Dramatic Monologue: Love and Death

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Dramatic Monologue Love and Death

• Christina Rossetti
• and Robert Browning

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Outline

• Song (When Im Dear, My Dearest)
• Christina Rossetti
• Dramatic Monologue Definition
• Song as a Dramatic Monologue
• My Last Duchess
• Porphyrias Lover
• Robert Browning as a Victorian Poet

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Song

• When I am dead, my dearest,Sing no sad songs
  for mePlant thou no roses at my head,Nor shady
  cypress tree.Be the green grass above meWith
  showers and dewdrops wetAnd if thou wilt,
  remember,And if thou wilt, forget.

• Questions
• Repetition, Pattern and Contrast?
• Meanings of the last two lines.
• Tone?

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Song (2)

• I shall not see the shadows,I shall not feel
  the rainI shall not hear the nightingaleSing
  on as if in pain.And dreaming through the
  twilightThat doth not rise nor set,Haply I may
  remember,And haply may forget.

• 1st stanza
• No sad song, roses,
• shady Cypress tree
• Green grass wet with rain and dewdrops

A Song version http//www.victorianweb.org/author
s/crossetti/plockinger1.html.edit ???s version
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Song Multiple Meanings

1. Release Death as a release no need for mourning
   ritual or obsession
2. Reluctance Death being an eternal midnight, the
   speaker rejects what she knows she cannot enjoy,
   and her enumeration of them reveals her love
   (e.g. nature and natural cycles)
3. Both.
4. A woman talking about her own death, but not used
   as a symbol by men.

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Christina Georgina Rossetti in Context
(1830-1894)

• Dante Gabriel Rossettis sister but not accepted
  as a member of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
• serve as Dante Gabriel Rossetti's model for
  virgin
• contradictory images produced by DGR
• (top to bottom) an innocent girl, tempestuous
  one, a serious and aloof woman.
• vs. the Pre-Raphaelite Women

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CR as Virgin
Ecce Ancilla Domini,1850  Dante Gabriel
Rossetti,
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CR as a Writer

• Seen as a simple writer by her brother William
  Michael R and other male critics (e.g. "at best a
  spontaneous and at worst a naive technician.")
• Writer of religious poetry and childrens nursery
  rhymes.
• Like Dickinson, hers is poetry of reticence
  (????), deals with loss and death a lot. The
  language, only apparently simple, is rich with
  ambiguities. (They also have a lot of religious
  poems.)

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Dramatic Monologue

• A poem which involves a speaker speaking alone to
  a and an implied auditor.
• Through his speech, the following is revealed
• what, when, where and how of the story
• a gap between what that speaker says and what he
  or she actually reveals (reference).

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Dramatic Monologue the Reader

• Browninesque dramatic monologue has three
  requirements
• The reader takes the part of the silent listener.
  
• The speaker uses a case-making, argumentative
  tone.
• We complete the dramatic scene from within, by
  means of inference and imagination.
• (Glenn Everett reference).

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Song as a Dramatic Monologue

• Dramatic Situation and listener (my dearest)
  unknown
• Contradiction between the speakers intention and
  what she actually reveals.
• We can write the story in many ways.

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Dramatic Monologue in Historical Context

• The poets meeting the readers need for stories
  in Victorian society, when novel was a popular
  genre.
• A device to explore the depth of human psychology
  and the theme of alientation by assuming an
  personae (often quite alien to the poets own
  values and beliefs)
• e.g. The Waste Land, The Love Song of J. Alfred
  Prufrock.

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My Last Duchess Starting Question

• 1. The "who, where, when, and why" of the poem?
• 2. The role the listener plays in this poem?
• 2. What is the last duchess like? (See ll. 21-34)
  Why is she called the last duchess? Is she a
  flirt or one with genuine kindness to all
  creatures?
• 3. What is the duke's attitude to his duchess?
  What happened to her?
• 4. What kind of person is the duke? What does the
  ending reveal about him?

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My Last Duchess (1)

• Ferrara
• That's my last Duchess painted on the
  wall,Looking as if she were alive. I callThat
  piece a wonder, now Frà Pandolf's handsWorked
  busily a day, and there she stands.Will't please
  you sit and look at her? I said"Frà Pandolf" by
  design, for never readStrangers like you that
  pictured countenance, The depth and passion of
  its earnest glance,But to myself they turned
  (since none puts byThe curtain I have drawn for
  you, but I)                      

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My Last Duchess (2)

• And seemed as they would ask me, if they
  durst,How such a glance came there so, not the
  firstAre you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas
  notHer husband's presence only, called that
  spotOf joy into the Duchess' cheek perhapsFrà
  Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle lapsOver my
  Lady's wrist too much," or "PaintMust never hope
  to reproduce the faintHalf-flush that dies along
  her throat" such stuff Was courtesy, she
  thought, and cause enough

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My Last Duchess (3)

• For calling up that spot of joy. She hadA heart
  -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,Too
  easily impressed she liked whate'erShe looked
  on, and her looks went everywhere.Sir, 'twas all
  one! My favour at her breast,The dropping of the
  daylight in the West,The bough of cherries some
  officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the
  white muleShe rode with round the terrace -- all
  and eachWould draw from her alike the approving
  speech,

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My Last Duchess (4)

• Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- good!
  but thankedSomehow -- I know not how -- as if
  she rankedMy gift of a nine-hundred-years-old
  nameWith anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to
  blameThis sort of trifling? Even had you
  skillIn speech -- (which I have not) -- to make
  your willQuite clear to such an one, and say,
  "Just thisOr that in you disgusts me here you
  miss,Or there exceed the mark" -- and if she
  letHerself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

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My Last Duchess (5)

• Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made
  excuse,--E'en then would be some stooping, and I
  chooseNever to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no
  doubt,Whene'er I passed her but who passed
  withoutMuch the same smile? This grew I gave
  commandsThen all smiles stopped together. There
  she standsAs if alive. Will't please you rise?
  We'll meetThe company below, then. I repeat,
  The Count your master's known munificenceIs
  ample warrant that no just pretence     
• Of mine for dowry will be disallowed           

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My Last Duchess (6)

• Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowedAt
  starting, is my object. Nay, we'll goTogether
  down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,Taming a
  sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of
  Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!          

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My Last Duchess

1. Time the Italian Renaissance, when the duke is
   negotiating with an envoy over the dowry of his
   next marriage.
2. Place the grand staircase in the ducal palace at
   Ferrara, in northern Italy
3. His purpose to boast and/or to threaten.
4. silence of the listener awe, alertness?

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My Last Duchess

• The duchess jovial and loving equally to
  everyone and every being.
• last 1) not late she may be killed, but she
  may also be put in a convent. 2) will be another
  one.
• The duke 1) possessive and arrogant, he treats
  the duchess and the next one as objects to
  possess 2) proudchoose not to stoop
• His language 1) implicit demand 2) uses grand
  rhetoric to assert his power, disguising his lack
  of power.

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My Last DuchessDramatic Irony

• Contradiction between what he says and what he
  means
• double negative
• says he has no skills in speech
• says he refuses to stoop (Isnt the command a
  compromise of his humanity?)
• Between assertion of power and powerlessness
• Power -- none but me draws the curtain
• Powerlessness repetitions of all not alone,
  it was all one.

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Robert Browning (1812-1889)

• Eloped with and married the poet Elizabeth
  Barrett (1806-1861, writer of Sonnets from the
  Portuguese), and settled with her in Florence. He
  produced comparatively little poetry during the
  next 15 years.
• After Elizabeth Browning died in 1861, he
  returned to England.
• DRAMATIS PERSONAE (1864)
• THE RING AND THE BOOK (1869), based on the
  proceedings in a murder trial in Rome in 1698.
  (source)

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Porphyrias Lover Starting Question

• How would you describe the speaker? From which
  details can you tell the way his mind works?
• How about Porphyria? How are the two set in
  contrast with each other?
• Where is the turning point in this poem? How are
  the two changed, or not changed, before and after
  the turning point?
• Who is the listener? Why is the listerner
  silent?

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Porphyrias Lover (1)

• THE rain set early in to-night,
•   The sullen wind was soon awake,
• It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
•   And did its worst to vex the lake
•   I listen'd with heart fit to break.
• When glided in Porphyria straight
•   She shut the cold out and the storm,
• And kneel'd and made the cheerless grate
•   Blaze up, and all the cottage warm

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Porphyrias Lover (2)

• Which done, she rose, and from her form
• Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
•   And laid her soil'd gloves by, untied
• Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
•   And, last, she sat down by my side
•   And call'd me. When no voice replied,
• She put my arm about her waist,
•   And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
• And all her yellow hair displaced,
•   And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
•   And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
• Murmuring how she loved meshe
•   Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
• To set its struggling passion free
•   From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
•   And give herself to me for ever.

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Porphyrias Lover (3)

• But passion sometimes would prevail,
•   Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
• A sudden thought of one so pale
•   For love of her, and all in vain
•   So, she was come through wind and rain.
• Be sure I look'd up at her eyes
•   Happy and proud at last I knew
• Porphyria worshipp'd me surprise
•   Made my heart swell, and still it grew
•   While I debated what to do.
• That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
•   Perfectly pure and good I found
• A thing to do, and all her hair
•   In one long yellow string I wound
•   Three times her little throat around,
• And strangled her. No pain felt she
•   I am quite sure she felt no pain.

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Porphyrias Lover (4)

• As a shut bud that holds a bee,
•   I warily oped her lids again
•   Laugh'd the blue eyes without a stain.
• And I untighten'd next the tress
•   About her neck her cheek once more
• Blush'd bright beneath my burning kiss
•   I propp'd her head up as before,
•   Only, this time my shoulder bore
• Her head, which droops upon it still
•   The smiling rosy little head,
• So glad it has its utmost will,
•   That all it scorn'd at once is fled,
•   And I, its love, am gain'd instead!
• Porphyria's love she guess'd not how
•   Her darling one wish would be heard.
• And thus we sit together now,
•   And all night long we have not stirr'd,
•   And yet God has not said a word!

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Porphyria and her Lover

• Porphyria
• cares about the norms of society and its "gay
  feast"
• dominates over him.
• The speaker isolated quiet gloomy, listens
  "with heart fit to break.
• His language repetition, nasal sound to show his
  sulkiness.
• The lack of communication "no voice replied."

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Turning Point the Listener(s)

• turning point When the speaker believes that
  Porphyria loves her, he takes the initiative to
  possess her forever.
• The ending an attempt to rejuvenate her.
• the listener Porphyria, God, or us ? sympathy
  horror

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Reference

• Porphyrias Lover-visual presentation
  http//www.scottmccloud.com/comics/porphyria/porph
  yria.html