Every Reader's Browning

  

     This is the sixteenth in a series of essays meant to introduce (or re-introduce) non-scholarly readers to the work of important poets. Consult the Index for the current month under Blog Archive on the right.  An introduction called “Why Read Poetry?” is available at http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/05/why-read-poetry.html. 

     In this series I limit my focus to the discussion, often including a close paraphrase, of only three or four of each writer’s best-known works while providing a bit of context and biography, eschewing most byways and all footnotes. 

     Though poems by Browning are easily available online, I have appended the few I discuss that are not found in the text.

 

      Robert Browning was probably the chief contender with Alfred, Lord Tennyson for leading Victorian poet.  While Tennyson’s mastery of sound and his willing acceptance of the role of English national poet, often repeating received ideas, brought him immense prestige, Browning developed along a more idiosyncratic path to reach a comparable level of influence.  A Marxist-minded critic of the old school might, without going far wrong, suggest that the nobleman who held the laureateship was the choice of the old order and that Browning, whose political views were decidedly progressive, represented the more enlightened portion of the bourgeoisie.  

     Neither has fared well in popular taste in the years since though each has yet his devotees.  Tennyson’s influence was prolonged by his use in school curriculums until a generation or so ago.  Many of us can recall making our way through Idylls of the King and “In Memoriam.”  Meanwhile, except for a few popular anthology pieces, Browning has fallen into deeper obscurity, due in part to his fondness for long narrative poems of a sort rare today.  Most of the lengthy twentieth-century poems (The Cantos, Paterson, A) are bricolage, pasting together this and that and are in general read only by the literati, whereas Browning wrote what amounted to popular novels in verse beginning with Pauline and Paracelsus, and continuing through Sordello and The Ring and the Book.   

    Perhaps the easiest avenue of approach to Browning is to look at a poem that was once a parlor favorite, read aloud in middle class homes, and then studied in schools, before falling into neglect, “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.”  The basis for the poem’s popularity is clear.  Its appeal is largely on its surface, in the jangling rhymes and the insistent beat of anapestic horse-hooves.  The poem’s dominant effect is in its sound which recalls the pleasures of nursery rhymes, and perhaps for some present-day readers, early experiences with Noyes’ “The Highwayman” or the likes of Vachel Lindsay and Robert Service.  In such a poem the reader is entitled to forget about meaning. 

     Indeed, there is little to grasp beyond the music of the verse.  The poem lacks the nationalistic motive of Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride,” which shares its thumping tetrameters.  Browning noted that he had had no historic event in mind (which has not stopped scholars from making suggestions).  The speaker is characterized only by his energetic and dutiful riding; even in the triumphant conclusion he steps aside to yield the spotlight to Roland, the faithful horse.  Likewise, the other riders, Dirk and Joris, are without specific qualities.  Their progress is marked by the names of towns which, while they make a plausible route for the reader who chooses to investigate, are not described at all.   The action proceeds by couplets with virtually no enjambement (when one line syntactically flows into the next).  Browning’s stanza divisions seem artificial and unnecessary.  One need only sit back and enjoy the ride, reading aloud if possible, even alone in a room.  Here is one part of the foundation of poetry: the melodies of words, beautiful for their own sake. 

     Such sound effects govern also Browning’s retelling of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” likely to be familiar to American readers, even those who are unaware of the author’s name.    

 

      Rats!

They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,

   And bit the babies in the cradles,

And eat the cheeses out of the vats,

   And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,

Split open the kegs of salted sprats,

Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,

And even spoiled the women's chats

      By drowning their speaking

      With shrieking and squeaking

In fifty different sharps and flats.

 

These lines are not only musical; they also include concrete detail to fully create the scene while ending in a witty final line.  This sounds like a song from a Broadway show, but the cleverness of “light verse” has lost respect these days and barely survives in the literary scene. 

     The form most closely identified with Browning is the dramatic monologue.  A persona, often historical, but always clearly distinguished from the author, speaks.  The form is suited to oral performance and allows for as much subtle and complex characterization as a first-person short story.  Browning’s most popular poem of this sort is “My Last Duchess.”  The tone is altogether different from “How They Brought the Good News.”  Browning uses couplets here as well, but rather than the more rapid tetrameters, he lengthens the line a foot into longer, more thoughtful pentameters, often enjambed to create a tone of thoughtful musing.

     Much like a dramatic speech in a play or conversation in a short story in verse, Browning’s Duke of Ferrara is characterized by his own words.  The language situates the reader in the exotic environment of Renaissance Italy, celebrated for artistic achievement but also the scene of murderous intrigues.  While showing his home to a relation of his new fiancée, the duke’s arrogance emerges unmistakably and the reader (and perhaps the new in-law) realizes that he killed his “last duchess.”  With rich irony, the duke describes how, despite his condescension in making her the “gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name,” she persisted in expressing “a heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad,” exciting his proud jealousy.  The experience of reading the poem consists in the reader’s catching one hint after another of the speaker’s narcissism and his violent potential and thrilling with the mounting implications of danger (similar perhaps to the pleasure of watching an Alfred Hitchcock Presents television show).

      The Ring and the Book, on the other hand, at some twenty thousand lines, more resembles a Masterpiece Theater series, and we may imagine Browning’s admirers binge-reading another sensational Italian Renaissance story.  His expansive retelling from multiple points of view (a technique used by a good many Victorian novelists – familiar examples include Stoker’s Dracula and Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) -- is primarily a murder mystery, but, at the conclusion, he reflects on the unique power of art.  

  

So, British Public, who may like me yet,

(Marry and amen!) learn one lesson hence

Of many which whatever lives should teach:

This lesson, that our human speech is naught,

Our human testimony false, our fame

And human estimation words and wind.

Why take the artistic way to prove so much?

Because, it is the glory and good of Art,

That Art remains the one way possible

Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine, at least.

How look a brother in the face and say

“Thy right is wrong, eyes hast thou yet art blind,

“Thine ears are stuffed and stopped, despite their length,

“And, oh, the foolishness thou countest faith!”

Say this as silverly as tongue can troll—

The anger of the man may be endured,

The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him

Are not so bad to bear—but here’s the plague

That all this trouble comes of telling truth,

Which truth, by when it reaches him, looks false,

Seems to be just the thing it would supplant,

Nor recognisable by whom it left—

While falsehood would have done the work of truth.

But Art, —wherein man nowise speaks to men,

Only to mankind, — Art may tell a truth

Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought,

Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word.

So may you paint your picture, twice show truth,

Beyond mere imagery on the wall, —

So, note by note, bring music from your mind,

Deeper than ever the Andante dived, —

So write a book shall mean, beyond the facts,

Suffice the eye and save the soul beside.

                             (The Ring and the Book 831-863) 

 

     For Browning art was the means to intersubjectivity, a verbal technology that can accurately reflect individual vision while making one mind accessible to others.  Browning had been attacked for obscurity, leading him to write to a friend that while “I never designedly tried to puzzle people,” he also “never pretended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar, or a game of dominoes, to an idle man.”  Here he considers the likely response to teaching the “British Public” a “lesson, that our human speech is naught,/ Our human testimony false, our fame/ And human estimation words and wind.”  Thus he uses words to demonstrate that words are inherently and necessarily misleading, and his words are sufficiently artful that the reader accepts a proposition that might be rejected if stated as an outright claim.  Though Browning thinks he possesses the truth, in order to pass it on, he must disguise it, and working “obliquely,” reach a reader who would never be otherwise receptive. 

     The poet never doubts that he has access to a reality “Deeper than ever the Andante dived” with the power not only to bring the reader beauty (“suffice the eye”) but also truth (“save the soul beside”).  Many of his readers came to agree, and Browning did live to enjoy the reputation of a sage.  In his later years, Browning was considered an important thinker as well as a great poet.  In his own lifetime the Browning Society of London was organized to study and discuss his work and within twenty years, hundreds of such groups were meeting.

     Many even of those who do not read poetry have heard of Browning’s relationship to his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as a great love story, and, unlike many literary men, he was, by all appearances, both passionate and monogamous.   Her sonnets (such as “How do I love thee?/ Let me count the ways.”) seem likewise to be that rare sort of love poem that celebrates marital joy.  Many have taken the opening words in her husband’s “Rabbi ben Ezra” -- “Grow old along with me!/ The best is yet to be”) – in the same way.  Though Browning is best known for long narrative poems, for dramatic monologues, and the quality of his thought, he was sometimes moved by a pure lyric impulse inspired by love.

 

            Meeting at Night

 

I

The grey sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

 

II

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

      The darkness heightens the sense of intimacy as the speaker crosses a living ocean where waves are “fiery ringlets” to an imagination lit by the expectation of love.  The reader need hardly to be inclined to Freudian analysis to find the details suggestive as the boat’s prow pushes on through water and sand on the way over a “warm sea-scented beach” to an erotic encounter.  The actual encounter is suggested by vivid yet oblique detail: a tap, a scratch, a match, a low voice, our greatest pleasures are represented implicit in by these things more powerfully than by a direct description of love-making.  After these indirections, the concluding line has all the more power with its simple and straightforward celebration.

     Robert Browning may remind the modern reader of the central role poets held not so long ago in English-speaking society.  For millions Browning was an entertainer, the author of best-sellers which people read aloud in small gatherings for their amusement and which were widely discussed in the popular press.  Like grand opera and great novels but also like street ballads, tv mini-series, and country music, his works concerned sex and violence, sometimes presented almost luridly.  Yet his readers also looked to him for wisdom, and the fruits of his thought were considered to be authenticated by his poetic skill, as though a writer is necessarily expert in any topic other than writing.  Poets do not generally occupy the foreground of cultural life in today’s America, but, while reading Browning’s work, one may play being a Victorian and discover if a poet may in the twenty-first century be yet at once a guru, a source of wisdom, and, at the same time, an entertainment, a pleasing way of passing the time.

     While some of Browning’s works are ponderously swollen and his syntax is at times tangled, in many of his well-known poems he is perfectly accessible and will strike even a modern as thoughtful and talented.  Though the popular stereotype depicts “the Victorian Age” as pompous and moralistic, a familiarity with Browning can usefully complicate the picture.  As a poet at a time when works of poetry were consumed by large general audiences, he was a star in a way impossible today. 

  

 Pied Piper

 

I

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.

 

II

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.

 

III

'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!'’

 

IV

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 hutting away

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:

 

V

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.

 

VI

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.

 

VII

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!’

 

VIII

‘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.

 

IX

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.

 

X

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.

 

 

My Last Duchess (originally titled “Italy”)

 Ferrara

 

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.” Such stuff

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 an 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 yours, forsooth, and made excuse—

E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she 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 pretense

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!