'ho'' Hfe^ - ^S <<. Browning Study Programmes By Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke '< 'T is the poet speaks : But if I, too, should try and speak at times, Leading your love to where my love, perchance. Climbed earlier, found a nest before you knew — Why, bear with the poor climber, for love's sake ! " Balaustion s Ad'venture^ lines 343—347. New York Thomas Y. Crowell ^ Company Publishers TWO COPIES RECEIVED, Library of Co&^p«t||^ OfftcB of tbs AP^/3 mo K9(tl»t»f of Copyrigki^ 61137 Copyright, 1900 By T. Y. Crowell & Co SECOND COPY. o / QCrO CONTENTS Page PREFACE xi GENERAL INTRODUCTION xvii JFirst ^ertcfi! POEMS OF ADVENTURE AND HEROISM . . . 1-28 How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix ; Through the Metidja ; Muleykeh j Donald ; Tray ; Herve Riel ; Incident of the French Camp ; Echetlos 5 Pheidippides. FOLK POEMS 29-41 The Boy and the Angel 5 The Twins ; The Pied Piper of Hamelin ; Gold Hair : A Story of Pornic 5 The Cardinal and the Dog; Ponte dell' Angelo, Venice; The Bean-Feast ; The Pope and the Net ; Muckle- Mouth Meg. PHASES OF ROMANTIC LOVE 42-81 Garden Fancies ; The Laboratory 5 The Confessional; Cristina ; The Lost Mistress; A Woman's Last Word; Evelyn Hope ; Love among the Ruins ; A Lovers' Quarrel ; Two in the Campagna ; A Serenade ; One Way of Love, Another Way of Love; A Pretty Woman; In Three Days, In a Year ; Mesmerism ; The Glove ; In a Gondola ; A Light Woman ; The Last Ride To- VI CONTENTS PHASES OF ROMANTIC LOVE {continued) Page getherj Porphyria's Lover; Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli ; Dis Aliter Visum ; Too Late ; Confessions ; Youth and Ar-t ; A Likeness ; Bifurcation ; Numpho- leptos ; St. Martin's Summer; Solomon and Balkis ; Cristina and Monaldeschi ; Mary WoUstonecraft and Fuseli ; Adam, Lilith, and Eve ; Rosny ; Inapprehen- siveness ; Which ? ; Sonnet : Eyes, calm beside thee. A GROUP OF LOVE LYRICS 82-101 Lyrics from " Pippa Passes" : Give her but a least excuse to love me ; You 'II love me yet ; Meeting at Night ; Parting at Morning ; Song : Nay but you who do not love her ; My Star ; Misconceptions ; One Way of Love j Love in a Life ; Life in a Love ; Natural Magic; Magical Nature; Prologue: Two Poets of Croisic; Wanting is — What?; Never the Time'and the Place ; Lyrics : Eagle, Melon-Seller, Shah Abbas, The Family, Mirab Shah, A Camel Driver, Two Camels, Plot Culture, A Pillar at Sebzevar ; Epilogue to Ferishtah's Fancies; Now; Poetics; Summum Bonum; A Pearl, a Girl ; Sonnet : Eyes, calm beside thee. PORTRAITS OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES . . 102-135 By the Fireside ; Any Wife to Any Husband ; My Last Duchess ; The Flight of the Duchess ; The Statue and the Bust ; James Lee's Wife ; Fifine at the Fair ; A Forgiveness; Bad Dreams; Beatrice Signorini. ART AND THE ARTIST 136-167 The Guardian Angel ; Old Pictures in Florence ; Pictor Ignotus ; Fra Lippo Lippi ; Andrea del Sarto ; The Bishop Orders his Tomb ; Deaf and Dumb ; Eury- dice to Orpheus ; A Face ; Pacchiarotto and How he Worked in Distemper ; The Lady and the Painter. MUSIC AND MUSICIANS 168-187 A Toccata of Galuppi's ; Master Hugues of Saxe- Gotha ; Abt Vogler ; Parleyings with Charles Avison ; The Founder of the Feast. CONTENTS vii Page THE POET 188-217 The Poet in *< Pauline ; " Memorabilia ; Popularity j Transcendentalism ; How it Strikes a Contemporary j At the " Mermaid ; " House; Shop; Touch him ne'er so lightly; Last Lyric in " Ferishtah's Fancies;" Poetics ; Album Lines ; Goldoni ; The Names. EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 218-252 Saul ; Christmas-Eve ; Easter-Day ; An Epistle con- taining the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician; Bishop Blougram's Apology; Cleon ; Rabbi Ben Ezra ; A Death in the Desert ; Caliban upon Setebos. THE PRELATE 253-262 The Monsignor in " Pippa Passes," iv. ; The Nuncio in '* The Return of the Druses," v. ; Ogniben in ** A Soul's Tragedy," ii. ; The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church; Bishop Blougram's Apology; Abate Paul, Canon Girolamo,. the Archbishop, Capon- sacchi, and the Pope in **The Ring and the Book," x. ; The Pope and the Net ; The Bean-Feast. ^econU Verted SINGLE POEM STUDIES Paracelsus 263 SoROELLO 281 Strafford 304 PippA Passes 322 King Victor and King Charles 332 The Return of the Druses 338 A Blot in the 'Scutcheon 352 Colombe's Birthday 360 LuRiA 370 Viu CONTENTS SINGLE POEM STUDIES [continued) Page A Soul's Tragedy . . . „ 384 In a Balcony 392 Childe Roland 399 Mr. Sludge, ** The Medium" 4.10 The Ring and the Book 423 Red Cotton Night-cap Country 448 The Inn Album 455 PORTRAYALS OF NATIONAL LIFE English 466-481 Strafford ; Cavalier Tunes ; Parleying with Charles Avison ; Clive ; The Lost Leader ; Why I am a Liberal ; Jubilee Memorial Lines ; Halbert and Hob Ned Bratts 5 A Blot in the 'Scutcheon ; Martin Relph The Inn Album j Donald j Bishop Blougram's Apology Home Thoughts from the Sea ; Nationality in Drinks Home Thoughts from Abroad ; The Englishman in Italy j De Gustibus. Italian 482-496 Sordello j Fra Lippo Lippi 5 Andrea del Sarto ; Pictor Ignotus ; The Bishop Orders his Tomb ; Old Pictures in Florence 5 Pietro of Abano ; A Gram- marian's Funeral ; My Last Duchess 5 The Statue and the Bust ; Cenciaja j Beatrice Signorini ; The Ring and . the Book j In a Gondola ; A Toccata of Galuppi's j Luria ; A Soul's Tragedy 5 King Victor and King Charles ; Pippa Passes ; Italian in England j De Gustibus. French 497-516 Count Gismond • Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli 5 The Glove 5 The Laboratory ; Herve Riel ; Two Poets of Croisic 5 Incident of the French Camp ; Prince Hohen- stiel-Schwangau ; Gold Hair : A Legend of Pornic 5 Respectabihty j Apparent Failure 5 Red Cotton Night- cap Countiy 5 Fifine at the Fair. CONTENTS IX PORTRAYALS OF NATIONAL LIFE [continued) Page German 517-5^4 Fust and his Friends ; Johannes Agricola in Medita- tion ; Paracelsus j Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha ; Abt Vogler. Spanish 5^5-53° Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister ; The Confessional ; A Forgiveness j How it Strikes a Contemporary. Russian SS^-SS^ Ivan Ivanovitch. Jewish 537754^ Saul ; Rabbi Ben Ezra ; Holy-Cross Day 5 Filippo Baldinucci. Rabbi?j}cal Legends : — Ben Karshook's Wisdom 5 Jochanan Hakkadosh ; Moses the Meek ; Solomon and Balkis ; Doctor . Roman 549~552^ " Imperante Augusto natus est — " j Protus 5 Instans Tyrannus 5 Pan and Luna. Greek 553-5^4 Artemis Prologizes ; Ixion 5 Apollo and the Fates 5 Pheidlppides 5 Echetlos ; Balaustion's Adventure ; Aristophanes' Apology. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEMS 585-594 Development ; The Digression in " Sordello," Book III. ; Waring 5 The Guardian Angel ; Women and Roses 5 One Word More ; May and Death ; Third Speaker in Epilogue to "Dramatis Personae ; " Parts of Book Land XII., "The Ring and the Book;" End of "Balaustion's Adventure;" Prologue to " Fi- fine ; " Pacchiarotto (closing stanzas) ; Epilogue to " Pacchiarotto ; " La Saisiaz ; Prologue to "Jocoseria; " Never the Time and the Place ; Pambo j Epilogue to " Ferishtah's Fancies ;" To Edward Fitzgerald ; Why I am a Liberal ; Epilogue to " Asolando. " X CONTENTS Page BROWNING'S PHILOSOPHY 595-610 Ferishtah's Fancies 5 Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day ; Pisgah Sights j Fears and Scruples; Rephan ; Reverie; Christmas-Eve and Easter- Day ; Epilogue to " Dramatis Personae ; '' La Saisiaz. BROWNING'S ARTISTRY 611-626 INDEX 627 Prefa ce There are now, perhaps always will be, two camps in which many of the readers of poetry intrench themselves. One hedges itself about with walls of opposition to the study of poetry, maintaining that the poet is his own best inter- preter. The other combats the opposition, by slow siege as it were, not claiming, indeed, that the poet is not his own best interpreter, but con- tending constantly that other means of approach to him sorely need to be employed. The writers of this book, intended to be a contribution toward the building up of poetic appreciation, think it only fair to confess that they do not belong, as active combatants, to either of these hostile camps, for the simple reason that they see no sufficient cause for warfare. If neither camp would attempt to coerce the other, each could the more wisely follow its own bent, or — it is barely possible — find a firm ground of reconciliation. In the first camp many of the true lovers of poetry rally, whose aesthetic appreciation is spon- taneous, and whose delight in verse as an art xii PREFACE is inborn ; in the second, many of the lovers of poetry, for the sake of what it illumines ethi- cally or historically, are gathered. And with these who care supremely for poetry as an art and for its appreciation as an inborn sense ; and with those who care for the ethical and historical implications of poetry and who hold, moreover, that the conscious cultivation of the instinctive sense of verse as an art pays because it reveals new beauty, gives deeper pleasure, — the writers confess, once more, that they have no quarrel. Rather do they feel with the one set of dispu- tants the closest bonds of kinship, and with the ideals of the other the warmest sympathy. The aim they have set themselves is the friendly and pacific office of helping those only who desire such suggestions as they offer here, and to help them in such a way that they may help themselves the better to the bounty the poet supplies. This book is based, therefore, as to its general design, in its classifications, its " Topics," " Hints," and '' Queries for Discussion," on the gradual unfolding of the matter the poems contain, all or very nearly all of Browning's poems being woven into its plan. Beginning with the slighter and more obvious poems, and with suggestions upon them, accord- ingly, which are often, perhaps, more obvious than some readers will need, but which others, especially young readers or those new to PREFACE xiii Browning, may possibly require, — the pro- grammes proceed thence to the less simple poems, and follow them on with suggestions also growing less simple, partly by reason of the complex subjects, and partly because it is intended to help the reader less and less. Hav- ing learned how to go on freely in the path opened out to him, it is supposed that he will not require so many hints, but be able to pass on without continuous guidance, yet without neglecting to notice all the steps in the processes of poetic construction, which are pointed out with less detail or overleaped altogether in the Second Series of Programmes. The general order throughout is chronological, so far as this is consistent with the considera- tion, for the most part, of the easier and less involved poems to begin with, and conclud- ing with poems more complicated or admit- ting of wider classifications or more abstract generalizations. Discussions of m'oot-questions indirectly grow- ing out of the subject-matter are intended to follow study of the work itself, as this is the nucleus whence they are derived and should receive first attention. The cardinal principle of the whole plan is that all deductions, aesthetic, critical, ethical, however personal impression and point of view may color them, should be based on thorough acquaintance with what actually is in the poems. xiv PREFACE instead of on what is ofF-hand assumed to be in them. Most poets have suffered from such assumptions, repeated till they were taken for granted, and have thence been compelled to bear fault-finding and misunderstanding or praise and glozing, as the case might be, all equally built on breath. Browning has suffered peculiarly, and especially as an artist, from this sort of in- accurate observation or inattention to just what is in his work and just how and in what relation it is expressed. Mere analysis, it is held, is not exact observa- tion. Synthetic relation of all the parts of any work of art are necessary merely to its percep- tion. Neither will one or two such perceptions tell a straight story. Correlation of the charac- teristics of a poet's work and method is the only fit foundation for genuine appreciation or criticism. Those happily constituted persons who at a glance are really able to set themselves in suffi- ciently close accord with poets of various genius to get out of their work all there is in it of beauty and significance, are clearly best off alone. Who can be justified in quarrelling with their light-winged happiness ? Others, better off with helpful fellowship, are as clearly justified in less lonely appreciation of the ways of genius with mankind. And these may find clew, or stimulation, or merely the trusty staff of orderly arrangement supplied PREFACE XV them in this attempt to direct, by suggestive outlines, their steadfast scrutiny upon the whole body of Browning's work. To them the patient brooding of the alert and inquiring yet docile intelligence may be the means of opening out half-unsuspected traits of beauty and signifi- cance, — a work of art rewarding' intimate at- tention as a work of nature does when it yields up its lurking loveliness to the steady eye of the painter bent on discerning it in its integrity and symmetry. Boston, No'vembei' j^ i8gg. General Introduction What were life Did soul stand still therein, forego her strife Through the ambiguous Present to the goal Of some all-reconciling Future ? Parleyings : With Gerard de Lairfsse. The poetic motive informing Browning's work is, in one word, aspiration, which moulds and develops the varied and complex personalities of the humanity he depicts, as the persistent energy of the scientist, holding its never-wearying way, gives to the world of phenomena its infinite array of shows and shapes. Aspiration — a reaching on and upwards — is the primal energy under- neath that law which we call progress. Through aspi- ration, ideals — social, religious, artistic — are formed} and through it ideals perish, as it breaks away from them to seek more complete realizations of truth. Aspiration, therefore, has its negative as well as its positive side. While it ever urges the human soul to love and achieve- ment, through its very persistence the soul learns that the perfect flowering of its rare imaginings is not possible of attainment in this life. Assurance of the ultimate fulfilment of the ideal is one of the forms in which Browning unfolds the workings of this life principle, well illustrated in " Abt Vogler," who has implicit faith in his own intuitions of a final harmony j or in those poems where the crowning of aspiration in a supreme earthly love flashes upon the understanding a clear vision of infinite love. But by far b xviii GENERAL INTRODUCTION the larger number of poems discloses the underlying force at work in ways more subtle and obscure, through the conflict of good and evil, of lower with higher ideals, either as emphasized in great social movements. In the struggle between Individuals, or In struggles fought out on the battle-ground within every human soul. With a motive so all-inclusive, the whole panorama of human life, with its loves and hates, its strivings and failures, Its half-reasonings and beguiling sophistries. Is material ready at hand for illustration. Browning, In- spired with a democratic Incluslveness, allowed his choice In subject-matter to range through fields both new and old, unploughed by any poet before him. Progress, to be Imaged forth in Its entirety, must be Interpreted, not only through the Individual soul, but through the collec- tive soul of the human race; wherefore many phases of civilization and many attlrudes of mind must be detailed for service. There Is no choosing a subject, as a Tenny- son might, on the ground that It will best point the moral of a preconceived theory of life; on the contrary, every such theory is bound to be of Interest as one of the phenomena exhibited by the transcending principle. From first to last Browning portrayed life either de- veloping or at some crucial moment, the outcome of past development, or the determinative Influence for future growth or decay. His interest In the phenomena of life as a whole, freed him from the trammels of any literary cult. He steps out from under the yoke of the classicist, where only gods and heroes have leave to breathe ; and, equally, from that of the romanticist, where kings and persons of quality alone flourish. Wherever he found latent possi- bilities of character, which might be made to expand under the glare of his brilliant imagination, whether In hero, king, or knave, that being he chose to set before his readers as a living individuality to show whereof he was made, either through his own ruminations or through the force of circumstances. GENERAL INTRODUCTION xix Upon examination it will be found that the sources, many and various, of Browning's subject-matter are broadly divisible into subjects derived from history, from personal experience or biography, from true incidents, popular legend, the classics, and from his own fertile imagination. Of these, history proper furnishes the smallest proportion. " Strafford "" and *' King Victor and King Charles " are his only historical dramas, and with " Sordello," and a few stray short poems, based on historical incidents and persons, exhaust his drafts upon history. Several more have a historical setting with fic- titious plot and typically historic characters, such as the ** Return of the Druses'" and '* Luria ; ^ and still more have a historical atmosphere in which think and move creatures of his own fancy, such as <' My Last Duchess," "Count Gismond," '< In a Gondola."" His most im- portant work, " The Ring and the Book," is founded on the true story of a Roman murder case. Others of his longer poems, developed from real occurrences, are «' The Inn Album," ''Red Cotton Night-Cap Coun- try," '< Ivan Ivanovitch," and some shorter poems. The individual living to develop the mind stuff of the world rather than the individual playing a part in action, at- tracted Browning, and we find a large percentage of his subjects — between twenty and thirty poems — to be dramatic presentations of characters not distinguished for their part in the history of action, but who have played a part more or less prominent in the history of thought or art. Such are '* Paracelsus," " Saul," " Abt Vogler," " Fra Lippo Lippi." Sometimes they appear In the disguise of a name not their own, as in " Bishop Blou- gram," for whom Cardinal Wiseman sat, '< Prince Ho- henstiel-Schwangau " — Napoleon, Mr. Sludge — Home, the Spiritualist. < S^Sj 316, 319.) ''Round us the wild creatures" says a word against the tendency such a soul-wedded pair might have to become completely absorbed in each other, and forget they had any duties to humanity. ** Wish no word unspoken " expresses the feeling that even injustice from the loved one is precious. In " You groped your way across my room," the feeling expressed is, that under the enlightening influence of a A GROUP OF LOVE LYRICS 87 true and constant love, all discords that enter into life will be but a ruffling of the surface of life's deep current, soon to disappear. In »* Man I am and man would be," the lover declares that he asks nothing more in this life than his own human perception of the human beauty and goodness in the one he loves. In **Sothe head aches" he declares that the bodily weakness of the loved one is compensated for in her strength of mind and soul — greater than his, though he is physically so strong. In ** When I vexed you," he welcomes chidings for small faults, because he knows in his own inmost consciousness that he has greater fail- ings, she does not suspect, which deserve far sterner chidings than she ever gives. In ** Once I saw a chemist," he declares that through the love he has known upon earth, he is able to conceive of heaven, which, however, cannot transcend the bliss of earth except in the fact that in heaven the bliss will last. A reminiscent mood is also reflected in ** Verse making" showing that love had been with him so perfectly spontaneous and certain that without and misgivings or calculations as to the results, he imme- diately ** told his love." In ** Not with my soul, love," he expresses the desire that their union shall be complete, emotionally as well as spiritually. In *' Ask not one least word of praise " his mood is that of one to whom speech in praise of the loved one is not sufficiently subtle for the expression of his inmost soul — a touch reveals his soul better. This series of glimpses into a life hallowed by a perfect love is rounded out by the Epilogue to ** Fer- ishtah's Fancies," which reveals the fact that the loved one is dead, and now haunting fears and doubts be- set the man, that all the glory and beauty he has seen 88 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES in the world, owes its existence entirely to the love which has surrounded him in a halo of light. Is it possible to read this series of lyrics connectedly with- out feeling that they grew out of the poet's own ex- perience in life ? Queries for Discussion. — How does this set of lyrics compare with the others in the centering of the thought upon the spiritual rather than upon the material aspects of life and love ? Though these lyrics are not at all didactic, could you draw a lofty ideal of living from them ? In the remaining lyrics, point out any similarities of mood with those already considered. Taken as a whole, do you find a remarkable unity of sentiment in all these lyrics, the differences being merely different phases of the same underlying sentiment ? Do these lyrics, on account of the unity of sentiment, give the impression of being more purely subjective than Browning's work usually is ? II. Topic for Paper, Classworky or Private Study. — Symbolism and Workmanship of the Lyrics. Hi?its : — Of the two lyrics from *' Pippa Passes," ** Give her but a least excuse to love me " is the more dramatic in form. In the two short stanzas a very definite picture is presented of the Queen, the page, and the maiden. Observe that this is done without any de- scription whatever of any of them. How is it done, then ? How much of the situation do you learn from the page's song alone .? From the one word given to the Queen, we are able to conjure up a picture of her, attentive to, and evidently touched by the page's song, and this impression is made all the more strong by contrast with the maiden, whose few words show her careless and indifi-erent, not supposing the Queen A GROUP OF LOVE LYRICS 89 to be interested in the page's song. Notice that the latter part of each stanza is enclosed in parentheses, the form being indirect speech instead of direct — that is, the name of the person speaking is mentioned, and what they say is introduced by " said " in one place, "cried " in another, and so on. If it were not for this should we be able to guess at the person- ality of the boy who is singing and the person to whom he sings ? Does the second stanza express a phase of the mood any more intense than the first ? Do you find any figures of speech in this poem ? The line ** Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part," without being imagery in the ordinary sense, is a symbolical way of saying that nothing would be too arduous for him to undertake for his lady. Who is Kate the Queen ? (See lines following the lyric, and Camberwell Brownings Notes, V^ol. I., p. "58-) The rhythm of this poem is very irregular, the number of feet and the kind of feet varying with each line, for example, the first line of the first stanza has five stresses with the unaccented syllable following the accented one ; the second, two feet, each of which is a single accented syllable followed by a pause in the place of an unaccented syllable. The third line might be scanned as having either five or six stresses. In the first instance, ** can " and *' this " would both be treated as short syllables; in the second, '*How " would be treated as an accented syllable followed by a pause in place of an unaccented syllable, and ** can " would have an accent. Does it give the more musi- cal effect to scan this line as having five stresses ? In deciding a point like this would it be best to be guided 90 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES by the musical effect ? The fourth Hne again has five stresses, but they are preceded instead of followed by the unaccented syllables. The sixth line might be scanned as having six stresses, in which case "to" would have an accent. Would it not, however, give a more musical effect to make **to" and the following syllable «'e" both short and so give the line only five stresses ? The next hne has three stresses, the first followed by a pause, the other two preceded by the unaccented syllables. The seventh line has four, the accented syllable sometimes fol- lowed by two, sometimes by one unaccented sylla- ble, and with an extra unaccented syllable at the beginning of the line. The eighth has four, pre- ceded by two and sometimes by one unaccented sylla- ble. The last has three, followed sometimes by one, sometimes by two unaccented syllables. The second stanza has the same distribution of stresses to the lines, except that the third and sixth lines of the stanza both have to be scanned with six stresses. For this reason it may be that the poet meant the third and sixth lines of the first stanza to be scanned with six stresses, so making the two stanzas counterparts of each other. There is some little variation in the placing of the short syllables. Point these out. Notice that the rhymes are sometimes double and sometimes single. Do you find this poem any the less musical for its irregularity and complexity ? The second of the lyrics from *' Pippa Passes" is far simpler in construction, but is a trifle more meta- phorical in its expression. Point out which of the lines express the feeling directly and which express it by means of figures. The rhythm and rhymes are also simple, the lines alternating between four and A GROUP OF LOVE LYRICS 91 three stresses, the rhymes also alternating. What slight departures are there from this regularity ? In «* Meeting at Night" the first stanza paints in a very few words the evening landscape. The language is perfectly straightforward and simple, breaking only , once into the simile of *' the waves that leap in fiery ringlets." There is also sufficient action in it to indi- cate the situation ; in the second stanza the scene is sketched still further but loses itself in the climax of the situation. Is there any imagery at all in the second stanza } The background of sea-waves seems to be suggested in this poem by the arrangement of the rhymes, the crest of the w^ave being in the middle of the stanza, where the couplet occurs. In each stanza there is also a climax of motion in these two lines which dies away in the first in the quenching of the speed of the boat and in the second in the silent beating of two hearts. The lines all have four stresses preceded sometimes by one, sometimes by two unaccented syllables. Is there any regularity in the alternations of one and two short syllables ? There are two places where two accented syllables come together, in line i and line 10. In the first instance, ** gray sea," it seems to add breadth to the picture because of the longer time it takes to say it, while in the second instance emphasis is added. Point out the variations from the first two stanzas in the third, ** Parting at Morning." In *'Song" there is hardly any imagery. The lover emphasizes his feeling through his admiration of the beloved one's golden tresses, an emblem of her nature, which he declares is pure gold. Notice also that this lyric is not addressed to his lady, but to the people who do not love her, and whom he challenges to 92 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES witness her worth. The lines have four stresses, the first four in stanza i having the unaccented syllable following the accented one, and the last two having the unaccented syllable followed by the accented one. This results in giving the stanza four double rhymes and two single rhymes. What variations do you ob- serve in the second stanza ? In ** My Star," the expression all through is sym- bolical, the beloved one being compared with a star, and this star being further particularized as like an angled spar. For full explanation of this simile see notes to the poem in Camberwell Brozvn'mg, Vol. IV., p. 377. What other things is the Star compared with? In each of these similes a different aspect of the beloved one's nature is pictured. Is there a mixed metaphor in the last hne ? The first eight lines of this poem have two stresses and the last five have four stresses. In the first and third the accented syllables are at the beginning and the end of the line. In the second and fourth, the first accented syllable is preceded by two and the second accented syllable is preceded by one unaccented syllable. This produces a pleasing secondary rhythm. The four following lines are accented in the same way. In the other lines the accented syllables are sometimes preceded by one and sometimes by two unaccented syllables. Is there any regularity in this irregularity forming a secondary rhythm similar to that noticed in the shorter lines ? Notice the distribution of the rhymes and especially how the shorter lines and the longer lines are linked together by a rhyme in common. ** Misconceptions" resembles " My Star" in the symbolism of the language. The thought is pre- A GROUP OF LOVE LYRICS 93 sented in the first stanza symbolically, and in the second one the same thought is interpreted. The lines in this poem have three stresses, except the last two^ which have four. The first line begins with a stress and is followed with two short syllables, the second accented syllable is also followed by two unac- cented syllables, but the third by only one, these two making the rhyme. Are there any variations from these arrangements of accents in any of the other four stressed lines ? Line 6 has four stresses, the accented syllable be- ing followed by two unaccented syllables except at the end of the line, where it is followed by only one un- accented syllable. Is there any variation from this in the other longer lines ? The rhymes in this poem are all double with only two to each stanza. In **One Way of Love," each stanza gives a little different phase of the thought with different symbolism. Roses the lover had strewn for a month, merely with the chance that they might take his lady's eye. Then for many months he had striven to perfect his music, hoping she might ask him to sing. Then, in the last stanza, the climax of devotion is reached and at the same time the climax of renunciation. Is the lan- guage in this poem at all figurative .? The rhythm is regular almost all through, the only breaks being in the fifth line of each stanza, where the line begins and ends with an accented syllable. Also the sixth line of the third stanza begins with an accent. The rhymes are also regular, every stanza being made up of three rhymed couplets. In ** Love in a Life " and ** Life in a Love " is the expression more symboHstic than realistic } Point out any examples you may find of figures of speech in these two lyrics. Notice that the rhythm of these is 94 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES very irregular. The first three lines each have two stresses occurring in different places in each line ; in I, the first and last syllables have the stress ; in 2, the second and last syllables have the stress ; in 3, the third and sixth have the stress. Notice the variety in the distribution of short syllables in these three lines, resulting in which one having the most syllables? All the remaining lines have fiDur stresses. In 4, the syllables with a stress are the first, third, sixth, and ninth ; in 5, the first, fourth, seventh, ninth ; in 6, the first, fourth, seventh, ninth ; in 7, the third, sixth, ninth, eleventh ; in 8, the second, fifth, eighth, eleventh. What variations in the distribution of short syllables result from this ? Do you- discover any recurring rhythm in the irregularities either within the stanza or in comparing the two stanzas with each other ? The rhyme scheme is also quite complicated, the first three lines rhyming respectively with the last three, the first two being single and the third a double rhyme. Then, the two remaining lines in the middle of the stanza rhyme together with a double rhyme. With so much irregularity of rhythm it might be sup- posed that the effect would be that of prose rather than poetry, but it will be found when read that the rhythm is smooth and harmonious. ** Life in a Love " has still other irregularities. It begins and ends with three lines rhymed together, each of which has but one stress. All the remaining lines have four stresses distributed as follows: 4, second, fourth, sixth, eighth syllables ; 5, second, fifth, eighth, ninth ; 6, first, third, sixth, eighth ; 7, third, fifth, eighth, tenth ; 8, second, fifth, seventh, ninth ; 9, second, fifth, eighth, tenth; 10, third, fifth, eighth, tenth; 11, second, fifth, eighth, tenth; 12, third, fifth, seventh. A GROUP OF LOVE LYRICS 95 ninth; 13, second, fourth, sixth, ninth i i/}., second, fifth, eighth, tenth; 15, third, fifth, seventh, ninth; 16, second, fourth, seventh, ninth ; 17, second, fourth, seventh, ninth ; 18, second, fifth, seventh, ninth ; 19, third, fifth, eighth, tenth. The rhymes are arranged in groups of four, the first and second group have the first and fourth hnes rhyming together, and the second and third ; the two remaining groups have the first and third, second and fourth lines rhyming. " Natural Magic " is another example of the symbol being presented in the first stanza, and the feeling it illustrates in the second stanza. Aside from this larger symbolism, is the language of the second stanza entirely reahstic, or is the thought in this presented by means of poetic figures ? The verse in this has three stresses to the first, second, and last lines of the stanzas, and four to all the other lines. The general structure of the stanzas is that of an accented syllable preceded by two unaccented syllables, but the variations are numer- ous ; for example, in line i, the first syllable has an accent and the last has not; in lines 2 and 3, the first accented syllable is preceded by only one unaccented syllable ; the rest of the line is regular. Line 4 is regular, but 5, again, has only one unaccented syllable at the beginning. 6 has an extra unaccented syllable to end with. 7 and 8 both begin with only one unaccented syllable and end with an extra unaccented, and 9 is like i except that it, too, begins with one unaccented syllable. Point out any variations from this you may find in the second stanza. The rhymes in this poem have quite a complex arrangement, — I and 6 rhyme together with a double rhyme, and between these is a quatrain of which the first and fourth rhyme together and the second and third are 96 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES single. Then line 6 forms with the remaining three another quatrain of which the first and fourth, second and third lines rhyme, all double rhymes. In '« Magical Nature," how is the thought pre- sented, in poetic figures or realistically ? Observe that rhyme and rhythm are both very simple in this little poem, though even here there is some variation. For example, in the first stanza, lines i and 3 have six stresses, and 2 and 4 have seven ; while in the second stanza, i and 4 have six, and 2 and 3 seven. In the second stanza, also, there is a single rhyme instead of double rhymes between the second and fourth lines. What irregularity in the metre results from this ? Is there any other irregularity in the metre ? The little lyric which makes the prologue to *'Two Poets of Croisic," presents the thought in three differ- ent symbols, each more intense than the preceding one, and only in the very last line in the simple phrase **That was thy face" does it become apparent that it is a love lyric. The rhythm consists of three and two stresses. Line i has three, on the first, fourth, and sixth syllables; 2, on the first and fourth ; 3, on the first, fourth, and sixth ; and 4, on the first and fourth. The other stanzas are exactly the same, but it is to be noticed that the quantity of the unaccented syllable "starved" is so much greater than the other unac- cented syllables in the first stanza that it has a very strong secondary accent, — so much of a one, indeed, that if the form were not set by the other stanzas, it would seem more natural to scan this line as if it had four instead of three stresses. In this case the line would consist of two feet made up of an unaccented syllable between two accented syllables. Also in the third line of the third stanza, *' God's" has a strong A GROUP OF LOVE LYRICS 97 secondary accent, so strong that the line taken alone could just as well be scanned as having three stresses preceded by three unaccented syllables. Yet the rhythm of the whole poem is better preserved by scanning it like the other three stressed lines. The rhyme scheme here is perfectly simple. In " Wanting is — What : " the symbolism is so mys- tically expressed that opinions differ as to the interpreta- tion, as we have already seen. Aside from its larger symbolism, is the language of the poem figurative or metaphorical ? The rhythm is interesting from the regularity of the irregularity. The first line of two stresses, with two unaccented syllables between, sets the pattern for the rest of the stanza, every line of which, through line i i, begins with the same arrange- ment of syllables. From line 5, through line 10, two more stresses are added, with sometimes one, sometimes two unaccented syllables preceding. Point out these variations, also the lines where unaccented syllables are added at the end making double rhymes. The last three lines vary from the other short lines in what way r Observe the arrangement of rhymes. What peculiarities of rhyme and rhythm do you observe in *' Never the Time and the Place " farther than that the lines vary in the number of stresses, some having four, some three, some two .? Query for Discussion. — Is the beauty of these lyrics due almost entirely to the variety and harmony of their rhythmical music, or is it helped on by alliteration and choice of words ? On the whole, the ** Ferishtah's Fancies " lyrics are realistic in language, though there are exceptions. Point out all the poetic symbols and images you may observe. The rhythm of these will be found to be 7 98 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES more regular than that of the lyrics so far considered. *' Round us the wild creatures " has six stresses, ex- cept lines 4 and i 2, which have seven. The unac- cented syllables follow the accented ones except at the end of the lines. The only other variation to be noted is the changing of places, in line i , of the second accented and unaccented syllables. '* Wish no word unspoken " has lines of six and seven stresses, 2, 5, and 6 having seven, the relation of the accented to the unaccented syllables being the same as in the pre- ceding lyric. " You groped your way across my room ' ' has seven stresses, the unaccented syllable preceding the accented syllable. Do you observe any irregularities at all in this ? " Man I am and man would be " has eight stresses, with the unaccented syllable following the accented syllable. *' So the head aches" has four stresses to the line, with consid- erable variation in the placing of the unaccented syl- lables. For example, in line i the first, fourth, seventh, ninth have the accent ; in 2 the first, fourth, sixth, ninth ; in 3 the third, fifth, eighth, tenth ; in 4 the first, fourth, sixth, eighth. Show what other differences there are in the other stanzas. ** When I vexed you" has three stresses, preceded sometimes by one, sometimes by two unaccented syllables. Observe also that there is sometimes an extra unaccented syllable at the end of the Hne. ** Once I saw a chemist " has six stresses to all the lines but the last of each stanza, which has seven. The unaccented syllables follow the accented ones, with a few exceptions to be noted. ** Verse-making was least of my virtues " has five stresses, with some- times two, sometimes one unaccented syllable preced- ing. Line 2 is perhaps the hardest line in the poem A GROUP OF LOVE LYRICS 99 to scan, but it will be found to run quite smoothly if the accents are placed upon the third, sixth, ninth, twelfth, and fifteenth syllables. Notice that in this line there are two unaccented syllables to every ac- cented one. Are there any other lines similar to this one ? There is a slight variation in the printing of this poem in the nine-volume and latest two-volume English edition. The dwiberw ell Browning follows the latter, and prints the phrases ** And made verse " and ** I made love " as part of the fourth line in each stanza. Printed so, it simply adds another foot to the line, which then has an internal rhyme. But in the nine- volume English edition, these phrases are printed in a line by themselves, and in that case each syllable would have a stress. Which seems to you the prefer- able way of printing and scanning it \ " Not with my soul, love " has five stresses, usually preceded by a short syllable, though many of the lines begin with a stress which is followed by a short syl- lable, thus bringing two short syllables together ; see lines I, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10. The last line has but two stresses, on the first and last syllables. *« Ask not one least word of praise" has four stresses, with unac- cented syllable following, the line ending, however, with an accent. Do you note any irregularines at all in this poem ? The ** Epilogue " varies in the number of stresses, for example, in the first stanza line i has five, fol- lowed by an unaccented syllable; 2 has six, 3 has six, 4 has seven. Of the other stanzas, the second has: line i,six; 2, six ; 3, six; 4, seven. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh stanzas : i, six ; 2, seven; 3, six ; 4, seven. Notice the various effects in the rhyming of these lOO BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES lyrics and compare with the preceding group in regard to their complexity. Of the remaining lyrics, '* Now " has four stresses to the line. ** Poetics " is somewhat irregular. In the first stanza, the stresses, in line i, fall on the first, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth syllables ; in 2, on the first, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth, twelfth, fourteenth ; in 3, on the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh ; in 4, on the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth. In the second stanza, the stresses fall, in line i, on the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, sylla- bles ; in 2, on the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh syllables ; in 3, on the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh ; in 4, on the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh. '* Summum Bonum " has lines of five stresses preceded by two unaccented syl- lables, and lines of three stresses with sometimes one, sometimes two unaccented syllables between. '* A Pearl, a Girl " has four stresses, sometimes preceded by one, sometimes by two unaccented syllables. Point out the variations. The sonnet form is used only occasionally by Browning, and from the irregularity of the stresses in ** Eyes, calm beside thee," it is evident that his muse was restive under its bonds. It is true that there are fourteen lines and each line has five stresses, but the short syllables are varied in the poet's usual free manner, and the rhymes in the octette do not follow the prescribed order at all. Point out how it differs from the usual sonnet form. Queries for Discussion. — Where the symbolism in these poems is drawn from nature is it vague and general rather than special ? What is its character when drawn from science ? A GROUP OF LOVE LYRICS lOi How many different kinds of symbolism do you observe, and which kind predominates ? From this study of the workmanship of these lyrics should you conclude that Browning could not write a lyric, as some critics have said, or that his lyrics really have a more organic music than most other poets have been able to compass ? Does this result from the fact that the liberties he takes in the distribution of accented and unaccented syllables make it possible for him to combine fre- quently the sense accent with the rhythmical accent at the same time that he escapes the wrenched accents so likely to occur in strict rhythm ? If he has any wrenched accents point out whether they are upon weak syllables or whether strong syllables are left with- out an accent, and discuss which produce the more unpleasant effect. Could it be said that, since a sense accent never falls on a weak syllable, a rhythmical accent on a weak syllable is more unpleasant than no accent on a strong syllable, when it has, as frequently, no sense accent ? Portraits of Husbands and Wives Page Vol. Text Note " By the Fireside " iv 87 377 " Any Wife to Any Husband " iv 98 378 " My Last Duchess " iv 143 384 << The Flight of the Duchess" iv 219 393 <' The Statue and the Bust " iv 265 396 ** James Lee's Wife " v 132 303 " Fifine at the Fair " ix 68 288 "A Forgiveness" ix 227 303 " Bad Dreams" xii 204 365 " Beatrice Signorini " xii 229 370 Compare with these, Charles and Polyxena in *< King Victor and King Charles," i. 237, 3275 " Andrea del Sarto," v, 36, 284 5 Guido and Pompilia, Pietro and Violante, in " The Ring and the Book," vi., vii. 5 the new Alkestis and Admetos, in Conclusion to '< Balaustion's Adventure," viii. 80, 289 5 " Doctor ," ix. 213, 321 ; " Adam, Lilith, and Eve," ix. 246, 327 ; the duke and the druggist's daughter in ** Parleying with Daniel Bartoli," xii. 89, 326. I. Topic for Papery Classwork, or Private Study. — The Situation and the Characters. Hhits : — The story each of these poems has to tell is, how the various characters are placed with reference to the different situations they face. Their ways of meeting these situations reveal their nature. For general summaries of the subject-matter, see Camber- zvell Browni?igy Notes, as cited above. The husband in ** By the Fireside" imagines a situation he will have to meet when he is an old HUSBANDS AND WIVES 103 man left alone by the younger generation. The situation he anticipates is sketched realistically in stanzas i. and ii., so that we see him, by the fire, steadily turning the pages of an old Greek book ; hear the shutters flap in the November wind-skurries, and the youngsters cautiously planning to steal out while he is so absorbed. But stanza i. prepares us to understand that this is only the frame of an external sort of portrait. It is the soul's ripe autumnal hue, and the music of her voices with which he is planning to solace himself in life's November. It is an inward portrait of himself that he will draw, in the act of mentally realizing what his love for his wife and hers for him have meant. The Greek he pictures himself as deep in (stanza iii.) is, as he explains in stanzas iv. and v., but an outside frame for an inside archway, a network of impressions and recollections opening a wide vista through his hfe from age to youth and Italy. He passes on through this to live his love over again, beginning more externally in descriptive first impres- sions of out-door scenes enjoyed together in Italy (stanzas vii. to xx.); then more and more internally penetrating in the remainder of the poem to the signi- ficance to them of their joint emotions, to be realized in old age, as these first impressions of the earlier part of their day out-doors together were ripened for them, at second view, on their return, in the evening. Notice that stanzas xxi.-xxx. introduce this second division of more introspective reminiscence with an apostrophe to his wife and the blest old age to which such youth must lead. Then stanza xxxi. takes up the theme, dropped in stanza xx., of the bird there spoken of, with a noonday picture of it sdlled by the I04 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES menace of two hawks. Stanza xxxii. rapidly takes his memory to afternoon, and the growing silence and significance of evening. Stanzas xxxiii.— xlvi. review the home-return and its feelings ; xlvii. presents the climax of emotion ; xlviii. links this with the out-door influence ; and, finally, xhx.-liii. sum up this love experience as the potency for the distinctive fruitage of his soul henceforth. Discuss further the descriptions, allusions, and anal- ogies employed. Do you think he was thinking, literally, of a learned book, or of that as a symbol of the volume of experiences age collects } Is the book really, then, to be all prose, no verse ; or is he play- fully seeing himself ** as others see him," especially as children look upon an old man, as if for him the romance of life is over, while he means to show it is enhanced ? For information as to localities, the relation of these with Mr. and Mrs. Browning, allusions, etc., see Camberwell Brownmg. What idea does the poem give you of the man personally, as to his sensi- bility, observation of nature, culture, and character } What do you gather as to the woman } «*Any Wife to Any Husband" is a counterpart portrait of a wife who, like the husband of *' By the Fireside," cleaves to the love she has experienced with only the more intensity when life is ripe. The situa- tion she is facing — her approaching death — comes out in the first stanza (line 6). She apprehends, although her husband would be equally absorbed in his love for her could she live, that now he will not be. The inner situation implied in this, considered with reference to her own and her husband's character, occupies her outpouring throughout the poem. Wherein her husband will fail in devotion comes out HUSBANDS AND WIVES 105 how, in lines 7-24 ? Does she claim that his stead- fastness is due merely to her personal charm ? Still, her desire that his fidelity perfectly correspond with her own ideal of love for them both bursts out again in lines 25-33. In lines 34-48 what praise does she again give him, and what does this tell you of his character ? Finally (lines 49—78), she expresses just what the further point of view is which she exclaims against with passion again (79-102), uphold- ing her own point of view, in stanzas xviii. and xix., maintaining that he could do as much or more, in the two following stanzas ; until with the last half-line of the poem she rises to a climax of desire for this and doubt of it. How far does the poem reveal the character of this wife and husband ? Is it a less objec- tive portrait of the two than that given in **By the Fireside" ? Why ? What reason can you give to justify the guess that the first poem is a sort of dramatization of Browning as a husband, and his point of vievv^ ; and the second a sort of dramatization of Mrs. Browning, not neces- sarily as his own wife, but as a type of such a woman's point of view ? ** My Last Duchess," '* The Flight of the Duchess," and ''The Statue and the Bust " belong together in portraying husbands and wives whose environment is not modern, as that of the two fore- going poems is. They are all almost medieval. Even the portraits of Guido and Pompilia in ** The Ring and the Book " are appropriate to a period when the legal or generally accepted views of a husband's authority over a wife had become somewhat more questionable. '* The Flight of the Duchess," though it probably lo6 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES belongs in its setting to a later time and a northern country, Germany, ranks with the first two Italian poems because of the mediaevalism affected by the husband, against which the Duchess revolted. The situation, accordingly, in all these poems is alike, being largely created by exactions of the husband enforced in a way foreign to the conditions allowable between modern husbands and wives. The situations sketched lie, therefore, in a more physical plane than in the first two poems. In *' My Last Duchess," for example, instead of a situation created as in ** By the Fireside" out of the husband's claim that the love experience of youth is spiritually fulfilled in old age, or out of the wife's claim, in the following poem, that only absolute fidelity after the death of the wife suits the ideal beauty of a supreme love, is a situation so far removed from these that it consists in a hus- band's arranging with an envov for a successor to the wife he had ordered should die. All that is involved in this situation comes out in the course of this interview. While exhibiting his last wife's portrait to this envoy, this husband shows her nature and his own, how ? Notice that you gather at once, since he speaks of the painting as that of his last Duchess ** looking as if she were alive," that she is now dead ; also, that he is a collector and appreciator of art ; that the two men are standing, since he invites the visitor to sit, etc. ; that he is sensitive now, and has been, to the admiration his wife's beauty excites, since he warns his visitor, **by design," that the artist was a monk, and then launches out in details of resentment against the Duchess for being of so gladsome a temperament that she showed interest in more than himself; that he was so proud and taciturn in his demands that to order her death HUSBANDS AND WIVES 107 was the only way to maintain them. Observe the threatening effect, after this explanation, of the repe- tition of his first words, ** There she stands as if alive." How do you learn that the visitor has been sitting during all the talk ? What other picturesque details come out in the remaining lines to complete the husband's character and illustrate the situation ? The situation and the characters ot the husband and wife in ** The Flight of the Duchess " agree in important respects with those in the preceding poem. Wherein do they differ, and in what are they alike ? The situation is made clear by one speaker, also ; but he is not a prominent personage in the story, as in the other poem; and observe how many more personages are involved in the story, and how many more details and side-lights can and do come out, because an observer, this huntsman, closely allied to the household, is telling the tale to a trusted friend. Show how the situation is presented, so that the country, the father and the mother of the present Duke, the circumstances that led to the son's affecta- tion of mediasvalism, the conventionalisms he intro- duced, the wife he chose, the way she came to the castle, her nature and looks, her husband's notions of wifely propriety, their effect on the bride, and finally the surprising events that followed are related with familiarity and vividness: the hunt ; the coming of the Gipsies, the peculiar character and habits of the Northland Gipsies, and especially of the Gipsy crone ; her interview, first with the Duke, then with the Duchess ; her incantation and its effect, and how much of this and under what circumstances he, the story-teller, overheard or otherwise knew ; what happened when he came to himself, and how he io8 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES helped the two off on horseback ; and, last of all, how the thirty years since he last set eyes on the Duchess have passed at the castle, and under what circumstances he is disburdening himself of the whole story, confessing his cherished loyalty to the runaway Duchess and his scorn of his master the Duke. How does the poem lead you to explain the char- acters of this husband and wife ? To account for the effect of the Gipsy's song upon Jacynth, the hunts- man, the Gipsy herself, and the Duchess ? To delight in the flight that followed ? Are the huntsman's final words, at the last line of the poem, a fair summing up of the characters and the situation ? What idea does his story-telling give of his own character ? Of his relations with Jacynth ? The relations of the husband and wife are not the main concern in " The Statue and the Bust ; " but the situation grows out of these, and through it we get a glimpse of the husband's character as well as of the wife's, what sort of claims he makes upon her, and how he enforces them, and how they do not, in this case, lead to the wife's flight. Show, in detail, how the whole story is brought out in narration of whut the Florentines tell about the statue, by giving dramatically what the lady said, what the bridesmaids saw and whispered, what the Duke said and looked, felt and perhaps expressed ; the efl^ect of their inter- view on the bridegroom's talk and action, and of this on the lovers' desires, talk, and inaction ; and show, finally, how the poet's comment on their letting *' I dare not wait upon I would " applies to the situation and the characters, remembering that the inquiry at this time is not to discuss the moralitv of his com- HUSBANDS AND WIVES 109 ment, but merely to get what is expressed in its rela- tion to the story and the characters. Modern characters and a situation of a merely spiritual kind between the husband and the wife relate "James Lee's Wife" with the iirst two poems of this series rather than with those just re- viewed. The lyrical treatment brings out the situa- tion, — which is merely the recognition by the wife of the husband's estrangement, — and presents the characters of the two, through the emotional expres- sion of the wife's love, in much the same manner as in *' Any Wife to Any Husband." What are the different moods of the wife; and what do they tell you of the place where they are ; of herself, her love, her mind and tastes and development ; and of her husband's nature .? In ♦* IV. — Along the Beach " and ** IX. — On Deck" more comes out than in the other divisions of the poem as to her husband's point of view and personality and her own personal appearance. What do you gather as to these .? How do you account for the extreme harshness of her refer- ence to her own hair and skin in stanza viii. of ** On Deck " ? Is this to be taken literally ? Notice how the sub-titles of the different divisions, " At the Window," ** By the Fireside," etc., give a stage set- ting that suggests the terms of her expression. Might these similes as to her hair and skin be suggested by the cargo of the boat, — logs and bales of hair, that may be imagined as piled near by her on the deck of a French coaster, — or is it better to attribute these similes to overstatement belonging to her characteristic intensitv ? "A Forgiveness" and ** Beatrice Signorini " are counterpart pictures, in so far as both show how a lie BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES certain type of husband and a certain type of wife resented and treated an indulgence of their spouses in a superficial affair. The jealousy and pride of the husband of ** A Forgiveness " leads to actual violence against both the wife and her lover ; while that of the wife, " Beatrice Signorini," leads her to a deed of violence, less tragic but more effective, against the rival's portrait. But point out the many differences, both in the manipulation of the story (which, in the one case, is through the medium of the husband's monologue giving his point of view, and in the other, through the poet's narrative giving all points of view) and in the elements entering into the jealousy and the differences in the characters of the three persons in each poem. Contrast the rivals, particularly the insignificance of the man in "A Forgiveness," the superiority of Artemisia ; and the effect of this difference. Is jealousy the motive of the husband's act in *' A Forgiveness " ? Why then did he wait to punish his wife, and why did he punish her at all when he did, since he had then learned that she really loved himself? But if jealousy had no part in his act, why did he stab the rival? Consider whether **A Forgiveness" is really a poem of forgiveness or revenge, or both, or whether the title is satiric. Can that be said to be forgiveness which finds satisfaction only in the death of the person forgiven ? Is there anything to show that the husband regretted his action ? Ask where the husband is when he tells his story ; to whom he relates it ; what he was, — did he hold his position of honor or trust through worth or birth ? and in what line do you infer it was? Did this husband love his wife at first, and was she at all justified in HUSBANDS AND WIVES III resenting his living so much away from her ? What light does this throw on her character ? Why did she take the course of action he describes ? Was it through her lack of love for him, or was he at fault, or were circumstances to blame ? Do you admire the pride shown thereafter by both ? On which did this trial by silence bear harder ? Do you think the wife's second confession (of the truth this time) deserved the reception it got ? What do you think of the motives of this husband and wife ? Was either of them justified in the action taken ? Did the husband recognize the lover from the first? Note the lines, *' — or his who wraps — Still plain I seem to see! — About his head The idle cloak;" also, any other references to the same effect. Do you suppose the lover became a monk to elude the hus- band's vengeance, or do you think he may have gone into the monastery because his life was completely broken, through the incident with the wife ? What was the monk's fate at last, and did he deserve it? The situation which disturbs the relations of Elvire and her husband, when they visit Pornic fair and see Fifine, is a conflict, in practice rather than in theory, between their points of view as to how com- pletely a supreme love should assert its spiritual ascendency over lesser attractions. With reference to the wife, how does her situation and point of view differ from or agree with that of the other wives in the preceding poems ? The husband in character and point of view is much the same as the husband of "Any Wife to Any Husband." Although Elvire is walking by his side, instead of about to die, like the wife in the earlier poem, it is to be noticed that she grows shadowy from time to nrne. ?nd especially at 112 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES the end of the poem, as seen through her husband's eyes ; that this is in accordance with the argument he is carrying on, wherein he makes the wife considered as a phantom judge herself considered as the real wife. In this way she partakes of the nature of that purely spiritual side of love with which he identifies her, and of the experimental side, also, through which she, too, must be judged. Follow his talk, not in particulars, but in its general trend, throughout the poem, in order to see what his argument setting forth the situation as he sees it amounts to ; then notice what his action is, and judge, taking him at his word, how it agrees or can be reconciled with the argument. What do both argu- ment and action reveal, — the first as to his culture and habits, aesthetic sensibility and taste, ideals and aspiration ; the second, as to his will and character ? For example, the general trend of his argument admits that there is a love which is essential and supreme for each two who feel it, but that this is spiritual and absolute and can only be known rela- tively. It is recognized the more clearly through the development of the individual consciousness, and that is developed by means of sense in relations with others in actual life. His opening speeches (stanzas vi.— xiii.) oppose conventional life to Bohemianism, and strive to find the secret of Fifine's real value as an individual, in contrast with Elvire and the other types of women he instances (lines 149—909). What has this to do with the argument ? Concede that it illustrates the worth of each individual soul, and that this worth may be perceived by every one despite imperfection through sympathetic relationship ; still. HUSBANDS AND WIVES 113 does he need to have taken care to prepare the way for his final action (see stanza cxxxii.) to prove to himself in this case what he accepts in general ? Elvire objects (stanza Ix., see especially lines 917— 922), showing her distrust of sense as really minis- trant to soul. Notice all the speeches attributed to her, how. they reveal her character slightly and incidentally, but throw suspicion on his, preparing the reader for this final action of his as being just what she guesses will follow his good argument for en- abling the intuitions of the soul to transcend sense. Despairing of explanation, in words, of the in- definite emotional appeal sense makes to soul as in music (Ixi.), he turns to nature (Ixii. and foil.), and then (lines 1009-1 143) hkens the use of the false or fleeting and relative in human attachments to attain the true and ultimate in human development to motion through the unstable, as in swimming, so that progress is made and the need for light and air met also. Elvire objects (Ixix.) that if development through the recognition of individual value were what he really desired, he would look for it in all men and not in women only. He acknowledges (lines 1 1 54-1 1 55) that this parry shifts his argument from the general to the particular test, i. e. not whether the reasoning is good, but whether he is reasoning disinterestedly and will apply it disinterestedly. To meet this he claims (1162-1371) that the materialism and selfish- ness of men are not qualified to educe growth as the idealism and unselfishness of women are. Again Elvire is made to object that if this be so, there is no need of a Fifine to do him such service less well than the Elvire he acknowledges best. To which he rejoins that a poorer craft induces the more 8 114 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES skill in the manager. The use of any means is to attain a genuine aim. It is the attraction of art that it uses means towards an end, transcends its processes, does not pretend to be absolutely, but in simulating the truth teaches what reality is (1372— 1529). So, in general, through the perception of life without pretence that it is absolutely true or per- manent, a sense of truth, of permanence in flux itself, is evolved. This is exemplified widely, in a dream he tells (1539—2226), with reference to human nature and social relations. (See digest of the poem in Camberwell Browningy Notes, Vol. IX., p. 288, also passages in Introduction, pp. xiii, xvi-xxi.) Does the conclusion that the ripe nature knows the ascendency of soul and the good of constancy in love accuse the husband of lack of development .'' But is Elvire as developed as he } Are her ideas of married constancy the fruit of experience, or intuition, or convention ? ** Bad Dreams " gives expression alternately to a wife's and a husband's mood in regard to each other, at a time when some discord of mistrust, on his part, and consciousness of it, on her part, has broken in on the harmony of their love. The under consciousness of this seems to have come out in these dreams they have which they tell each other. The first is ap- parently the wife's. What does it reveal of her secret uneasiness as to her husband's brooding t Does it seem to be an unconscious revelation of her soul t And should you judge from it that her love was true, deep ? The second is chiefly the dream of the hus- band which he tells her. From the opening stanzas addressed to her, before telling the dream itself, what idea do you get of his blaming her and being HUSBANDS AND WIVES 115 primed to accuse her of the nameless evil he has but dreamed about her, yet puts faith in superstitiously, as if it were real ? How do you get this idea ? Is the dream itself of the toil of men and women at a dance without gayety a sign of a morbid mind as to the relations of men and women ? What is the dream ? Is it specific enough to suggest what his quarrel with her may be ? As to the charge itself, how does it reveal him as still shaken and under the spell of the dream ? Notice his break oif (line 62), and the protestation, first, that his respect shall stay firm, and then, that now she is there in the flesh she must explain, and not object that it was merely a dream, etc. She follows this with another dream (lines 86-100). Do you think its absurdity and inconsequence really dreamlike ? Do her dream and her manner about his convince you of her innocency of heart and mood ? Can you suppose it merely a clever turning off of the inquisitory air he has shown ? *' Bad Dreams," III., is supposably the man's dream and is suggestive, but so very vaguely so, of personal rela- tions or situations, that one may fancy what he pleases about it. How would you explain its con- gruity with the other dreams, and with the situation between these two .'' Does the implied meaning, suggested in Camberwell Brozvni?ig, Notes, p. 366, suit, or can you think of something closer to the figure of forest and city becoming a curse to each other? The last dream is obviously the wife's. Has it the same whimsical quality her second dream had ? Or has it rather the pathetic, almost heart- worn character her first one had ? What should you infer from that of the genuineness or slight nature of her love ? What does it tell you of his ? And do you Ii6 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES think her impression of him as revealed in this last dream is worth more than his of her ? Queries for Discussion. — Do the varieties of char- acter presented in these portraits of husbands and wives differ distinctly from one another; or may they be classed, with slight differences, under a few gen- eral types ? How many such are there, and how many may be added, or classed with these, on com- parison with the husbands and wives in ** King Victor and King Charles," "Andrea del Sarto," "The Ring and the Book," the ** Parleying with Daniel Bartoli," etc. (see list before given) ? Do the situations differ much; and how often do they arise from the desire of one or the other for ex- clusive devotion, from a rival's attractions, or outside social relations ? Is the husband's point of view 'in the first poem, or the wife's in the second, the finer, in that he is taken up with his own fidelity and has nothing to say as to hers, while she is concerned that his shall equal hers ? Is it a token of elevated love to desire that the loved one's return should be perfectly reciprocal, or is this inconsistent with a high degree of individual de- velopment of character ? Is there room for doubt that the Duke of Ferrara had his last Duchess put to death ? ** He succeeded and he seems to be proud of it," says Professor Corson ("Introduction to Browning," p. 87), *Mn shutting off all her life currents . . . and we must suppose that she then sank slowly and uncomplainingly away. ... * I gave commands ' certainly must not be un- derstood to mean commands for her death." Again (preface to third edition), he says he referred to Browning " the divided opinion as to the meaning " HUSBANDS AND WIVES 117 of this expression ; that the poet *'made no reply, for a moment, and then said, meditatively, * Yes, I meant that the commands were that she should be put to death,' and then, after a pause, added ... as if the thought had just started in his mind, ' Or he might have had her shut up in a convent.' " Is this ques- tion of consequence aesthetically or historically, or both? See Symonds's ** Renaissance in Italy," Vol. III., chapter vii., for historical examples of such mar- ital commands. Which action best suits the character of the Duke and the Duchess ? How does it agree with the Riccardi's imprisonment of his wife in " The Statue and the Bust " ? (See *' The Statue and the Bust," a Parable, Poet-lorCy Vol. X., p. 398, for a similar instance.) In *'The Flight of the Duchess " can any explana- tion be made upon natural grounds for the change in the appearance of the Gipsy Queen which the teller of the story noticed ? Was the wife's attraction towards the Gipsies one of race, freedom from artificial re- straint, or of an emotional and happy natural life as opposed to a cold and formal subordination ? Is James Lee's wife unlovable ? Is it a defect in James Lee's character, or is it natural that he should tire of intensity ? For whom do we feel the most sympathy, — the deceived priest, the deceived husband, or the deceiv- ing wife of "A Forgiveness"? Whose love is the sincerest ? Is the argument of Elvire's husband sophistical, or is he insincere, or is his will weak, and his character cruder than his intellect ? II. Topic for Paper, Classwork, or Private Study. — The Relationship and its Possibilities. Il8 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES Hifits : — Observe what the nature of the relationship is between these husbands and wives, and test its value for them by noticing what it is actually capable of for each in developing them and making life worth more to them. The husband, in ** By the Fireside," supplies his own estimate of his relationship with his wife and of its infinitely expansible worth to him in making his life worth while. And the wife, in the second poem, is so far in agreement with such an idea of the per- petual worth of a supreme love that for her it is ca- pable of absorbing her whole heart ; but, if we take her word for it, it is not capable of so absorbing her husband's. If for him the relationship were equally absorbing, even in her absence, her idea of all its capa- bilities for both of them would have been met. Would this prove to be development equally for him .? Might he not claim, as Elvire's husband does, that there are other relationships and points of view in life, and that it is a question for each individual nature to ask as to what educes its quality most effectively? Would the idea held by the husband of ** By the Fireside " have satisfied the craving of this type of wife, and would it carry out the utmost capability of the relationship ? Is there an intenser strain in the idea of the relation- ship held by James Lee's wife ? What can you de- rive from the poem as to James Lee's idea of their relationship ? Is there any justification of his ennui suggested, or was it akin to that of the hero of ** An- other Way of Love " ? Is the husband of ** By the Fireside," in a still closer sense, a supplementary figure to the wife of "Any Wife to Any Husband" because he is trying to meet such a wife's idea of the possibilities of their relationship ? HUSBANDS AND WIVES 119 Can you judge how far he is indebted to her for the initiation of the idea in which he shares ? Notice, moreover, that, as Browning paints him, he is antici- pating what he will do in an old age not yet actually reached. Compare "St. Martin's Summer" as a picture of what such a husband might feel in presence of an attraction after his wife's death, although he recognized it to be of a lesser sort. Which con- quered in that poem ? Is he actually ** ghost be- reft," or does he only fear to be ? Which of the husbands in the remaining poems are more Hke the husband of "By the Fireside," in their idea of their marriage relationship and its possibilities ; and which are more like James Lee ? Is there in any of Browning's work any double of the husband of the first poem to be found (except by implication in ** One Word More," ** The Wall" — Prologue to " Pacchiarotto," "Never the Time and the Place," and other such thinly veiled autobiographical poems ?) outside of the lovers, — such as Valence in '* Colombe's Birthday," Capon- sacchi in "The Ring and the Book," etc. .? What inference do you draw from this as to Browning's observation of life ? The desire of '*Any Wife," James Lee's wife, and Elvire for evolving from the married relationship its utmost possibilities for mutual devotion might be called the desire for exclusive possession on the spirit- ual plane ; and so corresponding with the desire of the husbands of "My Last Duchess," ''The Flight of the Duchess, "The Statue and the Bust," for getting out of the relationship all it was selfishly worth to them, which might be called the desire for exclusive possession on the physical plane. I20 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES Is Beatrice Signorini to be classed with this group of wives ? Or in what respects does her idea of the relationship and its possibilities diiFer from theirs? Is Francesco's relationship with her the highest pos- sible for him ? What does Browning's way of telling of his attraction for Artemisia intimate as to the pos- sibility for a relationship which would conduce to Romanelli's higher development were he capable of fitly responding? Does the husband of ** Bad Dreams" in his sus- piciousness and exactions belong with the husbands who are disposed to consider the married relationship as a field for impressing their will upon others ? Com- pare his ideas of marriage with those of the husband in George Meredith's ** Modern Love," as examples of the survival of dominating egotism mixed with the refinement of a modern husband of more than ordi- nary sensibility. The husband of'* A Forgiveness" is especially interesting because he presents an apparent contra- diction. He seems to have high ideas at first of the possibilities of the relationship between himself and his wife, to scorn jealousy of the vulgar sort, and to have the purest grief awakened when he dis- covers his wife's disloyalty. But later, his coldness and disdain, his refined cruelty of silence and of ven- geance, finally, when he learns that her error was due to misguided love for him, show him to be in his different way as bent upon asserting his preroga- tives as the Duke of Ferrara. Is it a token of the desire for spiritual ascendency which the wife of *' By the Fireside ' ' has and the wife of ** Any Wife to Any Husband " wants to have, that the wife of ' A Forgiveness ' is hungry for HUSBANDS AND WIVES 121 greater love and a more spiritual power over her husband, and seeks to arouse his physical passions from the intellectual control to which they are subject ? In so doing she, as it were, divides the physical and spiritual elements of her love, feeding thus a jealous reaction, amounting almost to hatred, against the love that seemed to her too superior and self-contained to be love. Show the similar lack of balance on his part in the sequel. Did he not criticise her love also, and turn judge and executioner because it was not what he would have it ? Did either develop a higher phase of love in the course of the poem ? What should you say was the idea of their married relationship held by Elvire's husband; and what that of its possibilities ? Do the two disagree somewhat, his idea of their relationship being that he holds a similar right to that the Duke of Ferrara claimed, — to get out of that, and all other relations beside, what he wanted ; while his ideas of the possibilities of the relationship are almost as exalted as those of the husband of ** By the Fireside." Queries for Discussion. — What should you say was the basic difficulty in the relations between the unhappy or semi-happy pairs portrayed in this series of poems and what the firmer ground of union in *«By the Fireside" ? Shakespeare makes lago say that love is *' a per- mission of the blood." He writes in his " Sonnets " (cxvi.) that it is *'an ever-fixed ** mark," '* the star to every wandering bark," *' Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come." By which criterion will the relation- ships in these poems best be judged, and which will be accounted as having the highest possibilities t 122 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES Is it due to the increasing importance in these poems of the woman as an active and intellectual power in the relationship, instead of a passive and merely physical element, that the type of love repre- sented in **By the Fireside" is the highest? If the wives in . some of these poems be considered to desire to exercise a sort of spiritual despotism, can it be said of this that it is a benevolent despotism tending toward the development of the higher values of the relationship, while the physical despotism exercised in fact by certain of the husbands is crushing to any life or happiness ? But would it be better still to have no despotism even of a benevolent variety in the relationship ? Does ** By the Fireside " show the highest capability of the related power and characters of the husband and the wife because the physical and spiritual elements of love are fused ? III. Topic for Paper y Classzvork, or Private Study. — The Artistic Intention. Hints: — What do these poems reveal of the poet's design and of the means used to attain it ? The first two poems are framed to express a signifi- cant personal mood ; the second, as its title shows, being intended also to be somewhat more than per- sonal, to be typical of the wifely attitude. The title, ** By the Fireside," also reveals design. With its implications of the close of the year, of cold and darkness, it suggests the right atmosphere for this poem of anticipated old age. Use is intentionally made, too, of autumn's "pleasant hue," its woodland fruits, and crimson-splashed leafage to symbolize happy old age. Notice all such symbols. Point out the adapta- tion to the theme of the imagery of the book, the HUSBANDS AND WIVES 123 youngsters, the branch-work vista. The figure as to the ** branch- work " is doubtless suggested by the foregoing fancy of the youngsters going to the hazel wood. Observe that he speaks in stanza v. of the outside frame of the branch-work as hke the hazel-trees, the inside as less material and external, — ** a rarer sort " pertaining to the world of mind. Notice the metaphoric reference to Italy in stanza vi. Is it a happy figure to use in a poem written in memory and praise of a wife ? The imagery employed in the nature descriptions is of what kinds .? The mill or iron forge that ** breaks solitude in vain " (line 35) is humanistic, one may say, in its implication, this building with human interest being likened to a little interruption of nature's large stillness ; the ** thread of water," all that finds its way through the obstruction the torrent has piled in its own course (hne 40), and the "silver spear-heads" (44) are figures borrowed from the similar look of material objects. But the simile of the small ferns' teeth (50) is both human- istic in its source and objectively graphic in effect. Notice the humanistic image in stanza xxxii. and so on. Are any of the figures used in the passage in the poem describing the natural beauty of the Italian scene especially adapted to the larger symbolism of the poem, like the first references to the season of the year as corresponding to life's November, etc. ? The small bird (151) that sings except at noonday, when a pair of hawks threaten it, seems to signify more than usual. What does it suggest of the danger to love's song in the high noon of life.? Compare with the hawk that stalks on the bough where the birds are quarrelling, in ** A Woman's Last Word" (lines 5-1 1 ). Observe, also, the tree with its one 124 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES last leaf hanging, to which he likens his sleeping heart (lines 201-215). Is this symbolic, — a pictorial allusion fleetingly suggestive of a subtle feeling, but not to be tracked out in Hteral detail ; or is it as elabo- rately allegorical as Mr. Nettleship makes it in the following curious passage : **I, in that early autumn time of my brain, stood there like an old wood-god worshipping a nymph changed to a tree. ... I knew there was no chance for me to gain any token of love from that tree with its one precious leaf, by any act of my own. ... I was not in that summer prime when I could take by force of brain what gifts I would. But the tree was good to me. At the slight wind of my unexpressed mad longing, it unfastened its leaf. ... In that moment you fulfilled my hope." Is stanza Hi. a part of this husband's reminiscences, or is it written from his present standpoint, while his wife is still sitting opposite to him and before the anticipated autumn comes ? Does the recurrence in the last stanza to ideas expressed in the opening stanza repeat it needlessly, or serve intentionally to set the poem in the frame of a plan carrying out the thought ? The metre in which the poet makes the man ex- press himself is a four-stressed line, generally iambic, grouped in stanzas of five verses alternately rhyming ; the fifth line is shorter, with but three stresses, rhyming with the initial rhyme, and closing the stanza percep- tibly to the ear. The longer five-stressed line of the second poem lends to the ardent tone of** Any Wife " a much more melancholy cadence. In comparison the verse of ** By the Fireside," although pensive, almost dreamy, is both cheerier and less suppressed. Notice the HUSBANDS AND WIVES 125 different stanza and rhyme scheme ; how infrequently the stress falls on the first instead of the second syllable of the foot compared with the foregoing poem ; how much simpler the imagery is. Is it less humanistic, but more complete in its similarity to the idea ? Especially observe the obvious fitness of the tomb metaphor (lines 103-114) and the perfect beauty of it in all its adaptation to the mood expressed. Does this difference in the range of the imagery between the two poems serve the purpose of portray- ing the personality of the two distinct sorts of poetic mind here finding dramatic expression, — the one tending to be both more fleetingly allusive and human- istic in its fancies, like Robert Browning ; the other more purely lyric, subjective, and spontaneous, like Elizabeth Barrett Browning f The three following poems are contrived so as to bring out personality chiefly, also ; but to do this in a much more complex way, and in a way both dra- matically and metrically suited to the spokesman in the first two, and to the general air of a Florentine legend in the third of the stories. They each depict more persons than one, and these not subjectively nor by allusion merely, as in the foregoing poems, but objec- tively in relationship with others and amid various surroundings both of a concrete and a historic sort. For example, show how the fresco-painted, bronze- adorned palace-hall at Ferrara makes the right back- ground for the Duke's tell-tale talk with the Count's envoy ; and how the flowing, rarely end-stopped, five-stressed verse, couplet-rhyming yet never notice- ably obtruding the rhyme, seems to be in general accord with the manner of such a spokesman as the one through whose eyes this bit of life is seen. 126 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES The whole country, with its occupants of diverse callings and customs, the castle, household, stable, etc., stand behind the second poem. Several differ- ent sets of social relationship — such as those between the Kaiser, the Duke and his huntsmen, the rude Northland, sophisticated Paris, and free gipsy life — add their larger semi-feudal environment to the story. And the medium through which it is all set forth — the rough yet ready, couplet, triplet, and alternate rhymed,, often perilously double and obtrusively rhymed verse, racy with hunting terms, and imagery of a homely out-doors kind — is adapted to suit the tongue of the keen-eyed gamekeeper who helps the Duchess to escape, and whose kind heart is susceptible enough to be impressed with the gipsy incantation song, so that he could record it faithfully as he does, in a sustained, singing, smooth and simple rhymed line, strongly con- trasting in all other respects, except that the line is also four-stressed, with his own speech. Collect examples of the hunting terms, the allusions to active life, the proverbial expressions and the references, when they are of a literary sort, to familiar folk stories, such as Orson and Esau. Are there any allusions that do not suit the spokesman } Study the effect of the rhymes, and the contrast with the Gipsy's song. (See Poet-lore, " Rhymes in Browning," Vol. II. y Sept. 1890, pp. 480-486.) Is the terza-rima of ** The Statue and the Bust" an appropriate metre for that Florentine legend ? Why ? What allusions and similes (see Camberwell Browningy Vol. IV., p. 397) are there in this poem ; and can you trace any choice in them ? Does even the imagery of the conclusion — - which is separable from the legend itself, as the townsmen tell it — suit HUSBANDS AND WIVES 127 the Italian setting ? Notice the ** soldier-saints " of line 222, and '* the very Guelph," 234, and show their pertinence. These poems so far considered reveal artistic inten- tion in their imagery and metrical structure, as well as in the manipulation of the subject matter. Regarded as wholes, do they reveal artistic intention in broader ways ? In all of these three poems the design of the poet to recreate the life and spirit of the Renaissance period in general, and in particular its crudities as to married life, may be studied with reference to the history of that important epoch which forms the threshold of modern civilization. (See Camberwell Brow?ii?igy passages on these poems in Introduction, Vol. IV., pp. xiv and xv, for further general hints. As to Riccardi's imprisonment of his bride, and what the Duke's admiration of her might have meant for him, see " Browning's 'The Statue and the Bust,' a Parable," by Prentiss Cummings, Poet-lore, Vol. X., No. 3, pp. 397-416.) In the second and third of these three poems, the intention to make them illustrate moral evolution is also revealed directly. In the first of this group, ** My Last Duchess," moral intention is only re- vealed indirectly. There is no trace of artistic ma- nipulation of the story to make it suggest an inner meaning. In the others what traces are there of a sort of moral symbolism ? And how is this presented ? Notice that this symbolism consists, in " The Flight of the Duchess," in drawing a contrast between a sapless, egotistical, and imitative manner of life, and one irradiated with the warmth and movement of love and freedom, so that the question is not, *'Was the Duchess justified in running away with the Gipsy 128 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES Oueen," but, rather, is the Duke's death in life compatible with any spiritual progress at all ? ** The Statue and the Bust " has been accused of a didactic purpose instead of artistic moral symbolism. But in this poem, as in *'The Flight of the Duchess,'* is the design which is revealed one that tends towards the illumination of a basic moral principle, and not one that directs one how to act in a given case ? (See Mr. Cummings' " The Statue and the Bust," as cited above.) Which of the remaining poems of this series reveal artistic intention, both historically and morally, as these two poems do .? ** James Lee's Wife" shows artistic design in the way in which various details of its allusions suit the lyrical mood, such as the comparisons with the lake and swan, the dell and dove (Part I. lines 15-20), the ship rotting in port (Part II. 19—24), the water striped like a snake, the fig leaf like a hand (III. 3 and 10). Instance others. In this it is like the first two poems of this series. It shows also, like "By the Fireside," a larger and more complex use of meta- phors to illustrate the situation and the subject as a whole. For example, the change of season as a sym- bol of change in love is the keynote of the poem. It is struck in the first two stanzas lightly ; it reappears in Part III.; it deepens in significance, to denote the change in all things spiritual in Part VI. (51—80), and in Part VII. it is metamorphosed still further to sym- bolize the spiritual harvest of joy the earth gets out of change, and in Part VIII. to suggest the inner spiritual beauty, in contrast to external beauty, that may be got out of the use of life as it is, whether ideal and per- fect or not. The metrical and scenic adaptation of HUSBANDS AND WIVES I 29 the different parts to express the different moods of the wife is manifold. (See reference to this in Cam- berwell Browfiing, Vol. V., Introduction, p. xxiii.) ** Bad Dreams " may be compared with this poem as having parts differently made, to suit the lyrical design in metre and metaphor. But is it as rich as ** James Lee's Wife " in these respects ? Ask if each part in both poems has a plan of its own ; what it is, what differences may be observed in the number of stresses to the line, the stanza form, and the relation of the title of each part of "James Lee's Wife" to the im- agery and the mood. Neither of these poems reveals either the historic or moral sort of artistic intention noticed in the preceding group. There are few allusions in ** A Forgiveness " to place its historic background definitely before us. The names of the maids (line 48), the allusion to Don Quixote (97) and to the order of the Golden Fleece, a Bourbon decoration peculiar to the Courts of Madrid and Vienna (195), warrant the acceptance of it, however, as a dramatic portrait of a husband and wife intended to be as typically Spanish, perhaps of the seventeenth century, as ** My Last Duchess "is of Northern Italy in the age of the Despots. Like " My Last Duchess," it depicts the power a husband of rank exercised at pleasure or displeasure over his wife's life ; and like it, also, it presents this tragic transcript of household manners in a completely colorless way, so far as moral intention is concerned ; and this is done, as in the earlier poem, necessarily, because the in- cident and the characters are made known through the mouth of the husband himself. In his grim talk with the priest, the main intention is to show the inex- orable pride of the Spanish statesman's personality, 9 130 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES whose softening towards his wife and the priest meant simply that, having come to feel less contempt for them, he did them the honor to hate and kill them in cruel ways, each artistically appropriate. Notice particu- larly the description in ** A Forgiveness" of the "arms of Eastern workmanship " and its relation to the character of the main actor and his deed of ven- geance. Do you feel any sympathy with this hus- band, and if so, why r Is it due to the poet that you feel any, and how ? Are his dignity and his power of will to work, to restrain himself (notice espe- cially lines 292-304) to attain his ends, qualities that most excite your respect for his character, or your sense of pathos that such a man should indulge in so desolate a vengeance? Are you <* sad," the poet seems to ask, through this man's words (line 390), the subtlest sort of artistic indirection, <* for whose sake hers, or mine, or his " ? Is the verse metrically, and as to rhyme, the same as that of '* My Last Duchess " ? Study the monologue-form of ** A Forgiveness " with a view to exhibiting the skill shown in revealing the characters of all the actors, so far as they relate to the incident given, through the mouth of a single speaker. Should you say that in ** Fifine at the Fair" the artis- tic intention of the poet is richer and more complex than in any of the other poems of this series ? Has it historic intention ? To what time does it belong, judging by its allusions ? Notice lines 528—535, 551, 706, 1 107, 1588. Could these denote any other background than the nineteenth century ? And would you place Elvire's husband himself, as he is brought out in point of view and character as well as culture, anywhere else than in modern times ? May one not be sure that *' Fifine at the Fair " will in HUSBANDS AND WIVES 131 the next century or so as certainly betray the artistic intention of the poet to paint a distinctively modern husband contemporaneous with us of to-day as in **My Last Duchess" to paint a husband of the late Renaissance period ? Still another sort of artistic intention revealed through Hterature instead of history belongs to this poem. Its motto from Moliere's ** Don Juan " in- dicates that the poet's design in writing the poem was to take up the Don Juan theme in a way specially suited to meet the spiritual instead of the merely physi- cal side of marriage generally brought forward. And this design is reinforced by the employment through allusion of the interpretation by Euripides of the great Greek marriage myth of Helen. (See, upon this literary evidence of artistic intention, passages in Cam- berzuell Brow?ii?igy Vol. IX., pp. xv— xviii). There is in *' Fifine," in accord with this, an idea rather symbolistically suggested, that wives typically are nearer spirit than flesh, and represent that side in the relationship and the aspiration toward the spiritual good of love, more purely than husbands do. Com- pare with ** By the Fireside," ** Any Wife to Any Husband," the Prologue and Epilogue to ** Fifine," and in the ** Parleying with Daniel Bartoli," the rela- tions of the Duke and the druggist's daughter. Do Elvire's brief remonstrances, as re-echoed by the husband, amount to anything, in showing the poet's moral intention in the poem ? How otherwise is any glimpse of it to be had, since, as in ** My Last Duchess" and ** A Forgiveness," the husband him- self is the mouthpiece ? Does the poet make the apologist condemn himself? And does he take an artistic means to do this or not ? In what wav, after 132 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES all, could he be said to condemn himself? Is it of any- thing further than lack of development ? In what way does the epilogue show the poet's predisposition towards constancy in married love as the fruit of life experience, and how does this agree with the idea of **By the Fireside'* and ** Any Wife to Any Husband" ? What examples are there in ** Fifine " of easy col- loquialisms, humor, irony, picturesque and beautiful description, etc.? Are any of these inappropriate to the character of the hero ? How does the long six- stressed line suit his nimble mind ? (As to metre, see Camberwell Brownings Introduction, p. xv.) Has the poem any metaphorical images that are prominendy symbolical of its larger meanings? Observe the series of enlargements of the scene by similes seen in a dream, of the crowd in St. Mark's Square, of the carni- val of the whole world, of the Druid Temple, etc. Also, especially the use of the swimming metaphor as used by the modern Don Juan, and as used by the poet in the prologue ** Amphibian." Is the analogy of the butterfly to the ** certain soul which early slipped its sheaf" a reference to Elizabeth Barrett Browning ? And do you think his different drift in his employment of the same metaphor, using the unstable element, in swimming, so as to rival prog- ress in the air, and likening his own disporting in poetry on earth to the best mimicry possible to him of her spiritual life in heaven, — is this designed to symbolize the continued companionship of the poet's love and life with that of his wife, to whom he dedi- cates his poem ? The manner of telling Beatrice Signorini's story differs how from this and most of the preceding HUSBANDS AND WIVES 133 poems ? Is it a lyrical expression of a single person- ality like the first two in the series ? Is it a mono- logue ? How many characters appear ? How definite an idea of them do you get ? Is their speech given directly, and does the poet's view come out also, and how far ? Can this and ** The Statue and the Bust '' be said properly to be written like condensed novels or short stories in verse ? Is the verse in metre and rhyme like the monologues of this series ? Is Artemisia one of Browning's best examples of the so-called ** New Woman," and how does the poet's way of regarding her reveal his point of view toward genius in women ? Queries for Discussion. — What does ** The Statue and the Bust" imply ? Is this view, — *< Weakness of will in the case of the lovers in this poem wrecked their lives ; for they were not strong enough to follow either duty or love." (^Camberwell Brow?ii?igy Introduction, Vol. IV., p. xv.) " The closing stanzas point the moral against the palsy of the will, whose strenuous exercise is life's main gift." (^Ibid.y Notes, Digest, p. 397.) — or is this view of the poet's moral intention warranted by the poem, — " Prudence and conventionality . . . count for nothing with the poet. But conventionality counts ... in our conduct of life. It may have been the * crowning dis- aster to miss life ' for the man and w^oman : if so, it was a sacrifice justly due to human society. The sacri- fice and self-restraint . . . may have atoned for much that was defective in their lives." (Browning Cyclo- pedia, p. 579.) Did Browning have any allegorical intention in '* The Flight of the Duchess " ? 134 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES Do you agree with this interpretation by Mrs. Owen of the London Browning Society as put by Dr. Berdoe : — "The Duke represents our gross self; the retainer who tells the story represents the simple human nature that may either rise with the Duchess or sink with the Duke. The Duchess represents the soul, the highest part of our complex nature. The retainer aids the Duchess, or human nature aids the soul, to free itself from the coarse, low, earth-nature, the Duke. So that the « Flight of the Duchess ' is the supreme moment when the soul shakes off the bondage of self and finds its true freedom in others." If it is merely a romance, has it none the less an inner meaning of a general nature, and what should you say it was .'' How is moral design justifiable in a work of art ? Should it have none .? How do artists exemphfy this question in their work ? Illustrate. Should the artist make a distinction between an in- organic crystallization of his inner meaning and an implication of it more or less unmistakable which grows out of his work and agrees with its artistic structure .? Is such a way of conveying moral inten- tion an evidence of the highest artistic skill instead of the contrary? How has Browning done in these poems } Do his poems, whose artistic structure does not agree with conveying moral design, refrain from it ; and in the poems' which supply direct illustration of their inner meaning, does their artistic construction permit and suit it ? Does a comparison of these poems tend to show that it is a characteristic of Browning to make his imagery agree with his situations and subject-matter ? HUSBANDS AND WIVES 135 Do they show that he, more than most poets, puts his imagination into his characters so thoroughly that they rarely make allusions inconsistent with the point of view belonging to their time and character ? Elvire's husband says that '* Man takes all and gives naught" in order to develop himself, while woman's part is to bestow all and be absorbed, ** Wo- men grow you," and ** 't is only men completely formed, full-orbed, are fit to . . . illustrate the leader " ("Fifine," Ixxi.-lxxiv.) ; Francesco Romanelli says of himself, ** ' Man — by nature I exceed woman the bounded . . . my portion is ' — he chose to think — * quite other than a woman's: I may drink at many waters . . . abler thereby, though impotent before ' " (** Beatrice Signorini," 66-131). The comment on this last view, apparently by Browning, is to the effect that Francesco's desire was unjustifiable to make Arte- misia's *'germ of individual genius — what we term the very self," etc., "his own." Which is the truer view to take of the relations of men and women, — or which, if both are true to life as it is, is the one showing the higher development in life and thought ? Compare also Browning's statement that it were " the better impulse," since he could not admit Artemisia's art and her *' plain sufficiency of fact that she is she and I am I " (line 70), if he wisely tram- pled on pride and grew hers, **not mine . . . gain not her but lose myself." Upon this impulse, put aside by Francesco, the poet again comments : ** Such love were true love : love that way w^ho can ! Some one that 's born half woman, not whole man." Does this betray Browning's view of the right trend in the evolution of love .? Art and the Artist Page Vol. Text Note <* The Guardian Angel " iv 127 380 << Old Pictures in Florence " iv 52 371 '< Pictor Ignotus " v 22 286 " Fra Lippo Lippi " v 24 287 '< Andrea del Sarto " v 36 289 " The Bishop Orders his Tomb " v 45 291 ** Deaf and Dumb " v 216 313 *' Eurydice to Orpheus" v 218 314 *' A Face" v 221 314 *' Pacchiarotto and How he Worked in Distemper " ix 171 294 " The Lady and the Painter " ix 221 370 I. Topic for Paper ^ Classwork, or Private Study. — The Subject-Matter and its Manner of Presentation. Hints: — For abstracts of subject-matter of the poems, see Notes to Carnberwell Browni?ig, as given above. For consideration as to treatment, these poems may- be grouped as descriptive of pictures, — " The Guar- dian Angel," *'Eurydice to Orpheus," '*AFace." With these may be included " Deaf and Dumb," though the inspiration here is a group of statuary. " Pacchiarotto " is descriptive, being an account of an incident in an artist's life. The most important of the art poems, however, are in dramatic mono- logue form. All the remaining poems cited are in this form except the slight bit, " The Lady and the Painter," which is in drama form. ART AND THE ARTIST 137 Taking up the simpler poems first, we may inquire into the poet's manner of translating a picture into words so that the reader may see it before him. It is to be observed in ** The Guardian Angel" that there is no direct description of the picture, but that in giving expression to the emotions and thoughts aroused, the picture gradually appears in all its details. In stanza i., by means of the poet's address to the great angel vind his expression of the desire that it would leave the child for him, we see that the picture is of an angel and child, and that the angel is ministering to the child. In the second stanza how much more of the picture do we see as the poet imagines how the angel might step out to him and guard him, as it does the child, — that the angel's wings are white, and that the child is praying on a tomb, also that the angel is looking toward heaven ? In the third stanza what additional light is given upon the position of the child, and how does the thought of the poet here and in the next two stanzas transcend the picture ? (See the picture given as frontispiece to Vol. IV., Camberwell Brozv?ii?ig.) In stanza vi. he turns from the picture to a friend, Alfred, and addresses him, mentioning the artist, and giving another glimpse of the picture. Does this glimpse add any fresh details ? In stanza vii. he tells his friend how he and his own angel (his wife) used to go and see the picture, and what reason does he now give for having written the poem, and for whom does it appear he wrote it } The last three stanzas give the poem almost the effect of a letter. Do you not think that the artistic effect of the poem is somewhat marred by this personal touch at the end ? In ''Eurydice to Orpheus" there is no description 138 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES of the picture, only the interpretation of the soul of Eurydice as the poet reads it in her face. Would the poem convey a definite impression without any knowledge of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice ? In ** Deaf and Dumb," again, the group is not described in detail, but through the thought it in- spires in the poet we feel rather than see its beauty. ** A Face" describes in more complete detail a picture after -the manner of the early Tuscan art which has been suggested by the beauty of the face. Notice that this differs from the other poems in that it reflects a mood of admiration for exquisite physical beauty, while the others breathe of spiritual beauty, and, as already noted in the case of "The Guardian Angel," the emotions aroused by the picture in the poet make the principal motif of the poem. (For other picture-painting in words in Browning, see Cam- berwell Browjiingy Vol. I., *' Pauline," lines 656- 667, Notes, p. 308; Vol. VIII., **Balaustion's Adventure," lines 2672-2697, Notes, p. 299.) " Pacchiarotto " is in the form of a simple narra- tive told in the poet's own person ; but some com- plexity is introduced through the fact that the story is not told for its own sake, but for the sake of a personal digression on the part of the poet, in which he points a moral against his own critics. (For further discussion of this poem, see Programme '* The Autobiographical Poems.") Among those art poems which we have designated as dramatic monologues, there is considerable variation of treatment. ** Old Pictures in Florence," for example, being evidently an expression of the poet's own thoughts, might more properly be called a solilo- quy than a dramatic monologue, yet the style is so ART AND THE ARTIST 139 conversational, the poet frequently breaking out in direct address to some old artist-worthy or some dull critic, that the effect is thoroughly lively and dramatic. Having become familiar with the subject-matter of the monologues by aid of the notes, it is interesting to inquire into the details of its presentation. Ifi *« Old Pictures in Florence," the poet gives first (stanzas i. and ii.) a general description of the scene that meets his gaze as he looks out over the villa-gate, un- til his attention is especially attracted by what ? Can you guess why Giotto's tower startled him? Per- haps because it suggests to him vivid thoughts concern- ing art and artists, out of which grow conceptions of the place the Campanile holds in the development of art ; or else because it suddenly reminds him, as he playfully pretends, of a special claim he has on the recognition of artist -ghosts which it stings him to the heart to feel that they have disregarded. This special claim seems to be that he is guiltless of the carelessness which the world in general shows to the tentative work of all artists and all stages of art. From the especial apostrophe to Giotto which the sight of the bell-tower calls out, in stanza iv. he falls into reminiscences of what he had done on winter afternoons, in the course of which he draws contrasts between the things that interest the men of Florence and that interest him, — the old pictures. The neglect of these next brings to his mind the fame of the Rafaels, etc., and he pictures what their state of mind may be in comparison with the ** wronged great souls," which causes him to wax indignant at those *' of the little wit" who cannot appreciate these early artists, and results in his giving them instruction. What does he declare to be the 140 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES characteristics of Greek art ? Observe the graphic way in which he describes Greek art as presenting ideals of beauty and power to mankind which they aspired toward but could not attain unto. What did they learn from this constant consciousness of their own weakness compared with the strength of Greek art ? Does the poet appear to consider the lesson learnt a good one ? Continuing stanza xv. with his " instructions," what does he declare to be the very essence of growth, and how did the early Italian painters dis- cover this and illustrate in their works this new atti- tude toward life ? In stanza xx. he turns from instructing to exhorting the unappreciative to give honor to those pioneer artists who began the great revolution. Here the poet has a beautiful fancy as to the future life ; what is it ? and how does his mood change in the next stanza ? In xxiii. he enlarges upon his own love of these early artists, and goes on to what he calls his especial grievance. Here (xxiv.) follows a humorous description of the ghosts of the early painters watching the whitewashing, etc. of their pictures, then departing down the black streets ; and the poet declares himself aggrieved that they never reveal to him any of the lost treasures they must know about. Then he goes on to particularize those from whom he would expect nothing and those he thinks might remember him, leading up finally to Giotto, against whom it now appears is his special grievance, as was hinted in stanza iii. Describe what this griev- ance is and what he declares will be the final upshot. In anticipative gratitude at this result he takes up a strain of prophecy which continues to the end of the poem. What is this prophecy } ART AND THE ARTIST 141 In **Pictor Ignotus " we have a true dramatic monologue, though not at all a complex one, for it portrays but one character, the unknown painter, who, after breaking forth with straightforward directness in regard to his having been able to paint as well as the youth all are praising, goes on to explain how he had not been hindered by fate, why ? Because he had the inspiration in his soul, observation equally penetrating for the mysteries of heaven, of his own soul, and of life around him ; and moreover the mechanical skill to put into form his thoughts. Observe with what exquisite language he now describes the emotions and passions he might have portrayed. In line 23 he doubts for a moment whether he has not wasted his powers. How does this feeling change in the next line ? From the ecstasy he feels in the thought of the pictures he might have painted, he passes on to the thought of the happiness it would have been to have had these pictures loved and himself loved because of them. He wakes now from these ecstasies to tell why he could not follow his artistic inspiration, and had thus made his choice as he willed. Notice that only through description of the feelings he has as he works, do we learn for the first time what that work really was. Does this poem resemble ** The Guardian Angel" in that its living principle is the moods and emotions of the artist, and the facts we learn in this case as to his talent, his character, and the conditions of his life, do not come out by means of any direct description, but as the necessary expression of his moods ? **Fra Lippi Lippo " is an example of a more complex monologue. Observe how through Lippo' s talk we get a complete picture, not only of Lippo 142 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES himself, but of the functionaries who are detaining him, of the successive actions in the scene, and of the time and place where it is being enacted. Reading through hne 44, what do you learn of him ? What do you learn of the looks of his detainers, and of their actions ? After he has picked out the one he sees to be most friendly, he proceeds to tell him how he comes to be wandering about the streets so late at night. What effect does his story have upon his friend ? (See line 76.) Since the friendly individual's sympathy is not wholly aroused by this tale, and he is inclined to question how it is that a monk should enjoy such escapades, the clever Lippo goes on to give an account of his childhood and the way he came to be a monk. Note Lippo' s wit and humor as he tells this story. ''What came next?" we may imagine his friend to inquire. To which he replied by telling of the difficulties that beset the monks in discovering what he was fit for. How d^id he show them what his natural bent was, and how does he say his ob- servation as a child was sharpened ? The monks would have turned him adrift for his artistic pro- pensities, but what does the Prior say ? When Lippo is allowed to give rein to his talent, how and what does he describe himself as painting ? And how did the monks regard it ? But what do the Prior and the learned say about his art ? To their criticisms what does Lippo retort ? Having given this account of himself, he goes on (line 223) to apologize a little for himself. How ? And then to tell how in spite of the fact that he is his own master now, the early criticisms still have their effect upon him. Is his question about whether they with their ART AND THE ARTIST I43 Latin know, sarcastic, or the expression of a dor- mant reverence for the opinion of those who are learned ? The result of this conflict in his nature between his natural bent and its suppression by criticism is, as he goes on to say, what ? Observe how, in the lines following this up to line 269, he forgets all restraint and gives vent to his unvarnished opinion of those who criticise the realism of his work. At this point he grows stronger in his own opinion, and prophesies that such work as his will be the work of the future. Who has he already as a pupil? Then he appeals to his friend to judge for himself as to whether his view of life and art is not higher than the old one. What supposed objections does he meet ? and what are the main points in his argument ? Observe how he works up to a cHmax of feeling which shows that to the soul of Lippo beauty, natural and physical, was in itself a divine revelation. He finishes with another outbreak against the *' fools," and suddenly remember- ing himself, he grows humble and apologetic again, and promises to make amends. What does he say he will do to make amends, and how does he character- istically describe the picture which will make things all right with the Church again ? It is evident that his arguments finally convinced his friend among the guard who " nabbed" him, for he goes off home in the early morning light. Is this long talk of Lippo' s rendered natural through the fact that he and one of the guards took a fancy to each other ? Can we suppose that his listener appreciated all his remarks, or that he was simply taken with his manner and personality ? In ''Andrea del Sarto " the presentadon is in the 144 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES same manner as in ** Fra Lippo Lippi." The reader is immediately brouglit face to face with the hero of the poem. He is speaking, and in the course of his talk we see not only him but his wife, learn the sort of relation that exists between them, and get a ghmpse of their past life. What is the time and the scene, and what is he prom- ising his wife he will do to-morrow ? But what does he desire to do at that moment? As he looks at her, he sees in his mind's eye a picture of them- selves ; how does he describe it ? From this he turns to a comparison of his own style and capabilities as an artist with those of other celebrated painters. Give the gist of what he says. Overwhelmed here by the sense of his own lack, he gently upbraids his wife for not having been more of an inspiration to him. Does he feel quite sure that if she had been different he would have succeeded better? Or does he seem to think that his life has been ruled by a sort of divine fate ? Or has he some suspicion that his own lack of will-power is responsible for it ? (See line 139.) His conclusion that God will reward or punish in the end, brings to his mind the fact that it will be safer if he is not too much rewarded in this world, and he falls into a reminiscence of his past life. What comes out in regard to his life to explain his feeling that it will be safer if he does not get too much award here ? He comes back to the present (line 175), and comparing Rafael's picture of the Virgin with his own for w^hich his wife sat, im- agines what men might say of these two pictures. This puts him in mind of another reminiscence about himself. What was it ? At the thought of this praise he ventures to grasp the chalk and correct the ART AND THE ARTIST I45 arm in a picture of Rafael's. He had in his room a copy (see line 106). Why only does he care for the praise ? We come now to the closing scene, — the wife smiling because she hears the cousin's whistle; Andrea going on talking, so filled with his own thoughts that he thinks the smile for him, and feeling a litde encour- aged, asking her to come inside. Then he realizes the cousin has been calling. He recurs to his request made at the beginning of the poem, and repeats his promise : and what does he declare will be the best thing about the money he is to receive } Describe his final mood, his apology for his own sin, his vision of what he might do in heaven, and the recurring certainty that he would be ** overcome " because of his wife, Lucrezia, and, finally, the triumph of his love over every other thought in the words **^ as I choose," and ofhis unselfishness in his bidding her go to her cousin. Observe how, by indirections as it were, the wife's personality is clearly presented (see hnes 4, 20—33, 38, 54-56, 74-75, 1 17-132, 166, 199-202, 219- 223, 228, 241—243). Is Andrea more completely under one influence than Fra Lippo ? In "The Bishop Orders his Tomb," we have a connoisseur in art instead of an artist. As a mono- logue, this is not quite so complex as the preceding one, because it is almost entirely a revelation of the Bishop's own character, the ** nephews " whom he addresses not appearing as very strong personalities unless the old Bishop's fear that they would not exe- cute his orders be taken as an index of their character. Besides the Bishop's character, however, we learn something of the incidents ofhis life. What are these ? We get, furthermore, a vivid picture of the splendor of 146 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES his tomb. Describe it. Observe all through the poem how subtly is portrayed in the Bishop the combination of human nature with its passions and hates and en- vies, and his churchly training that breaks out in pious exclamations from time to time ; also the jumble of Greek and Christian art he wishes to have in his tomb. In his ideal of his future enjoyment when he is dead (see Hne 80 and fol. ), do his pagan or his churchly instincts conquer ? Do you feel at the end that he is not going to get his tomb, or that he is, through a life of suspiciousness, afraid his ** nephews" will not carry out his orders in spite of all he offers them ? *« The Lady and the Painter" is a very simple poem cast in dialogue form to point a moral which is evidently the poet's own opinion. What is this opinion ? (Queries for Discussion, - — Is the manner of presen- tation in each case especially suited to the subject in hand ? Are all these monologues dramatic, in the sense that they show movement in events ? If they do not show movement in events, in what does their dramatic quality consist ? II. Topic for Paper ^ Classwork, or Private Study. — Sources and Allusions in relation to Subject- Matter. Hifits : — The poems in this group show a variety in the nature of the sources as well as a variety in the manner of treatment. Pictures in two cases were the sole source of inspiration, in another a group of statu- ary. In these instances the source is so intimately connected with the subject-matter, that in giving the manner of presentation, as in the preceding topic, all ART AND THE ARTIST 1 47 is said about the sources and their relation to the poems that need be said. The remainder of the poems may be classified, broadly speaking, as deriving their sub- ject-matter from biographical sources, — namely, ** Fra Lippo Lippi," ** Andrea del Sarto," *' Pacchia- rotto ; " from an artistic emotion, in ** Old Pictures," '*The Lady and the Painter," and '*Face;" from historico-artistic conditions, in **Pictor Ignotus " and '* The Bishop Orders his Tomb." The direct bio- graphical source of ** Fra Lippo Lippi" is found in Vasari's ** Lives of the Italian Painters." As an ex- ample of how closely the poet modelled his facts upon those taken from Vasari, we may make the following comparisons (drawn from the Notes, *' Select Poems of Browning," published by T. Y. Crowell & Co.), *' The Carmelite Monk, Fra Filippo di Tommaso Lippi, was born in a bye street . . . behind the convent." See the poem, line 7. ** Cosimo de Medici, wishing him to execute a work in his own palace, shut him up, that he might riot waste his time in running about ; but having endured this confinement for two days he made ropes with the sheets of his bed ... let him- self down from the window . . . and for several days gave himself up to his amusements." See poem, lines 15, 47. **By the death of his father he was left a friendless orphan at the age of two years ... for some time under the care of Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, who brought him up with very great difficulty till his eighth year, when being no longer able to support the burden, she placed him in the convent of the Car- melites. . . . Placed with others under the care of a master to . . . see what could be done with him^ in place of studying he never did anything but daub his books with caricatures, whereupon the prior deter- 148 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES mined to give him . . . opportunity for learning to draw. The chapel, then newly painted by Masaccio ... he frequented, and practising there — surpassed all the others . . . while still very young painted a picture in the cloister . . . with others in fresco . . . among these ** John the Baptist." See the poem, lines 81, 129, 136, 196. ** For the nuns of Sant' Ambrogio he painted a most beautiful picture." See the poem, line 345. Vasari says that by means of this picture he became known to Cosimo. Observe that this does not agree with the poem, as in that Lippo is already known to Cosimo when he promises to paint the picture of the coronation of the Virgin. It ap- pears that the poet is right here, and Vasari wrong. See notes to edition of Vasari cited below. Do you observe any other inaccuracies in the mere facts } From these extracts it m-ay be perceived that Brown- ing has turned a very dry record of events into a living reality, and how has he done this } By so seeing into the heart and impulses of the man that he re-creates his personahty and enables us to see life as it was seen by Lippo ? (For further study of the life of '* Lippo," see Mrs. Jameson's " Early Italian Painters," also Vasari's '* Lives," edited by E. H. & E. W. Blashfield and A. A. Hopkins, Chas. Scribner's Sons, N. Y.) Is there anv incident of Lippo's life which might have suggested to him the incident in the poem of the ** little lily thing " that encouraged him.? See hnes 370-387. Give an account of the allusions in the poem (see Camherwell Browning, Notes, Vol. V., p. 287), and show how they all grow naturally out of the subject- matter, that is, they do not come under the head of embellishments. Even the flower-songs, though they ART AND THE ARTIST 149 add greatly to the beauty of the poem, come perfectly naturally from the lips of Fra Lippo. (For further in- formation as to these songs, see Poet-lore, Vol. II., p. 262, or Miss Alma Strettel's "Spanish and Italian Folk-Songs.") Vasari's ** Lives " furnished the source for the characterization of ** Andrea del Sarto " also. In this case, however, there is the added source of the picture of Andrea and his v/ife, which really forms the scene- setting and tone of the poem. (See Notes, Camber- well Browning, Vol. v., p. 289.) As in the case of " Lippo," extracts may be made from Vasari showing the facts that Browning trans- muted from dry bones into living realities. For ex- ample: ** He destroyed his own peace and estranged his friends by marrying Lucrezia di Baccio del Fede, a cap-maker's widow who ensnared him before her husband's death, and who delighted in trapping the hearts of men ... he soon became jealous and found that he had fallen into the hands of an artful woman who made him do as she pleased in all things . . . but although Andrea Hved in torment he yet accounted it a high pleasure." See poem, line i fol. **Art and nature combined to show all that may be done in painting when design, coloring, and invention unite in the same person. Had this master possessed a somewhat bolder and more elevated mind . . . he would have been without an equal. But there was a certain timidity of mind, a sort of diffidence and want of force in his nature, which rendered it impossible that . . . ardor and animation, which are proper to the more exalted character should ever appear in him. . . . His figures are well drawn . . . free from errors . . . the coloring exquisite." See 150 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES poem, lines 60, 82, fol. ** Andrea understood the management of light and shade most perfectly, caus- ing the objects depicted to take their due degree of prominence or to retire within the shadows." See poem, line 98. *'If he had remained in Rome when he went thither to see the works of Raffaello and Michelagnolo . . . would eventually have attained the power of imparting a more elevated character and increased force to his figures . . . nay, there are not wanting those who affirm he would . . . have surpassed all the artists of his time . . . Raffaello and other young artists whom he perceived to possess great power . . . deprived Andrea, timid as he was, of courage to make trial of himself." See poem, line 76 fol. **Two pictures he had sent into France, ob- taining much admiration from King Francis . . . that monarch was told he might prevail upon Andrea to visit France . . . the King therefore gave orders that a sum of money should be paid to Andrea for the expenses of the journey ... his arrival was marked by proofs of liberality and courtesy . . . his labors rendering him so acceptable to the King and the whole court, his departure from his native country appeared ... to have conducted him from wretchedness to felicity . . . But one day . . . came to him certain letters from Florence written to him by his wife . . . with bitter complaints . . . Moved by all this he resolved to resume his chain . . . Taking the money which the King confided to him for the purchase of pictures and statues ... he set off . . . having sworn on the gospels to return in a few months. Arrived in Florence, he lived joyously with his wife for some time, making presents to her father and sisters, but doing nothing for his ART AND THE ARTIST 151 own parents, who died in poverty and misery. When the period specified by the King had come ... he found himself at the end not only of his own money but ... of that of the King ... re- mained in Florence, therefore, procuring a livelihood as he best might." See poem, line 149, fol. Though not bearing on the poem in any way, it will be found interesting to read in the notes to the edition of Vasari already mentioned of the attempts which have been made to prove that the story of Andrea's embezzlement was false. In fact, the statement rests entirely upon Vasari's authority, and excellent reasons have been adduced to show that he might easily have been mistaken. Observe with what sympathetic insight Browning has looked at the miserable record of this man, and how he has emphasized whatever of nobleness there was in his character, making not the least noble thing about him his devotion to his wife, whom he was fated to love, whatever her faults might be. Are the allusions in this poem related to the sub- ject-matter in the same way as those in ** Fra Lippo Lippi " ? (For allusions, see Camberwell Browning, Notes, Vol. v., p. 289.) The story told in *' Pacchiarotto " is also derived from Vasari, and is to be found in the commentary of the Florence edition of his ** Lives " printed in 1855. As an example of the way the poet has used his source in this poem, a few citations may be given : ** Among the principal and most ardent of the Bardotti was our Giacomo, whose head was so turned by the whims and vagaries of the State, that among many of his foolish pranks, it is related, that in a room of his house which was situated on the Via 152 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES Laterino, he had painted many faces, so that, stand- ing in the midst of them, he appeared to be holding a long discussion, as if they in turn replied, and as their lord revered and honored him. This is expanded into the account which runs through seven stanzas (see v.-xi.) besides being led up to by the four preceding stanzas. Point out the am- plifications Browning has made upon this hint. ** During the exile of Fabio and the murder of Alessandro Bichi, a new sect of people sprung up in Siena, who from their open avowals of lawless prin- ciples were called the Libertines. These, having become arrogant, on account of success having been on their side in every faction against the tyrants of the city, as they called them, and even against foreign enemies, these Libertines therefore meddled with every important scheme of the Republic, and tried to gain all the honors and high offices for them- selves. . . . They called upon the common people to aid them, making many promises to help them in return, which was the occasion that the common people and artisans of lowest extraction were turned aside from their daily life, and their time occupied in attending meetings where they listened to incendiary language against the affairs of the State. . . . Out of these meetings sprung the Congregation or Academy called the Bardotti, a name which really had no other significance than that which they chose to give it: an easy hfe at the pubhc expense." Compare this with stanzas xiii. and xiv. " The Bardotti, believing circumstances to be of bad augury for them, had recourse to the aid and counsels of a few citizens who formerly had favored them ; but receiving from them only reproofs for their ART AND THE ARTIST 153 misdeeds, and no promises to protect them from justice, and terrified by their impending fate, they fled and hid themselves. II Pacchiarotto, likewise, seized with great terror, wandered about like one demented throughout the city, thinking the sheriff w^as always dogging his footsteps in order to seize him and take him to prison. Finally he went into the parish church of San Giovanni, and saw a tomb where but recently had been covered a dead body ; he pushed it aside, and fixed himself there as best he could, and covered the tomb over with the stone. Here he remained in intense suffering of mind and body during two days, at the end of which time, half dead with hunger and the insupportable stench of the corpse, and covered with vermin, he fled through one of the gates of the city, which leads to the house of refuge of the brothers of the Observance. 11 Pacchiarotto, when he thought the storm had passed, quietly re- turned to Siena, and, having been made aware by bitter experience what his follies had cost him, he resolved to apply himself to his work and no longer meddle with the affairs of State." Compare this with stanzas xvi.— xx. See also xxiii. At stanza xx. the poet declares he is going to let his fancy have rein in the admonishment of the Abbot. What is this admonishment, and how does the poet make Pacchiarotto reply ? Does this poem lose in artistic force because of the fact that the inci- dent is told and enlarged upon, simply to furnish a text tor a philippic against critics ? This poem has a great many allusions, for explanation of which see Camber- well Browni?ig, Notes, Vol. IX., p. 294, Point out how they are related to the subject-matter. In '* Old Pictures in Florence '* the direct source 154 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES might be said to be the incident of the poet's missing an art treasure which fell into some one else's hands. However, this is, in reality, only a sort of stage fix- ture throwing a side light of humor over the whole poem, the true source being the poet's own artistic enthusiasm for the works of the old painters, and out of this grow his appreciations and his criticisms. Would the poem have been any stronger as a criticism of art if he had not toned it to this humorous incident? Does this incident, on the other hand, give the poem an artistic value it might not otherwise have by making the thoughts that cluster around it less didactic ? Are they less didactic because they really grow out of an emotional mood rather than a critical one ? In **Face" the artistic appreciation of a beautiful face gives rise to the imaging of the face as it would look in a picture. An emotion of indignation at those who wear bird's feathers in their hats and at those who object to the nude in art is the source of the dialogue, in ''The Lady and the Painter," between an imaginary painter and an imaginary lady. Does it result in a very convincing argument either way ? In the two remaining poems, ** Pictor Ignotus " and "The Bishop Orders his Tomb," the characters are imaginary, but they are set in an environment, and their personality is such that they belong to an especial historical epoch. The sources of such poems as these are in the knowledge of all the forces that go to the making of a certain period, —in this case, that of the Renaissance in Italy. The Bishop is the type of character that might be produced by the influences at work. What were these ? (^qq Camberzuell Brozvn- ingy Notes, Vol. V., 291, Introduction, p. xvi, fol. ART AND THE ARTIST 155 For further information, see Ruskin's ** Stones of Venice," Symonds's *' The Italian Renaissance," and Vernon Lee's '* Italian Studies.") Observe how completely this Renaissance spirit is made to breathe forth through the character of one single man, and how completely the age dominates the personality of the man. Notice that the poem is headed **Rome, 15 — " Did the Renaissance move- ment differ in any of its characteristics here from those in other Italian cities ? In ** Pictorlgnotus " there is portrayed a personality as different from the Bishop's as could well be im- agined. How does it happen that he, too, is a picture of the Renaissance ? The same two influences are seen in him, are they not ? — in his choosing to paint religious pictures and in his desire to paint life ? But in this case the personality of the man is stronger than the age, and he deliberately chooses to suppress in him- self the aspiration toward painting human life, not because he would consider it any less noble art, but because he reverences it so that he could not bear to subject it to just the sort of frivolous criticism that a bishop might give it. Whereas in the Bishop churchly traditions were but a matter of form, in the painter of *^ Pictor Ignotus " religion had entered into his very soul. (For further information, see books referred to above. ) Give an account of all the allusions, and show in these latter poems how close the relation is between them arid the subject-matter, and how many of them are introduced simply as embellishments to the language. Queries for Discussion. — Is the poet justified in interpreting facts of history or biography to suit the needs of artistic presentation as he does in the poems 156 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES on Andrea and Lippo, for example ? Upon this point Mr. Artliur Symons has to say : ** Whether the picture which suggested the poem is an authentic work of Andrea, or whether — as experts are now pretty well agreed — it is a work by an unknown artist representing an imaginary man and woman, is, of course, of no possible consequence in connection with the poem. Nor is it of any more importance that the Andrea of Vasari is in all probability not the real Andrea. Historic fact has nothing to do with poetry : it is mere material, the mere quarry of ideas ; and the real truth of Mr. Browning's portrait of Andrea would no more be impugned by the establish- ment of Vasari' s inaccuracy, than the real truth of Shakespeare's portrait of Macbeth by the proof of the untrustworthiness of Holinshed." In which of these poems is the source most closely related to the subject-matter, and in which of them does the poet's imagination hold the largest place ? Along what different lines does the imagination work in these various poems ? III. Topic for Papery Classzuork, or Private Study. — The Relations of Art to Character in Browning's Artist Portraits. Hints: — The unknown painter of ** Pictor Igno- tus," Fra Lippo, Andrea del Sarto, and the Bishop of St. Praxed's step to the front upon the mention of Browning's artist portraits. We see at once that they represent four entirely different types of men. How would you describe their respective personalities as gathered from the poems ? How is it made evi- dent that the unknown artist was a man of- transcen- dent genius ? Besides this, he was a lover of humanity, was he not ? How is this shown ? Was he a lover ART AND THE ARTIST 157 of humanity as it is, or rather as he thought it ought to be ? Is there any touch of conceit in the desire that he should be loved on account of his pictures ? Would you consider him a stronger character if he had done the best that was in him, regardless of how humanity might talk or act ? Or do you feel that his sensitiveness in regard to the need of loving human appreciation and sympathy is a peculiarly refined aspect of his nature ? Is it not a feeling natural to the great artist to revolt against the thought of the commercializ- ing of his art ? In speaking of this poem Mr. Symons says he '* has dreamed of painting great pictures and winning great fame, but shrinks equally from the at- tempt and the reward : an attempt which he is too self-distrustful to make, a reward which he is too painfully discriminating to enjoy." Do you perceive anything in the poem to indicate that he was too ** distrustful " of himself to make the attempt to paint } Does he not rather seem absolutely certain of his own powers ? (line 2—3, " No bar stayed me," "Never did fate forbid me," etc.) The reason he did not make the attempt was because he so reverenced art and his own gift of art that he could not subject it to the gross atmosphere of daily, worldly life, and so he chose to imprison his genius in monotonous frescos for the church ; why ? Not certainly because he desired to serve God this way, but because these pictures would be safe from the rude intrusion of un- sympathetic humanity. Does he seem to regret his decision, or is he satisfied that fame would have been a poor exchange for the consciousness he possesses of a genius preserved unsullied from the world ? Com- pare him with Aprile in " Paracelsus," Part II., lines 420-487. Observe that Aprile would have hked to 158 BROWNING STUDY PROGRAMMES be translated to heaven when he finished his work, while this unknown painter wished to linger on earth. What is the difference in these two natures ? Is it that one wished to give out love by means of his art, and the other wished to draw love to himself by means of his art ? Which would be the more human, and which the more religious or aspiring attitude ? Has Fra Lippo any sensitiveness of nature ? He is a lover of human life, like the unknown painter, but there is a difference. Is it that the unknown painter loves the soul, — the hopes, passions, aspirations of man, — while Lippo we discover to be an adorer of the physically beautiful? Are his arguments in favor of the beauty of the flesh convincing ? Notice that while he emphasizes external beauty, he by no means ignores the soul ; although he says, ** if you get simple beauty and nought else you get about the best thing God invents," in the same breath he says he never saw beauty with no soul at all. Yet the "soul" of beauty that Lippo sees is not quite the same as the soul the unknown painter sees, because one recognizes the divine essence of beauty, the other the divine essence of human aspiration or religion. Which of these do you think is the larger conception of soul, or does either of them include the other ? Might there be a third attitude larger still which would include both ? While Lippo's nature is certainly not sensitive, does he not possess a certain amount of timidity through his early ecclesiastical training ? How does this come out ? Does his moral looseness come naturally from his artistic attitude ? Does he give you the im- pression of being a bad man, that is, a man with design to do as much harm as possible, or an impul- ART AND THE ARTIST 159 sive man, filled with the joy of mere physical exist- ence, and unable to resist the pleasures of an occasional worldly frolic ? In his revolt against the asceticism of the early Church, he naturally goes too far the other way. Are his theories of realism in advance of his practices in life ? Observe that in spite of his realism he has an idealistic tendency, for he says we must beat nature. Is he right when he says, " We love first when we see them painted, things we have passed perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see " ? Do you agree with him that beauty of form is neces- sary for the highest expression of soul? Do you agree with him that more of a spiritual uplift may be gained from the presentation of beautiful form than from pic- tures with an avowed didactic purpose I (See lines 317-335.) *' Andrea del Sarto " has neither the idealism of the unI