Dramatis Personae by Robert Browning

First published: 1864

Type of work: Poetry

The Work:

When Robert Browning published Dramatis Personae, he was beginning to gain a measure of general esteem in the eyes of the public and of the critics. The year before its publication a three-volume collection of his earlier works had sold moderately well. Dramatis Personae added considerably to his popularity, and a second edition was called for before the end of 1864. It is ironic that this volume, the first that can be said to have achieved popular success, contained the first clear signs of the decline of his poetic powers.

It was his first volume of new poems since Men and Women, published in 1855. In the interval the pattern of Browning’s life had undergone complete transformation. On June 29, 1861, his wife, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, had died. They had made their home in Italy; after her death, Browning returned to England. For years he had been virtually out of touch with the currents of English thought. He plunged into a society that was perplexed by what it had learned and troubled by what it had come to doubt. Browning was soon personally involved in the intellectual and religious controversies of the day.

The changes in his life produced changes in his poetry. His love poems, understandably, became more melancholy. Many of the poems in Men and Women have historical settings; all but a few of those in Dramatis Personae have contemporary settings. Even when he gives his version of an old tale, as in “Gold Hair,” he manages to work in discussion of nineteenth century problems. In general, he was becoming more argumentative, more of a preacher. He still preferred the dramatic mode of utterance but the voice of the poet is often heard behind the dramatic mask.

Two of the important themes in the volume are love and death, frequently juxtaposed. The death of Mrs. Browning may have been an influence on his choice of subjects, but it should not be overestimated; a number of the poems antedate her death. “Prospice,” however, written in the fall of 1861, is clearly Browning speaking in his own voice. It is an open affirmation of belief in immortality. When death ends his life, he says, as it has ended hers, “O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,/ And with God be the rest!”

In “Too Late” another man grieves over a dead woman, but with a difference. He had never expressed his love for her and now suffers not grief alone but regret at having missed his opportunity. It is a familiar theme in Browning, love unfulfilled through negligence, expressed earlier in “The Statue and the Bust,” and, elsewhere in Dramatis Personae, in “Youth and Art,” and in “Dis Aliter Visum; or Le Byron de Nos Jours.” If “Too Late” has an autobiographical element, it is of an inverse order: Browning, unlike the speaker, had not missed his opportunity for love. The speaker of “Too Late” says it would have been better to

have burst like a thiefAnd borne you away to a rock for us twoIn a moment’s horror, bright, bloody, and brief,Then changed to myself again.

Browning, a sedentary man, had stepped out of character once in his life, when he had spirited a middle-aged poet off to Italy.

Two of the finest poems in Dramatis Personae, also love poems, are “Confessions” and “James Lee’s Wife” (originally called, misleadingly, “James Lee”). One reason why they are perennially satisfying is that, unlike many poems in the volume, they are free from topical controversy. In “Confessions,” one of Browning’s shortest dramatic monologues, a dying man recalls, with satisfaction, a love affair of long ago: “How sad and bad and mad it was—/ But then, how it was sweet!” In “James Lee’s Wife,” the story is that of the death of love. It is a restrained, dignified cry of heartbreak, a skillfully wrought dramatic lyric, the desolate scene and the dying year serving as mute echoes of the speaker’s mood.

Of the eighteen poems originally grouped in Dramatis Personae (two occasional pieces were later added: “Deaf and Dumb” and “Eurydice to Orpheus”), few are not cluttered with argument. Of these, “James Lee’s Wife” and “Confessions” are particularly memorable. “The Worst of It” is mawkish; “May and Death” is pleasant, but slight; “A Face” and “A Likeness” are insignificant. It should not be assumed, however, that the remaining poems, those which serve as vehicles for Browning’s beliefs, can all be dismissed as inferior poems.

“Caliban upon Setebos,” for example, is not only a statement of Victorian religious belief; it is as well one of Browning’s successful poems of the grotesque. The element of controversy is certainly there, as indicated by the subtitle: “Natural Theology in the Island.” Browning is satirizing those who, relying too closely on their own resources, posit God in their own image. Caliban is not merely a figure taken from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (pr. 1611, pb. 1623); he is also a post-Darwinian figure, a poet’s version of the evolutionary missing link. The topical references in the poem do not, however, prevent it from being rated one of Browning’s best dramatic monologues.

“A Death in the Desert,” another dramatic monologue, is perhaps more seriously marred by its attempts to promote certain religious ideas. Proponents of what was called higher criticism of the Bible—for example, David Friedrich Strauss in Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (1835-1836; The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, 1846) and Ernest Renan in Vie de Jésus(1863; The Life of Jesus, 1864)—had attempted, among other things, to prove that the Gospel of St. John had not been written, as had been assumed, by the beloved disciple. Browning’s poem, an imaginative re-creation of John’s death, is an argument for the authenticity of the Gospel. It contains a number of Browning’s religious positions (for example, a theory about miracles). The fact that it is the dying apostle who gives expression to these ideas is anachronistic: Many of them are clearly indigenous to the middle of the nineteenth century. As a result, the dramatic effect of the poem is appreciably undercut.

The longest poem in Dramatis Personae, “Mr. Sludge, ’The Medium,’” is 1,525 lines, or three-eighths of the entire volume. This poem is more successful. It is one of Browning’s liveliest character studies, not unworthy of comparison with the great dramatic monologues in Men and Women. It, too, is tinged by Browning’s growing fondness for argument. Browning satirizes spiritualism, quite a fad in mid-nineteenth century England, by portraying a fraudulent medium whose character is based on an American, Daniel Dunglass Home, whom Browning had met. Moreover, Mr. Sludge, the speaker, gives voice, although inconsistently, to some of Browning’s characteristic religious ideas. The propagandizing is done rather subtly, however, and does not strike the reader as being obtrusive.

“Rabbi Ben Ezra” and “Abt Vogler” are similar to “Mr. Sludge” in being good poems as well as statements of opinion with regard to contemporary questions. The first eight sections of “Abt Vogler” are a brilliant tour de force, a lyrical evocation of the exalted spirit of a musician improvising at the keyboard of an organ. The last four sections are not quite so successful, being too flat an exposition of one of Browning’s pet theories, the “philosophy of the imperfect”:

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.And what is our failure here but a triumph’s evidenceFor the fullness of the days?

The argumentative element does not predominate; sound and sense are not at odds but in harmony with each other. It was one of Browning’s favorites, among his own poems, and it has since been one of the favorites of his readers.

“Rabbi Ben Ezra,” another of Browning’s most popular poems, is perhaps somewhat less successful than “Abt Vogler.” It is unsurpassed, however, as an expression of Browning’s own belief in God. The ideas contained in it are typical of Browning. He says, for example: “What I aspired to be,/ And was not, comforts me.” The reader is reminded of Andrea del Sarto’s dictum in Men and Women: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” Above all, “Rabbi Ben Ezra” is a cogent presentation of Browning’s famous and frequently, if too facilely, maligned optimism.

“Gold Hair” is a curious and troubling poem. It relates an old story about the death of a young woman. She had been regarded virtually as a saint; years after her death, however, it is learned that she had been interested in earthly treasure far more than in a heavenly one. Some have objected to the story itself but that, though macabre and a bit cynical, is really unobjectionable. In the last three stanzas Browning simply lectures his readers.

The poet makes no bones about his intention to preach, and the value of his stories begins to decline as they become more and more pointedly the texts for sermons. “Apparent Failure,” a lesser poem, finds Browning speaking in his own voice. The story is merely the occasion for moral instruction; it is in Browning’s own words, “the sermon’s text.”

The final poem in Dramatis Personae, “Epilogue,” gives brief expression to three religious positions current when Browning wrote. The “First Speaker, as David” sums up the High Church, ritualistic position; the “Second Speaker, as Renan” expresses the skepticism of one familiar with higher criticism. The “Third Speaker,” Browning himself, answers the first two, calling ceremony unnecessary and belief tenable. Browning’s belief, like Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s, is sustained by personal feeling rather than by a process of reason. What is really significant about the poem is that it makes no pretense of being dramatic. It sets the pattern for the bulk of his later poems, for Browning’s values have changed; controversy now means more to him than writing poems, for poetry has become the vehicle for argument. As a result, the poetry suffers, as some of the poems in this volume and virtually all of the later poems, save “The Ring and the Book,” clearly testify.

Bibliography

Browning, Robert. Robert Browning’s Poetry: Authoritative Texts, Criticism. Selected and edited by James F. Loucks and Andrew M. Stauffer. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007. In addition to a selection of Browning’s poetry, this volume contains essays about his work written by nineteenth and twentieth century poets, writers, and critics, including John Ruskin, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Carlyle, William Morris, and Oscar Wilde.

Crowell, Norton B. A Reader’s Guide to Robert Browning. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1972. Criticisms of “Abt Vogler,” “A Death in the Desert,” “Caliban,” and “Epilogue,” with annotated bibliographies following each poem. Includes critical bibliography.

Erickson, Lee. Robert Browning: His Poetry and His Audiences. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984. The chapter on Dramatis Personae interprets the poet’s later work as a departure from the dramatic monologue to works such as “Epilogue to Dramatis Personae,” in which characters express views on religion. Bibliography includes nineteenth and twentieth century reviews and essays.

Hawlin, Stefan. The Complete Critical Guide to Robert Browning. New York: Routledge, 2002. This student sourcebook contains information about Browning’s life and times, as well as discussion and criticism of his work. Devotes a chapter to Dramatis Personae and Men and Women, focusing on the poems about art, religion, and love.

Hudson, Gertrude Reese. Robert Browning’s Literary Life: From First Work to Masterpiece. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1992. Two chapters on Dramatis Personae describe the circumstances of publication, identify sources of the poems, and ascribe the themes to contemporary religious controversies, especially about higher criticism and spiritualism.

Kennedy, Richard S., and Donald S. Hair. The Dramatic Imagination of Robert Browning: A Literary Life. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007. A literary biography, recounting the events of Browning’s life, placing it within the context of its times, and offering critical commentary on his poetry. Chapter 28, “The Good of Poetry,” provides critical remarks on Dramatis Personae.

Tracy, Clarence, ed. Browning’s Mind and Art. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1968. Essays written by well-known Browning critics. The index locates references to some of the poems contained in Dramatis Personae.

Ward, Maisie. Robert Browning and His World: Two Robert Brownings? 2 vols. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. The chapter on Dramatis Personae discusses Browning’s friendship with Benjamin Jowett. Notes religious contrasts in the speakers of the poems.

Woolford, John. Robert Browning. Tavistock, England: Northcote House/British Council, 2007. In his time, Browning was called a “grotesque poet.” Woolford examines the meaning of this term and how it defines Browning’s poetry.