Browning's avatars

Forgive me if you have heard this one before.

In style, Robert Browning (born 1812 in England and died in Italy in 1889) owes something to Shakespeare's bad characters - especially I would guess Don John in Much ado about nothing. And the speech (iambic pentameter rhymed couplets) of this poet avatar the Duke of Ferrara is meant to be read aloud. What fun you could have had declaiming this poem with its sexy hints of infidelity, jealousy and murder in a Victorian drawing room crowded with chairs, stuffed animals and drapes of plush fabric.

The need to speak it aloud is clear when you consider that the collection from which it comes is Browning's 1842 Dramatic Lyrics. It may be of interest that the collection itself was part of a self-published series called Bells and pomegranates.

My last Duchess

That's my last Duchess' painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She 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 mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

More on the story behind the story here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Last_Duchess.

Heroic couplets and their more prosaic day to day existence

Why do couplets seem less heroic than they used to? Well, like all verse forms, over-familiarity, lack of understanding and especially a strong association with a particular point in history have taken their toll.

Originally the verse form was made widely acceptable by poets including Geoffrey Chaucer at that interesting period of English language development. The one that sealed the southern business variation he used as the choice of the educated and the court itself. The Knight's Tale (part of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales) sampled below is written in couplets, iambic pentameter and end-rhymed. The closed rhyme allows us to consider this as a direct antecedent of the heroic couplet but it is freer in form.

The pillers did their business and cure,
After the battle and discomfiture.
And so befell, that in the tas they found,
Through girt with many a grievous bloody wound,
Two younge knightes ligging by and by
Both in one armes, wrought full richely:
Of whiche two, Arcita hight that one,
And he that other highte Palamon.
Not fully quick, nor fully dead they were,
But by their coat-armour, and by their gear,
The heralds knew them well in special,
As those that weren of the blood royal
Of Thebes, and of sistren two y-born.
Out of the tas the pillers have them torn,
And have them carried soft unto the tent
Of Theseus, and he full soon them sent
To Athens, for to dwellen in prison
Perpetually, he n'olde no ranson.

So far so good (and I missing out the joys of Shakespear, Donne, Keats and so much more) but really it is our association of the heroic couplet as the verse form default of Dryden and Pope and the 18th century love of form that drove and sealed the nail in its coffin. In spite of the fact that neither used the form like this themselves - for example, an extract of Alexander Pope's poem the Rape of the Lock is playful with its couplets and its characters..as in this cynical view of the lady dressing


The Tortoise here and Elephant unite,
Transformed to combs, the speckled, and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.
Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms,
Repairs her smiles, awakens ev'ry grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise,
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.
The busy Sylphs surround their darling care,
These set the head, and those divide the hair,
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown:
And Betty's prais'd for labours not her own.


But the form fell foul. It became a poetic tic for classical translations and epics which as time moved further from the wit and economy of Dryden and Pope's political and court commentary to imitators telling another big story - all set to the de-dum de-dum de-dum de-dum de-dum of iambic pentameter.

Heroic couplets became tangled with the literally heroic and then after the onset of the 20th century and its wars got brushed up alongside Walter Scott, Rupert Brooke and anyone else who had the misfortune to turn their writing eye on gallantry (however cynically).

Interesting what can happen to a poetic form.