Introduction to Victorian Poetry PDF

WEEK V Dr. Zübeyir SAVAŞ INTRODUCTION TO VICTORIAN POETRY  an utterance of a dramatic character, either a creation of his imagination or his re-creation of some historical personage. The dramatic mask allowed him to...

WEEK V Dr. Zübeyir SAVAŞ INTRODUCTION TO VICTORIAN POETRY  an utterance of a dramatic character, either a creation of his imagination or his re-creation of some historical personage. The dramatic mask allowed him to create a conflict between sympathy ROBERT and judgment in his audience: As the reader often judges the dramatic speaker as evil, he nevertheless sympathises with his BROWNING’S predicament. The dramatic monologue allows the author to explore the thoughts and feelings LITERARY of peculiar figures and their psychological states that were seldom practised before. Although ACHIEVEMENTS Browning did not invent the dramatic monologue, he expanded its possibilities for significant psychological and philosophical expression, and he will always be considered a master of the dramatic poem. DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE A dramatic monologue is a poem where one character talks to someone who does not respond, sharing their feelings and thoughts. Two well-known examples are Robert Browning’s "My Last Duchess," where a man discusses his deceased wife, and Alfred Tennyson’s "Ulysses," where a hero looks back on his past adventures and expresses his longing for more experiences.  DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE A dramatic monologue is a poem in which one speaks directly to an audience, sharing their deepest thoughts and feelings. This speech usually lasts for a while rather than just a few lines. While it may remind you of a soliloquy when someone speaks their thoughts out loud without an audience, the critical difference is that a dramatic monologue is meant to be heard by others.  Dramatic monologues play a more pronounced role in DRAMATIC poetry and plays, often directly articulating a character's feelings and contemplations. These MONOLOGU monologues not only reveal the character’s state of mind but also engage the audience, drawing them into the emotional landscape of the piece. By highlighting E the speaker’s voice, dramatic monologues create a powerful connection between the character and the audience, making the thoughts and emotions more striking and memorable.  A dramatic monologue is a speech in which a character's feelings and traits are revealed to the audience, engaging them in the character's inner world. It comes to life when a character engages in a dialogue with another character or characters, ATTENTIO drawing the audience into the conversation. N!  Do not confuse a dramatic monologue with a soliloquy.  A soliloquy is a speech in a play in which a character who is alone on the stage speaks their thoughts: o Hamletʼs famous soliloquy, ‘To be or not to be…ʼ A dramatic monologue involves a character talking to other characters.  Often acknowledged as one of Browning’s finest dramatic monologues and one of his most anthologised poems, “Fra Lippo Lippi” was published in Men and Women (1855), a two-volume collection of 51 poems. It is a rather long poem written in blank verse, employing a distinct speaker than the poet himself. In this poem, Browning Robert Browning’s discusses art and its relationship to reality and the “Fra Lippo Lippi” ideal, religion and hypocrisy, and especially the function of art and the artist, along with questioning INTRODUCTION the Church as an institution, all interwoven with the history of Italian painting and Lippi’s life. The poem reveals how the speaker uses and discusses art as a reaction against the Church’s authority and gives a new meaning to art and the artist away from the censorship of institutions.  Fra Lippo Lippi was a Florentine monk living in the fifteenth century. The beginning of the poem presents Fra Lippo in a drunken state as he is Robert leaving a brothel, walking along the streets at midnight, where the night guards catch him. The opening lays out a hypocrisy – a monk leaving a Browning’s brothel, showing the reader that the speaker is not a traditional servant of God. Fra Lippo is critical about his position in the Church, and he uses “Fra Lippo humour to distract and immediately explain himself to the surprised guards so as not to be brutalized: “What, brother Lippo’s doings, up and Lippi” down, / You know them and they take you? like enough! / I saw the proper twinkling in your eye – / ‘Tell you, I liked your looks at very first” (40- Analysis 44). He proceeds to give them a long account of his childhood, his vocation as a monk and a painter, following with his ideas about what art or the artist must do.  Fra Lippo, as he explains, was an orphan and left by his father to starvation. He did not enter the religious orders by choice or desire but somewhat out of hunger and insecurity: “‘Will you renounce’... ‘the mouthful of bread?’ thought I; / By no Robert means! Brief, they made a monk of me” (96-97). Throughout this autobiographical narration, Fra Lippo justifies his involvement with the Church as Browning’s a compulsory action to survive. However, he does not fit in the order nor agree with the Church doctrines, which lays the ground for further “Fra Lippo opposition. In the following sections of the poem, Fra Lippo questions the rules he was made to live his life by, specifically the practice of celibacy. He Lippi” finds the Church’s view an unrealistic expectation as he perceives sexuality as an inspirational force. He accuses the Church that: “You should not take a fellow eight years old / And make him swear to Analysis never kiss the girls” (225-226). For him, such dictations, specifically celibacy, mean wasting one’s youth, and he rebels against it. Fra Lippo, unlike the serious and grim friars of the Roman Catholic Church, is a lively and social friar as well as “a grotesque mixture of monk and man” (King 47).  Fra Lippo Lippi was an extremely unconventional Robert friar – a rebellious artist, a man famous for lust, and a sensualist. Hence, as a man who enjoys life Browning’s to its full extent – good food, drinking, women, and comfort – the earthly inclinations of Fra Lippo “Fra Lippo are reflected in his paintings, underlying his Lippi” perception of art. As opposed to the teachings of the Church, which focus on the abstract and the Analysis idealised (divine, not earthly), Fra Lippo paints the details of life that are often unnoticed, ordinary, mortal and material.  Hence, Fra Lippo explains this perspective when Robert he discusses the criticism of the Church towards his work as follows: Browning’s “Fra Lippo For this fair town’s face, yonder river’s line, The mountain round it and the sky above, Lippi” Much more the figures of man, woman, child, These are the frame to? What’s it all about? Analysis To be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon, Wondered at? Oh, this last of course! (287-292).  This explanation is significant not only in depicting a new artistry, but also for acting as a Robert voice for Browning who finds art as something creative and expressive. In history of art, Filippo Lippi is acknowledged as one of the first painters Browning’s to break with the formal traditions of ecclesiastical painting. He was the first naturalist and realist in painting, often selecting contemporary scenes and “Fra Lippo figures to depict. It could be argued that Lippi’s position in history, like Fra Lippo’s, is also Browning’s view of his own position in the poetry Lippi” of the nineteenth century. Lippi occupies an important place in the history of art as the harbinger of a new manner of painting, by Analysis contrasting with the old and formal religious artistry, just as Browning does similar in poetry by breaking with the traditions and bringing new meanings to art. Robert In this sense, Mary Schwingen comments, Browning’s “Browning suggests that the traditional, idyllic definition of beauty espoused by the church turns art into propaganda. Instead, he proposes that “Fra Lippo honest, realistic portrayals of life should be channelled into these aesthetic moments” (n.p.). Hence, art is linked to life, and reality is brought to Lippi” the forefront. Analysis Robert The poem is essentially a rebellion against the authority of rigid conventions for the freedom of the artist. In the poem, the focal point of the conflict between the artist (and his art) and Browning’s authority is displayed in the clash between Fra Lippo and the Prior. Accordingly, this clash is a historical one concerning a conflict between body “Fra Lippo and soul – in Renaissance (ecclesiastical) art, the body was rejected for the sake of portraying the soul (Roberts 68-70). The body was a lesser object Lippi” while the soul was divine, so proper art should paint the soul (the abstract) and not focus on the flesh. Yet, Fra Lippo does not agree with this idea Analysis and accuses the Prior’s side harshly: Robert Your business is not to catch men with show, Browning’s With homage to the perishable clay, But life them over it, ignore it all, “Fra Lippo Make them forget there’s such a thing as flesh. Lippi” Your business is to paint the souls of men. (183- 187). Analysis Robert Whereas Fra Lippo represents the revolutionary, the sensual and the realistic, the Prior defends the Browning’s ascetic and traditional. For Fra Lippo, refusing the flesh is nonsensical – he celebrates the physical alongside the spiritual because body and soul “Fra Lippo coexist and are both necessary to attain divinity: “If you get simple beauty and nought else, / You get about the best thing God invents, – / That’s Lippi” somewhat; and you’ll find the soul you have missed, / Within yourself when you return him thanks” (217-220). Analysis  For Fra Lippo, life on earth, mortality, and body is joyful and worthy of celebration. He believes that emotions, life, and all the things the Church dictates as sin are truly what gives life and art their meaning: “Flower o’ the broom, / take away love, Robert and our earth is a tomb! / Flower of the quince / I let Lisa go, and what good in life since” (53-57). He paints by instinct, and what he paints is the Browning’s world of his perceptions rather than idealised abstractions of it as ecclesiastical art dictates: “And my whole soul revolves, the up runs over, / “Fra Lippo The world and life’s too big to pass for a dream” (250-251). Interestingly, while this rebellion against the Church doctrines distances Fra Lippo Lippi” from the religious institutions, it brings him closer to God. Perceiving the world through emotions, observing the human experience, and putting the Analysis body in the equal state as the soul brings forward gratitude for the privilege of living and takes away all the veils authoritative institutions laid before: “... you’ve seen the world / The beauty and wonder and the power, / The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades, / changes, surprises – and God made it all” (282-285).  Hence, as Nestrick argues, for Fra Lippo, “God reveals himself on the level of human experience, not in an absolute or pure way, but in a way suited to the Robert powers of human comprehension. Hence, Browning’s focus is on individual human beings. In their Browning’s imperfection, he finds a human perfection that images divine perfection” (683). To him, it is the duty of the “Fra Lippo artist to make people see what is otherwise unnoticed, material, real yet unremarked, all through the flesh: Lippi” For, don’t you mark? We’re made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have Analysis passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; And so they are better, painted – better to us, Which is the same thing. (300-304) Robert By uniting body and soul and refusing the dictations of authority on art, “Fra Lippo Lippi” Browning’s emphasises that art is how one’s awareness of what “Fra Lippo is out there is aroused and sharpened. The artist is given a new, important role as the creator and Lippi” “maker-see” (Nestrick 688). Analysis  In the opposition against authority, Fra Lippo also mentions the patronage system that was a part of cultural life and arts during the Robert Renaissance. In his case, the controlling force is Browning’s the Medici family and the Church, yet the patronage is treated differently. For Fra Lippo, “Fra Lippo the very name of the Medici family means oppression as they have every right to direct his Lippi” art as they please; and this means a force of censorship: “So I swallow my rage, / Clench my Analysis teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint / To please them – sometimes do and sometimes don’t” (242-244).  On the other hand, the patronage of a distinct family brings protection and significance to the Robert social hierarchy. The name Cosimo Medici, as his patron, gives power to Fra Lippo against the night Browning’s guards, and even his drunken state or behaviour becomes pardonable. Yet what is important is that “Fra Lippo for Fra Lippo. However, the Medici family do hold power over him; they seem to enable more artistic Lippi” freedom compared to the total oppression of the Analysis Church, as Fra Lippo states: “I’m my own master, paint now as I please – / Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house!” (226-227).  In the poem, Fra Lippo often refers to saints, specifically Jerome, Ambrose, Laurence, and John the Baptist. One possible reason for these Robert references is arguably historical accuracy; in Filippo Lippi’s biography, Vasari points out that St. Browning’s John was his favourite subject (48-49). However, the allusions to these saints and St. Jerome specifically emphasise a thematic function: to “Fra Lippo contrast the saints’ mortification of the flesh with Fra Lippo’s celebration. Fra Lippo himself depicts Lippi” this mortification of flesh when he mentions Jerome “knocking at his poor old breast / With his Analysis great round stone to subdue the flesh” (73-74). Hence, the celebration of the body against the Church doctrines is further emphasised with these references.  Following the discussion of saints, another significant point is the reference to John the Robert Baptist, who is mentioned more often than any other saint by Fra Lippo. In his article, Michael Browning’s Bright argues that St. John is “the most ascetic of all Biblical figures and therefore a foil to Lippo “Fra Lippo and his love of the world” (75). Accordingly, for Lippi” Fra Lippo, this asceticism is not helpful nor likeable; when the “sweet angelic slip of a thing” Analysis comes to ask, “Could Saint John there draw - / His camel-hair make up a painting-brush?” the answer is negative, for they “come to brother Lippo for all that” (374-376).  Yet the significant point is that, unlike their differences, the saint and the painter share a role; Robert just as St. John prepares the way for Christ, Lippo Browning’s does so for his pupil Guidi, also called the Hulking Tom: “He picks my practice up – he’ll paint apace, “Fra Lippo / I hope so – though I never live so long, / I know what’s sure to follow” (276-280). In that sense, as Lippi” the pioneer of realism in art, “John and Lippo share the plight of all revolutionaries in facing the Analysis resistance that inevitably opposes the arrival of anything new in the world” (Bright 76).  In conclusion, throughout the poem, Fra Lippo is presented in threefold identities: a monk, an artist, and a man. Being both an artist rejecting formal traditions, a monk under orders, and a man whose impulses need control simultaneously causes conflicts in the speaker, which he aims to solve through his outlook on art. To find fulfilment as an artist, Fra Lippo must break the bonds of rigid monasticism and all forms of authority on his art so that as a monk, he could find God and, as a man, find satisfaction and pleasure. Although he is in open rebellion, the sincere narration of Fra “Fra Lippo Lippo is what marks the poem. Despite the multiple hypocrisies recorded (of the Prior, of the Church, of artistry, and of Fra Lippo’s being a monk yet living a life opposite to Lippi” doctrines), his honest narration and reasoning of his acts through the dramatic monologue awakens sympathy in the CONCLUSION reader. Fra Lippo is a reactionary figure against all that put authoritative pressure on the artist and limit the artwork, whether it is the patronage system, the repressive voice of institutions, the authority of traditional formal art, or even the night guards that keep Florence under surveillance. Through the voice of Fra Lippo, Browning turns art into a reaction against the confines of authority, as well as giving a new meaning to art and duty to the artist, paving the way for new ways of creation. “Fra  The Purpose of Art Lippo “Fra Lippo Lippi” explains not only what Browning believed to be his subject’s Lippi” view of the purpose of painting but also BONUS the poet’s beliefs about the function of poetry. Both painter and poet have the THEMES power of imagination. The question is what the relationship should be between the real world about them and the ideal worlds that they can imagine.  The Function of Painting and Poetry The main idea of “Fra Lippo Lippi” is that painting should show the true beauty of the world created by God. By capturing this “Fra beauty, artists can also express the more Lippo profound spiritual qualities of the people they depict. In his poetry, Browning aimed Lippi” to achieve a similar goal. As Fra Lippo Lippi talks to a kind listener, he transforms from BONUS just a runaway monk in old and torn clothes THEMES stuck in a rough part of town into a passionate artist with a rich inner life and spiritual depth.  idea is shared by Fra Lippo Lippi's critics, who think his paintings are too realistic. They argue that by focusing so much on lifelike “Fra Lippo Lippi” details, viewers might get too caught up in the physical appearance of the human body and BONUS THEMES forget really about what matters—our souls. After all, bodies are temporary, but souls are eternal.  FOR FURTHER READINGS Secondary Sources: Bright, Michael H. “John the Baptist in Browning’s ‘Fra Lippo Lippi.’” Victorian Poetry 15.1 (1977): 75-77. JSTOR. Web. 25 Oct. 2017. Crowell, Norton B. A Reader’s Guide to Robert Browning. Albuquerque: New Mexico UP, 1972. Print. DeVane, William. A Browning Handbook. New York: Appleton, 1955. Print. King, Roma. The Bow and the Lyre. Ann Arbor: Michigan UP, 1957. Print. Litzinger, Boyd. “Incident as Microcosm: The Prior’s Niece in ‘Fra Lippo Lippi.’” College English 22.6 (1961): 409-410. JSTOR. Web. 12 Oct 2017. Nestrick, William V. “Robert Browning: The Maker-See.” The English Journal 55.6 (1966): 682-689. JSTOR. Web. 23 Oct. 2017.  FOR FURTHER READINGS Pepperdene, Margaret W. “Browning’s ‘Fra Lippo Lippi,’ 70-75.” The Explicator 15.5 (1957): 78-80. Taylor and Francis. Web. 23 Oct. 2017. Roberts, Adam. Robert Browning Revisited. London: Twayne, 1996. Print. Schwingen, Mary. “Browning’s Attacks on Idealized Art in ‘Fra Lippo Lippi.’” The Victorian Web. 8 June 2007. Web. 24 Oct. 2017. Toole, William B. “Wit and Symbol: The Prior’s Niece and the Structure of ‘Fra Lippo Lippi.’” South Atlantic Bulletin 35.2 (1970): 3-8. JSTOR. Web. 24 Nov. 2017. Vasari, Giorgio. Lives of the Artists. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965. Print.  THANK YOU THE END and SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!