An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 15

By the t.i.tle of the poem is meant respectability according to the standard of the beau monde.

The speaker is a woman, as is indicated in the third stanza.

The monologue is addressed to her lover.

Stanza 1 shows that they have disregarded the conventionalities of the beau monde. Had they conformed to them, many precious months and years would have pa.s.sed before they found out the world and what it fears. One cannot well judge of any state of things while in it. It must be looked at from the outside.

Stanza 2. The idea is repeated in a more special form in the first four verses of the stanza; and in the last four their own non-conventional and Bohemian life is indicated.

Stanza 3, vv. 1-4. The speaker knows that this beau monde does not proscribe love, provided it be in accordance with the proprieties which IT has determined upon and established.

v. 5. "The world's good word!" a contemptuous exclamation: what's the world's good word worth? "the Inst.i.tute!" (the reference is, of course, to the French Inst.i.tute), the Inst.i.tute! with all its authoritative, dictatorial learnedness! v.6. Guizot and Montalembert were both members of the Inst.i.tute, and being thus in the same boat, Guizot conventionally receives Montalembert. vv. 7 and 8. These two unconventional Bohemian lovers, strolling together at night, at their own sweet will, see down the court along which they are strolling, three lampions flare, which indicate some big place or other where the "respectables" do congregate; and the woman says to her companion, with a humorous sarcasm, "Put forward your best foot!" that is, we must be very correct pa.s.sing along here in this brilliant light.

By the two lovers are evidently meant George Sand (the speaker) and Jules Sandeau, with whom she lived in Paris, after she left her husband, M. Dudevant. They took just such unconventional night-strolls together, in the streets of Paris.

Home-Thoughts from Abroad.

An Englishman, in some foreign land, longs for England, now that April's there, with its peculiar English charms; and then will come May, with the white-throat and the swallows, and, most delightful of all, the thrush, with its rapturous song!

And the b.u.t.tercups, far brighter than the gaudy melon-flower he has before him!

Home-Thoughts from the Sea.

A paean, inspired by the sight, from the sea, of Cape Trafalgar and Gibraltar, both objects of patriotic pride to an Englishman; the one a.s.sociated with the naval victory gained by the English fleet, under Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets; the other, England's greatest stronghold.

The first four verses make a characteristic Turner picture.

Old Pictures in Florence.

The speaker in the monologue is looking down upon Florence, in the valley beneath, from a villa on one of the surrounding heights.

The startling bell-tower Giotto raised more than startles him.

(For an explanation of this, see note under Stanza 2.) Although the poem presents a general survey of the old Florentine masters, the THEME of the poem is really Giotto, who received the affectionate homage of the Florentines, in his own day, and for whom the speaker has a special love.

The poem leads up to the prophesied restoration of Freedom to Florence, the return of Art, that departed with her, and the completion of the Campanile, which will vindicate Giotto and Florence together, and crown the restoration of freedom to the city, and its liberation from the hated Austrian rule.

Mrs. Browning's 'Casa Guidi Windows' should be read in connection with this monologue. The strong sympathy which is expressed in the last few stanzas of the monologue, with Italian liberty, is expressed in 'Casa Guidi Windows' at a white heat.

"We find," says Professor Dowden, "a full confession of Mr. Browning's creed with respect to art in the poem ent.i.tled 'Old Pictures in Florence'. He sees the ghosts of the early Christian masters, whose work has never been duly appreciated, standing sadly by each mouldering Italian Fresco; and when an imagined interlocutor inquires what is admirable in such work as this, the poet answers that the glory of Christian art lies in its rejecting a limited perfection, such as that of the art of ancient Greece, the subject of which was finite, and the lesson taught by which was submission, and in its daring to be incomplete, and faulty, faulty because its subject was great with infinite fears and hopes, and because it must needs teach man not to submit but to aspire."

Pictor Ignotus.

{Florence, 15--.}

An unknown painter reflects, but without envy, upon the praise which has been bestowed on a youthful artist,--what that praise involves.

He himself was conscious of all the power, and more, which the youth has shown; no bar stayed, nor fate forbid, to exercise it, nor would flesh have shrunk from seconding his soul.

All he saw he could have put upon canvas;

"Each face obedient to its pa.s.sion's law, Each pa.s.sion clear proclaimed without a tongue."

And when he thought how sweet would be the earthly fame which his work would bring him, "the thought grew frightful, 'twas so wildly dear!"

But a vision flashed before him and changed that thought. Along with the loving, trusting ones were cold faces, that begun to press on him and judge him. Such as these would buy and sell his pictures for garniture and household-stuff. His pictures, so sacred to his soul, would be the subject of their prate, "This I love, or this I hate, this likes me more, and this affects me less!" To avoid such sacrilege, he has chosen his portion. And if his heart sometimes sinks, while at his monotonous work of painting endless cloisters and eternal aisles, with the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint, with the same cold, calm, beautiful regard, at least no merchant traffics in his heart. Guarded by the sanctuary's gloom, from vain tongues, his pictures may die, surely, gently die.

"O youth, men praise so,--holds their praise its worth?

Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?"

Andrea del Sarto.

(Called "The Faultless Painter".)

In this monologue, "the faultless painter" (Andrea Senza Errori, as he was surnamed by the Italians) is the speaker.

He addresses his worthless wife, Lucrezia, upon whom he weakly dotes, and for whom he has broken faith with his royal patron, Francis I. of France, in order that he might meet her demands for money, to be spent upon her pleasures. He laments that he has fallen below himself as an artist, that he has not realized the possibilities of his genius, half accusing, from the better side of his nature, and half excusing, in his uxoriousness, the woman who has had no sympathy with him in the high ideals which, with her support, he might have realized, and thus have placed himself beside Angelo and Rafael. "Had the mouth then urged 'G.o.d and the glory! never care for gain. The present by the future, what is that? Live for fame, side by side with Angelo-- Rafael is waiting. Up to G.o.d all three!' I might have done it for you."

In his 'Comparative Study of Tennyson and Browning'*, Professor Edward Dowden, setting forth Browning's doctrines on the subject of Art, remarks:--

-- * Originally a lecture, delivered in 1868, and published in 'Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art' (Dublin), 5th series, 1869; afterwards revised, and included in the author's 'Studies in Literature, 1789-1877'. It is one of the best criticisms of Browning's poetry that have yet been produced. Every Browning student should make a careful study of it.

"The true glory of art is, that in its creation there arise desires and aspirations never to be satisfied on earth, but generating new desires and new aspirations, by which the spirit of man mounts to G.o.d Himself. The artist (Mr. Browning loves to insist on this point) who can realize in marble or in color, or in music, his ideal, has thereby missed the highest gain of art.

In 'Pippa Pa.s.ses' the regeneration of the young sculptor's work turns on his finding that in the very perfection which he had attained lies ultimate failure. And one entire poem, 'Andrea del Sarto', has been devoted to the exposition of this thought.

Andrea is 'the faultless painter'; no line of his drawing ever goes astray; his hand expressed adequately and accurately all that his mind conceives; but for this very reason, precisely because he is 'the faultless painter', his work lacks the highest qualities of art:--

"'A man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a Heaven for? all is silver-grey, Placid and perfect with my art--the worse.'

"And in the youthful Raphael, whose technical execution fell so far below his own, Andrea recognizes the true master:--

"'Yonder's a work, now, of that famous youth', etc.

"In Andrea del Sarto," says Vasari, "art and nature combined to show all that may be done in painting, where design, coloring, and invention unite in one and the same person. Had this master possessed a somewhat bolder and more elevated mind, had he been as much distinguished for higher qualifications as he was for genius and depth of judgment in the art he practised, he would, beyond all doubt, 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 those evidences of ardor and animation which are proper to the more exalted character, should ever appear in him; nor did he at any time display one particle of that elevation which, could it but have been added to the advantages wherewith he was endowed, would have rendered him a truly divine painter: wherefore the works of Andrea are wanting in those ornaments of grandeur, richness, and force, which appear so conspicuously in those of many other masters.

His figures are, nevertheless, well drawn, they are entirely free from errors, and perfect in all their proportions, and are for the most part simple and chaste: the expression of his heads is natural and graceful in women and children, while in youths and old men it is full of life and animation.

The draperies of this master are beautiful to a marvel, and the nude figures are admirably executed, the drawing is simple, the coloring is most exquisite, nay, it is truly divine."