Life of Robert Browning [34]
for the difference in value of the two methods it is useless to dogmatise.
The psychic portraiture produced by either is valuable
only so far as it is convincingly true.
The profoundest insight cannot reach deeper than its own possibilities
of depth. The physiognomy of the soul is never visible in its entirety,
barely ever even its profile. The utmost we can expect to reproduce,
perhaps even to perceive in the most quintessential moment,
is a partially faithful, partially deceptive silhouette.
As no human being has ever seen his or her own soul,
in all its rounded completeness of good and evil, of strength and weakness,
of what is temporal and perishable and what is germinal and essential,
how can we expect even the subtlest analyst to adequately depict
other souls than his own. It is Browning's high distinction
that he has this soul-depictive faculty -- restricted as even in his instance
it perforce is -- to an extent unsurpassed by any other poet,
ancient or modern. As a sympathetic critic has remarked,
"His stage is not the visible phenomenal England (or elsewhere) of history;
it is a point in the spiritual universe, where naked souls meet and wrestle,
as they play the great game of life, for counters, the true value of which
can only be realised in the bullion of a higher life than this."
No doubt there is "a certain crudeness in the manner in which
these naked souls are presented," not only in "Strafford" but elsewhere
in the plays. Browning markedly has the defects of his qualities.
As part of his method, it should be noted that his real trust
is upon monologue rather than upon dialogue. To one who works
from within outward -- in contradistinction to the Shakespearian method
of striving to win from outward forms "the passion and the life
whose fountains are within" -- the propriety of this dramatic means
can scarce be gainsaid. The swift complicated mental machinery
can thus be exhibited infinitely more coherently and comprehensibly
than by the most electric succinct dialogue. Again and again
Browning has nigh foundered in the morass of monologue, but, broadly speaking,
he transcends in this dramatic method.
At the same time, none must take it for granted that
the author of "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon", "Luria", "In a Balcony",
is not dramatic in even the most conventional sense. Above all, indeed
-- as Mr. Walter Pater has said -- his is the poetry of situations.
In each of the `dramatis personae', one of the leading characteristics
is loyalty to a dominant ideal. In Strafford's case
it is that of unswerving devotion to the King: in Mildred's and in Thorold's,
in "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon", it is that of subservience respectively
to conventional morality and family pride (Lord Tresham, it may be added,
is the most hopelessly monomaniacal of all Browning's "monomaniacs"):
in Valence's, in "Colombe's Birthday", to chivalric love:
in Charles, in "King Victor and King Charles", to kingly and filial duty:
in Anael's and Djabal's, in "The Return of the Druses",
respectively to religion and unscrupulous ambition modified by patriotism:
in Chiappino's, in "A Soul's Tragedy", to purely sordid ambition:
in Luria's, to noble steadfastness: and in Constance's, in "In a Balcony",
to self-denial. Of these plays, "The Return of the Druses" seems to me
the most picturesque, "Luria" the most noble and dignified,
and "In a Balcony" the most potentially a great dramatic success.
The last is in a sense a fragment, but, though the integer
of a great unaccomplished drama, is as complete in itself
as the Funeral March in Beethoven's `Eroica' Symphony.
"A Blot in the 'Scutcheon" has the radical fault characteristic of
writers of sensational fiction, a too promiscuous "clearing the ground"
by syncope and suicide. Another is the juvenility of Mildred: --
a serious infraction of dramatic law, where the mere tampering with history,
as in the circumstances of King Victor's death in the earlier play,
is at least excusable by high precedent. More disastrous, poetically,
The psychic portraiture produced by either is valuable
only so far as it is convincingly true.
The profoundest insight cannot reach deeper than its own possibilities
of depth. The physiognomy of the soul is never visible in its entirety,
barely ever even its profile. The utmost we can expect to reproduce,
perhaps even to perceive in the most quintessential moment,
is a partially faithful, partially deceptive silhouette.
As no human being has ever seen his or her own soul,
in all its rounded completeness of good and evil, of strength and weakness,
of what is temporal and perishable and what is germinal and essential,
how can we expect even the subtlest analyst to adequately depict
other souls than his own. It is Browning's high distinction
that he has this soul-depictive faculty -- restricted as even in his instance
it perforce is -- to an extent unsurpassed by any other poet,
ancient or modern. As a sympathetic critic has remarked,
"His stage is not the visible phenomenal England (or elsewhere) of history;
it is a point in the spiritual universe, where naked souls meet and wrestle,
as they play the great game of life, for counters, the true value of which
can only be realised in the bullion of a higher life than this."
No doubt there is "a certain crudeness in the manner in which
these naked souls are presented," not only in "Strafford" but elsewhere
in the plays. Browning markedly has the defects of his qualities.
As part of his method, it should be noted that his real trust
is upon monologue rather than upon dialogue. To one who works
from within outward -- in contradistinction to the Shakespearian method
of striving to win from outward forms "the passion and the life
whose fountains are within" -- the propriety of this dramatic means
can scarce be gainsaid. The swift complicated mental machinery
can thus be exhibited infinitely more coherently and comprehensibly
than by the most electric succinct dialogue. Again and again
Browning has nigh foundered in the morass of monologue, but, broadly speaking,
he transcends in this dramatic method.
At the same time, none must take it for granted that
the author of "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon", "Luria", "In a Balcony",
is not dramatic in even the most conventional sense. Above all, indeed
-- as Mr. Walter Pater has said -- his is the poetry of situations.
In each of the `dramatis personae', one of the leading characteristics
is loyalty to a dominant ideal. In Strafford's case
it is that of unswerving devotion to the King: in Mildred's and in Thorold's,
in "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon", it is that of subservience respectively
to conventional morality and family pride (Lord Tresham, it may be added,
is the most hopelessly monomaniacal of all Browning's "monomaniacs"):
in Valence's, in "Colombe's Birthday", to chivalric love:
in Charles, in "King Victor and King Charles", to kingly and filial duty:
in Anael's and Djabal's, in "The Return of the Druses",
respectively to religion and unscrupulous ambition modified by patriotism:
in Chiappino's, in "A Soul's Tragedy", to purely sordid ambition:
in Luria's, to noble steadfastness: and in Constance's, in "In a Balcony",
to self-denial. Of these plays, "The Return of the Druses" seems to me
the most picturesque, "Luria" the most noble and dignified,
and "In a Balcony" the most potentially a great dramatic success.
The last is in a sense a fragment, but, though the integer
of a great unaccomplished drama, is as complete in itself
as the Funeral March in Beethoven's `Eroica' Symphony.
"A Blot in the 'Scutcheon" has the radical fault characteristic of
writers of sensational fiction, a too promiscuous "clearing the ground"
by syncope and suicide. Another is the juvenility of Mildred: --
a serious infraction of dramatic law, where the mere tampering with history,
as in the circumstances of King Victor's death in the earlier play,
is at least excusable by high precedent. More disastrous, poetically,