Multiple Perspectives on Single Events
The dramatic monologue verse form allowed Browning to
explore and probe the minds of specific characters in specific places
struggling with specific sets of circumstances. In The Ring
and the Book, Browning tells a suspenseful story of murder
using multiple voices, which give multiple perspectives and multiple
versions of the same story. Dramatic monologues allow readers to
enter into the minds of various characters and to see an event from
that character’s perspective. Understanding the thoughts, feelings,
and motivations of a character not only gives readers a sense of
sympathy for the characters but also helps readers understand the
multiplicity of perspectives that make up the truth. In effect,
Browning’s work reminds readers that the nature of truth or reality
fluctuates, depending on one’s perspective or view of the situation.
Multiple perspectives illustrate the idea that no one sensibility
or perspective sees the whole story and no two people see the same
events in the same way. Browning further illustrated this idea by
writing poems that work together as companion pieces, such as “Fra
Lippo Lippi” and “Andrea del Sarto.” Poems such as these show how
people with different characters respond differently to similar
situations, as well as depict how a time, place, and scenario can
cause people with similar personalities to develop or change quite
dramatically.
The Purposes of Art
Browning wrote many poems about artists and poets, including
such dramatic monologues as “Pictor Ignotus” (1855)
and “Fra Lippo Lippi.” Frequently, Browning would begin by thinking
about an artist, an artwork, or a type of art that he admired or
disliked. Then he would speculate on the character or artistic philosophy
that would lead to such a success or failure. His dramatic monologues
about artists attempt to capture some of this philosophizing because
his characters speculate on the purposes of art. For instance, the speaker
of “Fra Lippo Lippi” proposes that art heightens our powers of observation
and helps us notice things about our own lives. According to some
of these characters and poems, painting idealizes the beauty found
in the real world, such as the radiance of a beloved’s smile. Sculpture
and architecture can memorialize famous or important people, as
in “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church” (1845)
and “The Statue and the Bust” (1855). But
art also helps its creators to make a living, and it thus has a
purpose as pecuniary as creative, an idea explored in “Andrea
del Sarto.”
The Relationship Between Art and Morality
Throughout his work, Browning tried to answer questions
about an artist’s responsibilities and to describe the relationship
between art and morality. He questioned whether artists had an obligation
to be moral and whether artists should pass judgment on their characters
and creations. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Browning populated
his poems with evil people, who commit crimes and sins ranging from
hatred to murder. The dramatic monologue format allowed Browning
to maintain a great distance between himself and his creations:
by channeling the voice of a character, Browning could explore evil
without actually being evil himself. His characters served as personae that
let him adopt different traits and tell stories about horrible situations.
In “My Last Duchess,” the speaker gets away with his wife’s murder
since neither his audience (in the poem) nor his creator judges
or criticizes him. Instead, the responsibility of judging the character’s
morality is left to readers, who find the duke of Ferrara a vicious,
repugnant person even as he takes us on a tour of his art gallery.
