Browning and the Dramatic Monologue

by S. S. Curry

In Browning’s “Youth and Art” we feel continually the point of view, the feeling, and the character of the speaker.

YOUTH AND ART

It once might have been, once only:
We lodged in a street together,
You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
I, a lone she-bird of his feather.
Your trade was with sticks and clay,
You thumbed, thrust, patted, and polished,
Then laughed, “They will see, some day,
Smith made, and Gibson demolished.”
My business was song, song, song;
I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered,
“Kate Brown’s on the boards ere long,
And Grisi’s existence imbittered!”
I earned no more by a warble
Than you by a sketch in plaster:
You wanted a piece of marble,
I needed a music-master.

We studied hard in our styles,
Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,
For air, looked out on the tiles,
For fun, watched each other’s windows.
You lounged, like a boy of the South,
Cap and blouse—nay, a bit of beard, too;
Or you got it, rubbing your mouth
With fingers the clay adhered to.
And I—soon managed to find
Weak points in the flower-fence facing,
Was forced to put up a blind
And be safe in my corset-lacing.
No harm! It was not my fault
If you never turned your eye’s tail up
As I shook upon E in alt.,
Or ran the chromatic scale up;
For spring bade the sparrows pair,
And the boys and girls gave guesses,
And stalls in our street looked rare
With bulrush and water-cresses.
Why did not you pinch a flower
In a pellet of clay and fling it?
Why did not I put a power
Of thanks in a look, or sing it?
I did look, sharp as a lynx
(And yet the memory rankles)
When models arrived, some minx
Tripped up stairs, she and her ankles.
But I think I gave you as good!
“That foreign fellow—who can know
How she pays, in a playful mood,
For his tuning her that piano?”
Could you say so, and never say,
“Suppose we join hands and fortunes,
And I fetch her from over the way,
Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?”

No, no; you would not be rash,
Nor I rasher and something over:
You’ve to settle yet Gibson’s hash,
And Grisi yet lives in clover.
But you meet the Prince at the Board.
I’m queen myself at bals-parés,
I’ve married a rich old lord,
And you’re dubbed knight and an R. A.
Each life’s unfulfilled, you see;
It hangs still patchy and scrappy;
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired,—been happy.
And nobody calls you a dunce,
And people suppose me clever;
This could but have happened once,
And we missed it, lost it forever.

The theme is the dream and experience of two lovers. The speaker is married to a rich old lord, and her lover of other days, a sculptor, is “dubbed knight and an R. A.” Stirred by her youthful dreams, or it may be by the meeting of her lover in society, or possibly in imagination,—as a queen of “bals-parés” would hardly talk to a “knight and an R. A.” in this frank manner,—it is the woman who breaks forth suddenly with the dream of her old love—

“It once might have been, once only,”—

and relates the story of the days when they were both young students, she of singing and he of sculpture, and describes, or lightly caricatures, their experience. Is her laughter, as she goes on in such a playful mood describing the different events of their lives, an endeavor to conceal a hidden pain? Has she grown worldly minded, sneering at every youthful dream, even her own, or is she awakening from this worldly point of view to a realization at last of “life unfulfilled”?

Browning, instead of an abstract discussion, presents in an artistic form an important truth, that he who lives for the world does not live at all. By introducing this woman to us in a serious attitude of mind, reflecting on the one hand a worldly mood, on the other the deep, abiding love of a true woman, he makes the desired impression. The last line throbs with deep emotion, and we feel how slowly and sadly she would acknowledge the failure of life:

“And we missed it, lost it forever.”

Browning’s “Caliban upon Setebos” furnishes a forcible illustration of the importance of the speaker and the necessity of preserving his character and point of view in the monologue. “’Will sprawl” begins a long parenthesis which implies the first intention of Caliban to lie flat in “the pit’s much mire.” He describes definitely the position he likes “in the cool slush.” The words express Caliban’s feelings at his noonday rest and the position he takes for enjoyment. He has not yet risen to the dignity of the consciousness of the ego. He does not use the pronoun “I” or the possessive “my.” His verbs are impersonal,—“’Will sprawl,” not “I will sprawl,”—and he

“Talks to his own self, howe’er he please,
Touching that other whom his dam called God.”