APPARITIONS. (PAGE 49.)
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Study the development of the idea in the same manner as in Misconceptions and Natural Magic. Note the felicity of imagery and diction.
A WALL. (PAGE 50.)
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The clew to the meaning is to be sought in the last two stanzas. This is one of the best examples of Browning's "assertion of the soul in song."
CONFESSIONS. (PAGE 51.)
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First construct the scene of the poem. What has the priest said? What is the sick man's answer? What evidence is there that his imagination is struggling to recall the old memory?[page 243] What view of life does the priest offer, and he reject? Does Browning indicate his preference for either view, or tell the story impartially?
A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. (PAGE 53.)
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What key to the situation in the first line? Who are the speaker and the one addressed? What mood and feeling are in control? Comment upon the condensation of the thought and the movement of the verse.
A PRETTY WOMAN. (PAGE 55.)
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25-27. Compare Emerson's lines in The Rhodora:—
"If eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being."
To what things is the "Pretty Woman" compared? Of what use is she? How is she to be judged?
YOUTH AND ART. (PAGE 58.)
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8. Gibson, John (1790-1866). A famous sculptor.
12. Grisi, Giulia. A celebrated singer (1811-1869).
18. In allusion to the asceticism of the Hindoo religious devotees.
58. bals-parés. Fancy-dress balls.
The poem is half-humorous, half-serious. The speaker, in her imaginary conversation, gives her own history and that of the man she thinks she might have loved. The story is on the[page 244] "Maud Muller" motive, but with less of sentimentality. The setting suggests the life of art students in Paris, or in some Italian city. The poem is a plea for the freedom of the individuality of a soul against the restrictions imposed by conventional standards of value. Its touches of humor, of human nature, and its summary of two lives in brief, are admirably done. Its rhymes sometimes need the indulgence accorded to humorous writing.
A TALE. (PAGE 61.)
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The source of the story is an epigram given in Mackail's Select Epigrams from Greek Anthology. It is one of the happiest pieces of Browning's lighter work.
65. Lotte, or Charlotte. A character in Goethe's Sorrows of Werther, said to be drawn from the heroine of one of Goethe's earlier love-affairs.
Who are the speaker and the one addressed? Whom does the cicada of the tale symbolize? Whom the singer helped by the cicada? What application is made of the story? What serious meanings and feelings underlie the tone of raillery? What things mark the light and humorous tone of the speaker? Point out the harmony between style and theme.
CAVALIER TUNES. (PAGE 67.)
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Note the swinging, martial movement, and the energetic spirit in these lyrics. For an account of the history of the period, see Green's Short History of the English People, Chapter VIII, and Macaulay's History of England, Chapter I. For an account of[page 245] the qualities of the Cavaliers, see Macaulay's Essay on Milton.
I. MARCHING ALONG
1. Kentish Sir Byng. The first of the family known to fame was George Byng, Viscount Torrington (1663-1733), who could not be the man meant here by Browning.
2. crop-headed. In allusion to the close-cropped hair of the Puritans. Long wigs were the fashion among the Cavaliers; hence the Puritans were nicknamed "Roundheads."
7. King Charles the First. Pym, John (1584-1643). Leader of the Parliament in its actions against King Charles and the Royalist party.
13. Hampden, John (1594-1643). One of the leaders of Parliament, known principally for his resistance to the illegal taxations of Charles I.
14. Hazelrig, Sir Arthur. One of the members of Parliament whom Charles tried to impeach. Fiennes, Nathaniel. One of the leading members of Parliament. young Harry. Son of Sir Henry Vane, and a member of the Puritan party.
15. Rupert. Prince of the Palatinate (1619-1682), and nephew of Charles I. He served in the King's army during the civil war.
23. Nottingham. "Charles I raised his standard here, in 1642, as the beginning of the civil war."—Century Dictionary.
II. GIVE A ROUSE
16. Noll was a contemptuous nickname for Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the Puritans.
HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA. (PAGE 70.)
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This poem is a companion piece to Home Thoughts, from Abroad. It is, however, distinctly inferior to it in clearness, vividness of feeling, and lyric sweetness.
3. Trafalgar, The scene of the famous victory of the English admiral, Nelson, over the French fleet in 1805.
4. Gibraltar. The famous rocky promontory at the entrance of the Mediterranean. It has been held as an English fort since 1704.
SUMMUM BONUM. (PAGE 71.)
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This little poem, published in 1890, is one of the good examples of a love lyric written by an old man whose spirit is still youthful. There are some similar things by Tennyson, in Gareth and Lynette, and elsewhere in his later publications.
Note here the somewhat exaggerated art of the poem in the alliterations and in the multiple comparisons.
SONGS FROM PIPPA PASSES. (PAGE 73.)
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The drama of Pippa Passes is a succession of scenes, each representing some crisis of human life, into which breaks, with beneficent influence, a song of the girl Felippa, or "Pippa," on her holiday from the silk-mills. She is unconscious of the influence she exerts. William Sharp says these songs "are as[page 247] pathetically fresh and free as a thrush's song in a beleaguered city, and with the same unconsidered magic."
THE LOST LEADER. (PAGE 75.)
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The desertion of the liberal cause by Wordsworth, Southey, and others, is the germinal idea of this poem. But Browning always strenuously insisted that the resemblance went no further; that The Lost Leader is no true portrait of Wordsworth, though he became poet-laureate. The Lost Leader is a purely ideal conception, developed by the process of idealization from an individual who serves as a "lay figure."
13. Shakespeare was more of an aristocrat, surely, than a democrat. Milton had championed the cause of liberty in prose and poetry, and had worked for it as Cromwell's Latin secretary.
14. Burns, Shelley. What poems can you cite of either poet to place him in this list?
Who is the speaker? What is the cause? Why does he not wish the "lost leader" to return? How does he judge him? What does he expect for his cause? What does he mean by lines 29-30? lines 31-32? Point out the climax in the second stanza.
APPARENT FAILURE. (PAGE 77.)
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3. your Prince. Son of Napoleon III., born in March, 1856.
7. The Congress assembled to discuss Italy's unity and freedom. Gortschakoff represented Russia; Count Cavour, Italy; Buol, Austria. Austria had conquered Italy. See Browning's[page 248] The Italian in England.
12. Petrarch's Vaucluse. The fountain from which the Sorgue rises. The town of Vaucluse (Valclusa) was the home of the poet Petrarch (1304-1374).
14. debt. The obligation to visit a famous place.
39. Tuileries. The imperial palace in Paris.
43-44. What is meant? Death? Freedom?
46-47. . In allusion to the game of rouge-et-noir. Criticise the taste shown here.
In what sense does the poet intend to "save" the building? Describe the scene that he recalls. What three types are the suicides? How does the poet know? Why does he deny the failure of their lives? Does he base his optimistic hope on reason or feeling? Note the climax in line's 55-57. State in your own words the meaning of the last six lines.
FEARS AND SCRUPLES. (PAGE 80.)
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The problem of the religions doubter is here set forth by an analogy.
5. letters. The reference is of course to the Scriptures.
17 ff. In reference to sceptical criticism.
What are the "fears and scruples" held by the speaker? What proof does he desire to allay his doubts? Does he settle the doubt or put it aside? Where is his spirit of reverence best shown?
INSTANS TYRANNUS. (PAGE 82.)
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"Instans Tyrannus", the threatening tyrant. The phrase is from Horace's Odes, Book III., iii., as is probably the idea of the poem. Gladstone translates the passage:—
"The just man in his purpose strong,
No madding crowd can turn to wrong.
The forceful tyrant's brow and word
. . .
.
. . .
His firm-set spirit cannot move."
There is novelty of conception in giving the situation from the tyrant's point of view. Compare also the seventh Ode of Horace in Book II.
44. gravamen. Latin for burden, difficulty, annoyance.
69. Just (as) my vengeance (was) complete.
What conception do you get of the tyrant? What is his motive? What things aggravate his hatred? How does he seek to "extinguish the man"? What baffles him at first? What defeats him finally? Is he deterred by physical or moral fear? By what means is the poem given vigor and clearness? Note the dramatic effect in the last stanza.
THE PATRIOT. (PAGE 85.)
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At what point in his career does the speaker give his story? What have been his motives? How was he at first treated? What indicates that the change is not in him, but in the fickle mob? How does he view his downfall? In what thought lies his sense of triumph? How does his greatness of soul appear?
THE BOY AND THE ANGEL. (PAGE 87.)
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24. "the voice of my delight". That is, the boy's simple praises.
What quality did the praise of the Pope and of the angel lack? What is the meaning of the legend?
MEMORABILIA. (PAGE 91.)
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In Browning's early youth, while he was under the influence of Byron and Pope, he found, at a bookstall, a stray copy of Shelley's Dæmon of the World. From this time on, Shelley's poetry was his ideal. The term "moulted feather" has peculiar significance from the fact that this was a poem which Shelley afterwards rejected.
How is childlike wonder expressed in the first two stanzas? How is the difference between the speaker and his friend indicated? Why does the name of Shelley mean so much more to one than to the other? In the figure that follows, what do the moor and the eagle's feather stand for?
WHY I AM A LIBERAL. (PAGE 92.)
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Note the essential elements of sonnet structure in metre, rhyme, and number of lines. See the Introduction to Sharp's Sonnets of this Century. Compare the idea of the poem with that of The Lost Leader.
PROSPICE. (PAGE 93.)
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Written shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning.
Note the vividness of the imagery, the swiftness of the movement, the rise to the climax, the change in spirit after the climax,[page 251] and the note of courage and hope that informs this poem. Compare it with Tennyson's Crossing the Bar. What difference in spirit between the two?
EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO. (PAGE 94.)
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Sharp's Life of Browning has the following passage: "Shortly before the great bell of San Marco struck ten, he turned and asked if any news had come concerning Asolando, published that day. His son read him a telegram from the publishers, telling how great the demand was, and how favorable were the advance articles in the leading papers. The dying poet turned and muttered, 'How gratifying!' When the last toll of St. Mark's had left a deeper stillness than before, those by the bedside saw a yet profounder silence on the face of him whom they loved."
What claim does Browning make for himself? Do you find this spirit in any of his poetry which you have read?
"DE GUSTIBUS—." (PAGE 96.)
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Image the scene in the first stanza. Why are the poppies known by their flutter, rather than their color? Note the rhyme effect and climax in lines 11-13. What qualities predominate in the first scene? How does the second scene differ from it? What are the characteristic objects in the second? Has it more or less of the romantic, or of grandeur? Compare the human element introduced in each scene. Note the effectiveness of the epithets a-flutter, wind-grieved, baked,red-rusted, iron-spiked. Show how the poem explains its title.
THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. (PAGE 98.)
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The setting of the story is Italy's struggle against Austria for her liberty, known as the Revolution of 1848.
8. Charles. Carlo Alberto, Prince of Carignano, of the house of Savoy.
19. Metternich (1773-1859). The Austrian diplomatist, and the enemy of Italian liberty.
76. Tenebrae = darkness. A religious service in the Roman Catholic church, commemorating the crucifixion.
MY LAST DUCHESS. (PAGE 105.)
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Ferrara still preserves the mediæval traditions and appearance in a marked degree. The Dukes of Ferrara were noted art patrons. Both Ariosto and Tasso were members of their household; but neither poet was fully appreciated by his master.
3. Frà Pandolf. An imaginary artist.
45-46. Professor Corson, in his Introduction to Browning, quotes an answer from the poet himself: "'Yes, I meant that the commands were that she should be put to death.' And then, after a pause, he added, with a characteristic dash of expression, as if the thought had just started in his mind, 'Or he might have had her shut up in a convent.'"
56. Claus of Innsbruck. An imaginary artist.
This poem is a fine example of Browning's skill in the use of dramatic monologue. (See Introduction.) The Duke is skilfully made to reveal his own character and motives, and those of the Duchess, and at the same time to indicate the actions of[page 253] himself and his listener.
Construct in imagination the scene and the action of the poem. What has brought the Duke and the envoy together? What things indicate the Duke's pride? Was his jealousy due to pride or to affection? Does he prize the picture as a work of art or as a memory of the Duchess? What faults did he find in her? What character do these criticisms show her to have had? What did he wish her to he? Note the anti-climax in lines 25-28: what is the effect? What shows the Duke's difficulty in breaking his reserve on this matter? What motive has he for so doing? Where does the poet show skill in condensation, in character drawing, in vividness, in enlisting the reader's sympathy?
The Flight of the Duchess should be read as a development and variation of this theme.
THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S. (PAGE 107.)
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Ruskin gives this poem high praise: "Robert Browning is unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages.... I know no other piece of modern English prose or poetry in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit—its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I have said of the central Renaissance, in thirty pages of The Stones of Venice, put into as many lines; Browning's also being the antecedent work."
It is not, however, for its historical accuracy that a poem is mainly to be judged. The full and imaginative portrayal of a[page 254] type, belonging not to one age only, but to human nature, is a greater achievement. And this achievement Browning has undoubtedly performed.
5. Old Gandolf. Evidently one of the Bishop's colleagues in holy orders, and like him in holiness.
31. onion-stone. See the dictionary for descriptions of this and other stones named in the poem.
41. olive-frail. A crate, made of rushes, for packing olives.
42. lapis lazuli. A very beautiful and valuable blue stone.
46. Frascati. A town near Rome, celebrated for its villas.
56-62. Such mixture of Christian and Pagan elements was a common feature in Renaissance art and literature.
58. tripod. The triple-footed seat from which the priestesses of Apollo at Delphi delivered the oracles. thyrsus. A staff entwined with ivy and vines, and borne in the Bacchic processions.
77. Tully. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman orator, statesman, and philosopher.
79. Ulpian. A celebrated Roman jurist of the third century.
99. Elucescebat. Late Latin, from elucesco. The classical or Ciceronian form would be elucebat, from eluceo. Here appears the Bishop's love of good Latin.
108. Term. A pillar, widening toward the top, upon which is placed a figure or a bust.
Who are grouped about the Bishop's bed? What does he desire? Why? What tastes does he show? Point out evidences of his crimes, his suspicion, his sensual ideals, his artistic[page 255] tastes, his canting hypocrisy, his confusion of the material and the immaterial, and the persistency of his passions and feelings. Note the subtlety with which these things are suggested, especially lines 18-19, 29-30, 33-44, 50-52, 59-62, 80-84, 122-125.
THE LABORATORY. (PAGE 113.)
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This is a little masterpiece in its vividness and condensation. The passions of hate and jealousy have seldom been so well portrayed. The time and place are probably France and the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Berdoe has called attention in his Browning Cyclopædia, to the number of fine antitheses in the second stanza.
Who are present in the scene? Who are to be the victims? Account for the speaker's patience in stanza iii. Point out the things that show the intensity of her hate. Does she display any other feeling than hate and jealousy?
HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD. (PAGE 115.)
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Where is the speaker? What scene is in his imagination? Trace the growth in his mind of this scene: in color effects, in the kind of life introduced, in the intensity of the feeling, in the vividness with which he enters into it. What is the charm in lines 12-14?
UP AT A VILLA—DOWN IN THE CITY. (PAGE 116.)
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4. Bacchus. The Roman god of wine, frequently invoked in the garnishment of Latin and Italian speech.
42. Pulcinello is the Italian for clown or puppet, and the[page 256] prototype of the English Punch.
48. Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. Italy's first three great authors. See a biographical dictionary or encyclopædia for their dates and their works.
St. Jerome (340-420.) One of the fathers of the Roman, church. He prepared the Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate.
49. the skirts of St. Paul has reached. Has done almost as well as St. Paul.
51. Our Lady. The image of the Virgin Mary. Observe our hero's taste and his religions solemnity.
52. seven swords, etc. Representing the seven "legendary sorrows" of the Virgin. See Berdoe's Browning Cyclopædia, or Brewer's Reader's Handbook, or Dictionary of Phrase and Fable for the list.
UP AT A VILLA is one of the best humorous poems in the language. The hero's desires and sorrows are so naïve, his tastes so gravely held, that he provokes our sympathy as well as our laughter. One of the charms of the poem is the way in which he is made to testify, in spite of himself, to the beauties of the country (as in lines 7-9, 19-20, 22-25, 32-33, 36) and to the monotony or clanging emptiness of the city (as in lines 12-14, 38-54). Compare lines 8 and 82 with the picture in De Gustibus.
A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S. (PAGE 122.)
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Toccata. See an unabridged dictionary.
1. Galuppi. Baldassare Galuppi, Venice, 1706-1785, a celebrated musician and prolific composer.
6. St. Mark's. The famous cathedral of Venice. Doges ... rings. The Doge was chief magistrate of Venice. The annual ceremony of "wedding the Adriatic" by casting into it a gold ring was instituted in 1174, in commemoration of the victory of the Venetian fleet over Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany.
8. Shylock's bridge. By the Rialto. A house by the bridge, said to be Shylock's, is still pointed out to visitors.
18. clavichord. An instrument of the type of the piano.
19. ff. thirds, sixths, etc. For the musical terms see an unabridged dictionary or a musical dictionary.
30. Compare the lines in Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat:—
"For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their cup a round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest."
This is the characteristic note of poetic melancholy, found again and again from Virgil to Tennyson.
37-39. Is the ironical tone of these lines in harmony with the spirit of the rest of the poem?
What does Galuppi's music mean to Browning? What does it recall of the life in Venice? Is the lightness of tone in the music itself or in the poet's idea of Venice? What emotions are aroused? What causes the poet's sadness? Is the verse[page 258] musical? Does it suit the ideas it conveys?
ABT VOGLER. (PAGE 126.)
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George Joseph Vogler, known also as Abbé (or Abt) Vogler (1748-1816), was a German musician. He composed operas and other musical pieces, became famous as an organist, and invented an organ with pedals and several keyboards. Browning seems to have in mind the complex musical harmonies of which the instrument was capable. See lines 10, 13, 52, 55, and 84 of the poem. See also the Encyclopædia Britannica.
3. Solomon. Legends about Solomon and his power over the spirits of earth and air are common in Jewish and Arabic literature.
9 ff. building. The idea of building by music is an old one. See the classical story of Amphion and the walls of Thebes, Coleridge's Kubla Khan, and Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, lines 272-274.
19. rampired. Furnished with ramparts.
23. The reference is to St. Peter's in Rome.
The musician's imagination takes fire from his playing, and his music seems like a glorious palace which he is building. The notes are conceived as spirits doing his bidding (stanzas i-iii). As he proceeds the images change, and heaven and earth seem to unite with him in his creative activity: light flashes forth, and heaven and earth draw nearer together. Now he sees the past, the beginnings of things, and the future; even the dead are back again in his presence. His imagination has anulled time and space. As he thinks of his art, it seems[page 259] more glorious to him than painting and poetry: these work by laws that can be explained and followed, while music is a direct expression of the will, an act of higher creative power.
When the music ends he cannot be consoled by the thought that as good music will come again. So he turns to the one unchanging thing, "the ineffable Name." Thus he gains confidence to say, "there shall never be one lost good." All failure and all evil are but a prelude to the good that shall in the end prevail. So he returns in hope and patience to the C major, the common chord of life.
ABT VOGLER is famous, not only for its confident optimism, but as an example of Browning's power of annexing a new domain—that of music—to poetry.
Where does the musician cease to speak of Solomon's building and begin to describe his own? Note, in stanza ii, how he speaks first of the "keys," and afterwards has in mind the notes; how he speaks of the bass notes as the foundation, and the upper notes as the structure. Where is the climax of his creative vision? What does he mean in line 40? Is he right in saying music is less subject to laws than poetry and painting? Why is he sad when his music ceases? Why does he turn to God for consolation? Follow carefully the argument in stanza ix. Is it convincing? What analogy does he find between music, and good and evil?