and ’tis arched by … what you call
… Shylock’s bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:
I was never out of England—it’s as if I saw it all.

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red—
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
O’er the breast’s superb abundance where a man might base his head?

Well, and it was graceful of them—they’d break talk off and afford
—She, to bite her mask’s black velvet—he, to finger on his sword,
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions—”Must we die?”
Those commiserating sevenths—”Life might last! we can but try!”

“Were you happy?”—”Yes.”—”And are you still as happy?”—”Yes. And you?”
—”Then, more kisses!”—”Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?”
Hark, the dominant’s persistence till it must be answered to!

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
“Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!”

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
While I triumph o’er a secret wrung from nature’s close reserve,
In you come with your cold music till I creep through every nerve.

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.
The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.

“Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction—you ‘ll not die, it cannot be!

“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

“Dust and ashes!” So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

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4. Love Among the Ruins

“Love Among the Ruins”—also from Browning’s 1855 collection Men and Women—is notable for its unusual form: seven stanzas of 12 trochaic lines each (a 6 foot line followed by a short “echo” line of two feet) for a total of 84 lines. This poem has a similar theme but a starkly different tone from Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” In Browning’s poem, a lover makes his way across a grassy landscape to meet his beloved in the ruins of an old tower. A majestic ancient city once stood on this very spot—but now there are only ruins. Since glory inevitably fades away, the speaker reflects, it’s a mystery why people pour so much feeling and effort into pursuing it. To him there is only one thing worth striving for: “love is best.”

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Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles
__Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
__Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop
__As they crop—
Was the site once of a city great and gay
__(So they say),
Of our country’s very capital, its prince
__Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
__Peace or war.
Now,—the country does not even boast a tree,
__As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
__From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
__Into one,)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
__Up like fires
O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
__Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
__Twelve abreast.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
__Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o’erspreads
__And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
__Stock or stone—
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
__Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
__Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
__Bought and sold.
Now—the single little turret that remains
__On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
__Overscored,
While the patching houseleek’s head of blossom winks
__Through the chinks—
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
__Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
__As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
__Viewed the games.
And I know, while thus the quiet-colored eve
__Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
__In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray
__Melt away—
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
__Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
__For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
__Till I come.
But he looked upon the city, every side,
__Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades’
__Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,—and then,
__All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
__Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
__Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
__Each on each.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
__South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
__As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—
__Gold, of course.
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
__Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
__Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
__Love is best.

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5. How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

“How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix” in 60 lines (i.e. 10 stanzas of iambic tetrameter couplets) is Browning’s tale of heroism and memory. First published in 1845 in his Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, in this dramatic monologue, a soldier recounts a valiant ride he made to carry a critical message between the towns of Ghent and Aix in what is now Belgium. But he doesn’t tell readers any of the historically relevant details they might expect about this adventure—not even what this crucial message said! Instead, he remembers the exhilaration of the journey, the fortitude of his horse, impressions of the landscape along the way. Robert Browning rescues from obscurity events and characters which are part of history but usually considered trivial and readily forgotten.

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I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
“Good speed!” cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
“Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

‘Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffeld, ’twas morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So Joris broke silence with, “Yet there is time!”

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye’s black intelligence—ever that glance
O’er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, “Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault ‘s not in her,
We’ll remember at Aix”—for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,
‘Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,
And “Gallop,” gasped Joris, “for Aix is in sight!”

“How they’ll greet us!”—and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets’ rim.

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

And all I remember is—friends flocking round
As I sat with his head ‘twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)
Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.
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6. The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s” is from Browning’s 1845 Dramatic Romances and Lyrics. This poem is crafted in 125 lines of blank verse and details the dying wishes of a bishop who is uniquely unspiritual. Indeed, the bishop’s words are noteworthy for what they omit as much as what they focus upon. On facing death, this high member of the clergy does not address his hopes for seeing Christ, his views on heaven, or resurrection. Instead, in a relentlessly material rant he discusses the semi-precious stones he wants to adorn his tomb, his insistence upon the best real estate inside the church for its location, his (inappropriate) love-affair with a woman. The poem seems somber but as the materialistic and sensual details accumulate it becomes sardonically funny—especially when we realize his silent interlocutors (including one named after St. Anselm) are actually his bastard children. This poem is Browning at his most Browningesque—he uses the dramatic monologue form to peel away layers of pretense only to reveal ignoble aspects of the speaker’s character. A mirror is thus held up to reveal a humanity which thinks itself immune to this bishop’s type of vanity. Ah, but is it?

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Rome, 15—

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews—sons mine … ah God, I know not! Well—
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What ‘s done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
“Do I live, am I dead?” Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
—Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o’ the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam’s sure to lurk:
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And ‘neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
—Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
Draw close: that conflagration of my church
—What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find … Ah God, I know not, I! …
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew’s head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o’er the Madonna’s breast …
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father’s globe on both his hands
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
‘Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,
And Moses with the tables … but I know
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!
‘Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There ‘s plenty jasper somewhere in the world—
And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
—That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully’s every word,
No gaudy ware like Gandolf’s second line—
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying: in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s-work:
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble’s language, Latin pure, discreet,
—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick,
They glitter like your mother’s for my soul,
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
With grapes, and add a visor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
“Do I live, am I dead?” There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—
Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—
And no more lapis to delight the world!
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
—Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
Old Gandolf—at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!

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Conclusion

It is hoped that that these six samples of Browning’s dramatic monologues have been illuminating (and, hopefully, entertaining!) for those who are unfamiliar with his work. However, they should not be taken as a “best” list. There are so many additional, extraordinary works which are considered among his best yet were too long for this particular anthology and discussion. For the interested reader, this essayist would highly recommend “My Last Duchess,” “Caliban Upon Setebos,” “ Fra Lippo Lippi,” “An Epistle of Karshish,” “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” and “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” And there are many more excellent dramatic monologues besides these! (The complete works of Browning can be accessed here.) As with all of Browning’s poems, the reader will undoubtedly find each one to display extraordinary craft and presented with an unfailingly intriguing voice.

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Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals.  He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel  Bleeding Stone.  He lives in Wimauma, Florida.


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16 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Fascinating essay on Robert Browning and his works. I remember reading five of the six poems provided and none of the ones listed in your notes. You seem to have intuitively picked the most important and meaningful ones.
    Most of you may not realize, but Baylor University in Waco, Texas, has a large repository of books in their Armstong Barrett Library that were given to them, or they purchased, which contain their personal notes and even poetic thoughts in the margins. The following is a description of how to access most of the materials online by typing in the search box, Baylor University Armstrong Browning Library:

    “Browning Library Collection
    The rare Browning Library Collection consists primarily of books from the personal libraries of Robert and/or Elizabeth Barrett Browning or members of their immediate families, some of which bear important annotations written by the poets. The Armstrong Browning Library’s holdings include over 800 of the 2,700 items recorded under The Browning Collections, Section A, The Brownings’ Library, in The Brownings: A Research Guide. This database reports over 500 book titles and approximately 300 periodical issues or articles in the Browning Library Collection. These items are also listed in the library catalog and are findable using OneSearch.

    Browning Library Copies Collection

    Although the Armstrong Browning Library continues to add to the Browning Library Collection whenever possible, many of the books once owned by the Brownings or members of their immediate families are held by other institutions or by private collectors, and many are unlocated–perhaps lost forever. Therefore, in an effort to recreate the library owned by the Brownings, the ABL began the Browning Library Copies Collection. These are books which, based on the most complete information available, are the same editions as the volumes once owned and used by the Brownings. This growing collection currently consists of over 275 titles and can be found in the library catalog using OneSearch. Click HERE to see a list of books in the Browning Library Copies Collection, which can be sorted by author, title, or year of publication.

    Examples of the remarkable holdings in the Browning Library Collection are:
    Nathaniel Wanley’s Wonders of the Little World, or A General and Complete History of Man (1667) which was inscribed to Robert Browning from his father in 1825 and contains the manuscript of “The Cardinal and the Dog” written in a margin
    An eleven-volume set of classics housed in a leather case which Robert Browning carried when traveling, each volume inscribed by Browning
    Robert Browning’s copy of Paracelsus’ Opera Omnia (1658), inscribed to him by his friend Joseph Milsand
    The History and Lives of Twenty Kings of England [1615] with the signatures of five generations of Brownings
    A 1758 edition of Epictetus’ Manuale, Cebetis Thebani Tabula, Prodici Hercules, et Theophrasti Characteres Ethici inscribed by “E B Barrett” in 1831 and containing her annotations
    Thomas Moore’s Letters And Journals Of Lord Byron: With Notices Of His Life (1830), a gift to Elizabeth Barrett from Mrs. James (Julia) Martin, a friend from her girlhood, inscribed by Elizabeth in 1831 and containing a note by Robert Browning dated 1881.”

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Roy, thank you so much for your kind words about the essay. Thank you especially for the information about the Armstrong Browning Library which is dedicated to the study of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
      The collections you have described are astonishing! I would love to take a trip to Texas to see this library someday to pay my respects to one of my favorite poets. Have you been there?

      On researching the Baylor University Library and Browning-related sites, I learned that the Casa Guidi, where Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived in Florence from 1847 till her death in 1861 is open to the public as a museum. And, of course, Robert Browning is buried in the Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey in London (next to Alfred, Lord Tenyson.) Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried in Florence, where she died in 1861.

      More information about the Brownings and sites associated with them can be found at the Browning Society linked here: https://www.browningsociety.org/

      Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    Brian, one of the great loves of my life is limpid, elegant, perfectly polished English prose. Your introductory note, and the prefaces to each quoted poem, are dazzling in their straightforward clarity and chiselled syntax. Let me tell you something: very few academics can even come close to this kind of prose style today.

    It’s no secret that we both love Browning and have been influenced by his work. Your choice of these six dramatic monologues is inspired, because while only a sample, they are an excellent introduction to his very best compositions. They show the man’s range, his prodigious vocabulary, his humor, his capacity to be by turns frightening, thoughtful, sad, sardonic, and energetic. “The Bishop Orders His Tomb…” has to be one of the deepest psychological portraits ever painted by a poet, and “Soliloquy…” one of the funniest.

    In the late 18th century, Wordsworth’s effort was to make the voices of ordinary human beings become a part of serious poetry. There’s nothing wrong with that, but Browning did him one better — why not the voices of MORE than ordinary people? Of strange voices from history? Of stories that were unusual, or just purely fictive? This fire is what makes his dramatic monologues exciting and explosive.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      I’m extremely grateful for this comment, Joe — thank you so much! This is the first essay I’ve written for SCP and my first formal prose-writing on a literary subject since 1984 as an undergrad in English at UCLA. It is extremely gratifying to me to have my prose deemed limpid and elegant. The terse, direct style demanded by a career in law may have helped. But your gracious comment reminds me how 40 years ago I actually dreamed of a career in academia and as a writer and did not have the courage to follow my heart. It is a great regret in my life which I am trying to make up for now that I’ve, er, reached maturity.

      I am glad that you approve my selection of poems for this essay. Truly, the prodigious length of most of Browning’s dramatic monologues was a stumbling block for me. So with brevity in mind, I also looked for a variety of speakers and forms to show the range of this type of poem. I agree fully about “Bishop” and “Soliloquy.” It is interesting to note that the vast majority of Browning’s “dramatis personae” are men — and, indeed, men of unusual or checkered character. As you said in a recent comment on another poem, it would be dull to read about a character who is all goodness and light. Browning must surely have agreed.

      Joe, I greatly appreciate your love of Browning and its apparent influence on your own work. I have read so many of your dramatic monologues with admiration (among others I remember “The Jeweler’s Deposition,” “The Crucifixion of the Serpent,” “La Pompe Funebre” “Contract Murder” and many others). I read your work not only with pleasure but with the certainty that you are helping to carry an important but underappreciated poetic legacy forward — a legacy which I happen to hold in great esteem. I have rarely seen dramatic monologues outside of the pages of the Society of Classical Poets. Those who write contemporary poetry seem so invested in expressing themselves that the idea of taking another person’s point of view seems beyond their imagination. Is a free-verse dramatic monologue even possible?

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Thank you, Brian. Two things that you have said came to my mind yesterday, when looking at these monologues once more.

        First, it did occur to me that your prose style may indeed have been shaped by your legal career, since absolute precision is required in legal matters and legal language. Other lawyers that I have known were the same way — I marveled at how clear and careful their writing was. How many professions insist on using the gender-correct Latin “executrix” to describe a female who executes a will? Or that use a whole range of Latin and Anglo-Norman phrases to refer to particular situations?

        Second, I also thought that the unpopularity of the dramatic monologue today has much to do with modernity’s Whitmanesque insistence that good poetry has to be “personal” and “confessional” and “expressive of felt emotion.” The idea of writing in the voice of a fictive or historical character (rather than one’s own) would be anathema to the dorks who run poetry workshops now.

        And third — my deep personal gratitude to you for mentioning those dramatic monologues of mine. I am very proud of them.

  3. Margaret Coats

    Thanks, Brian, for good choices among the “shorter” Browning monologues. These also display varied verse form and diction and kinds of psychology within the drama. And every one presents an exotic figure! I remember only one other Englishman among Browning’s speakers in this genre. I believe he was an unreformed abbot from the days of the Old Religion–and therefore just as exotic to a Victorian as these mostly Latin types. The man in the Toccata is English, but has been carried away by the peril of Italian music, itself a type to beware of. The reading public was ready for the exotic. Not the primitive, rather foreign but cultured enough to be complex like the Victorians themselves–and still exotic.

    These poems may not be for the stage, but they are not only private reading matter. The length of both these shorter ones and the longer that you recommend represents a good size for an evening’s entertainment–with music by ladies before and after. Men who could read aloud well were admired.

    Closet drama, if you will–and a kind of drama that appealed to Victorian taste in certain settings. Obviously, those in the drawing room could and would disapprove of Browning’s speakers–but being certain of native superiority can be very satisfying. The rich Englishman who took pride in his possessions could be superior to the Bishop. Any man could be superior to Porphyria’s lover–even though he too may have been in the situation of noting that God did nothing after some grossly sinful night. And how often has THAT happened in the best and most repressed societies? As for that angry Spanish monk, a vengeful gentleman would at least be able to restrain repeated hateful outbursts.

    “Love Among the Ruins” is the one here that’s always been a disappointment to me. Such a great title–and such a ruinous lover. When he finally decides “Love is best,” I think of a Spanish proverb: “Of soup and love, the first is best.”

    Very much appreciate your efforts, Brian. It is not easy at all to define a genre, and then quickly prove that a certain author is the best in it. I’ve been impressed by Browning’s skill at line and language as I enjoyed a selection longer than I would read on my own!

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you for the generous comment, Margaret. You understand exactly the range I was trying to convey – especially the variations in form ranging from strict couplets to blank verse – as well as the varying psychologies of Browning’s chosen speakers. I hoped in a small way to show how vast and various the possibilities are when it comes to the composition of classical poetry. You are quite right about exotic figures – I think those are the characters Browning was most interested. It did not occur to me how few of his characters are in fact English so I’m glad you brought that up.

      Two poems I especially regret not being able to include here are “Rabbi Ben Ezra” (“Grow old along with me/The best it yet to be…”) and “An Epistle of Karshish.” I’d love to get your take on Karshish sometime. In this poem, a pagan Arab physician in the 1st Century A.D. travels through Judea and learns of the existence of a great healer who was actually able to resurrect the dead. Browning’s treatment of Christ through foreign eyes has fascinated me ever since I first read the poem in the early 1980s. For me it typifies the amazing and strange points of view a dramatic monologue is capable of capturing.

      Your discussion of the salons of the 19th Century where educated people gathered for an evening’s entertainment is particularly welcome. A Chopin nocturne, perhaps a sung duet, a Schubertlied and perhaps a reading of poetry. Yes, Browning dramatic monologues would fit brilliantly into such an evening of culture as they are inherently dramatic and far shorter than a play. In fact, this is an aspect of pre-television/pre-radio culture that I believe is sorely missed in the 21st Century. Imagine a social gathering without technology, cellphones or video, but where intellectuals gathered to simply share beautiful poetry and music!

      I think your observations regarding a certain British sense of superiority (condescension?) concerning other cultures is unexpected but probably valid. It fits perfectly into the Victorian zeitgeist in which Great Britain ruled its Empire with noblesse oblige from South Africa to India to Hong Kong and Gibralter, and regarded the Continent with some suspicion. However, the Brownings made a point of moving to Florence, Italy and lived there for many years so I imagine they may have had some dissatisfaction with English life and those British stiff-upper-lips may well have relaxed some in the warmth of Italy. Browning seems to have had a great fascination for the Italian Renaissance (recalling such characters as the Bishop or Fra Lippo Lippi or the Duke in “My Last Duchess”) and this seems to be where he instinctively turns for inspiration. It has been entirely subconscious on my own part but I notice that in the body of my dramatic monologue work a disproportionate number of my pieces are set in Italy as well. And I have more to come!

      I also confess to a certain dissatisfaction with “Love Among the Ruins.” For me I think it is primarily because of the form. Julian Woodruff comments on this very point below and when I reply to his comment I hope to have some thoughts formulated about it. As it happens, I chose this poem primarily because I liked the fact that it dealt with the Ozymandias theme and because it was an unusual poetic form which, I thought, might show off Browning’s versatility. And the six poems I selected are only the tip of the iceberg!

      Reply
  4. James Sale

    Wonderful to re-read these poems and thanks for your helpful notes. I find myself Browning a strange, although brilliant, poet: his long poems simply defeat me and I cannot read them. Henry James considered Browning ‘a great genius’ and yet – and despite – his saying of his late collection, The Inn Album, “It is not narrative. For there is not a line of comprehensible consecutive statement in the 211 pages … it is not lyrical, for there is not a phrase which… chants itself, images itself, or lingers in the memory.” That clause ‘not a phrase which … chants itself’ points to the unmelodious nature of his work. That said, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came is certainly one of the very greatest poems of the C19th and approaches epic stature. Thanks again.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Browning could sometimes be obscure, complex, and maddeningly garrulous. Just try plowing through “Sordello.”

      Reply
      • Brian A. Yapko

        I’ve never attempted to read “Sordello.” It looks intimidating. And when I looked it up, it sounds like it’s not considered one of Browning’s better works even though presented in his favored setting of the Italian Renaissance. Sometimes shorter is better.

    • Brian A. Yapko

      I love this comment, James. Thank you for the kind words and the candid appraisal of Browning. He is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. Browning is one of those poets who you either find yourself drawn to or else you can find yourself exhausted by him. I’ve experienced both. In fact, my response to Browning is similar to my response to opera — I rarely enjoyed opera when I was first exposed to it (Magic Flute and Carmen excepted) but I eventually learned to appreciate what it was trying to do and recognized that Verdi, Puccini and Wagner operated from different aesthetic rules from Rodgers and Hammerstein or Kander and Ebb. And so it is with Browning whose dramatic monologues do not quite go with odes or sonnets or narrative works. Some of his work is downright proto-stream of consciousness and I can detect some Browning in the works of James Joyce.

      The real satisfaction in Browning’s poetry, I believe, derives from piecing together the psychology of the speaker and solving the mysteries of his/her character. This is not typical poetic fare. And yes, Childe Roland is wonderful (and actually IS a dramatic monologue with a strong narrative.) It came close to being one of my selections here but ultimately was a bit too long. If I had done Seven rather than Six Poem that would have been next.

      Reply
  5. Julian D. Woodruff

    Thanks, Brian, for an excellent introduction to Browning–at least to B in this genre. I wonder if Margaret’s comment about these being recited to a roomful of listener’s relates to Henry James’s complaint about the lack of lyricism (thank you, Mr. Sale): it seems (to this now barely initiated reader) that “dramatic” is at least as important in the reception of these poems as “monologue” is. What would it be like to have heard Christopher Plummer, for instance (who I saw years ago in his great portrayal of John Barrymore in decline), reciting a group of these poems to a drawing room crowd, or even to a packed theater?
    I had the most difficulty with “Love Among the Ruins,” with its persistent echoes, but here I would not be surprised if a skilled actor could make the content more immediately comprehensible. And these echoes: am I way off in hearing echoes of them in such widely differing creations as Stefan George’s “Spricht nicht immer,” from Das Buch des haengenden Gaerten and Lerner’s lyric for Camelot, “What do the simple folk do?”

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Julian, for the kind words and the reflections on Browning and his position in the history of poetry. I understand the concern about the lack of lyricism but believe that can be explained by an aesthetic in which it is the characterization that matters rather than the beauty of the language. Personally, I believe that most of Browning’s work is quite beautiful but I think it also important to note that when poetry is character-driven rather than word driven or image-driven or device-driven, the vocabulary and tone will be highly dependent on the personality and limitations of the character. A poor, illiterate man will speak a very different poem than a bishop or a musician, and the extent to which their words may be deemed “lyrical” will also greatly vary. That is one of the great risks of dramatic monologues. Being true to the character may require a trade-off in beauty.

      I love your idea of Christopher Plummer or an actor who is now alive reading Browning’s works. I think Anthony Hopkins would chew the scenery with some of them. I recently listened to Jeremy Irons read the collected works of T. S. Eliot and found the poetry so much more enjoyable than I might have expected.

      As I mentioned to Margaret above, I also find something a bit “missing” in “Love Among the Ruins” and it may well be attributable to those odd echo lines. As I consider the point, if I were to criticize Browning here it would be for overuse of this device. Every single line has that echo and at a certain point it becomes cloying. If it were a quatrain with an echo that would probably digest better. I appreciate your mention of “What Do the Simple Folk Do?” That is actually my favorite song from “Camelot.” In this song a sad Arthur (he has not yet confronted her) sings with Queen Guenevere about the trials of being a royal and how lovely it might be to do what the common folk do. But notice what Lerner does — he actually gets through most of a verse before he invokes the echo — and that echo happens to be stated by the non-versifying character so that it is actually part of the dialogue. Here is an excerpt.

      [ARTHUR]
      I have been informed by those who know them well
      They find relief in quite a clever way
      When they’re sorely pressed, they whistle for a spell
      And whistling seems to brighten up their day
      And that’s what simple folk do
      So they say

      [GUENEVERE]
      They whistle?

      [ARTHUR]
      So they say

      So the echo line is actually far less intrusive here and more integrated into the interplay between characters. What Lerner does really works. But what does that mean for Browning’s piece? I think in the end Browning was going for an effect in which one might call out to the ruins and then receive a brief, hollow echo in reply. It’s an interesting effect but I’m not convinced it works when it’s this systematic. However, I love that Browning created a form for the effect that he wanted. It shows the versatility of classical poetry. But I’d love to hear other opinions on this poem. Anyone?

      Reply
  6. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Brian, this excellently written and engaging essay highlights the wonders of the dramatic monologue. I am intrigued and enchanted by the carefully chosen variety of poems and cannot help but note the similarities between Browning’s work and yours. Both of you have an immense talent for stepping into another’s shoes and entertaining rapt readers with words that inform and delight as they bring characters and places to life. I hope this essay draws many to Browning’s gift… and to yours. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Susan, you must surely know how happy and thrilled I am to receive a comment this generous! At least since I began to take writing poetry seriously, Browning has always been in the triumvirate of my favorite poets. The others are William Shakespeare (for his plays less than his actual poems) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (does that surprise you?) But of these three, it is Browning who most tickles my sense of adventure. He not only writes of foreign lands in days of yore… he actually goes there in real time. I find that to be thrilling and so it was, perhaps, inevitable for me that I would begin to write poetry inspired by him. Thank you for speaking well of me in the same sentence as him and in this context. It means the world to me.

      Reply

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