Role of Speaker in Browning's Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister The speaker in any poem is significant because he enables the reader to aquire information necessary in order to enter the imaginary world of the work. In Browning's Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, the solitary speaker, who is a monk overwhelmed with hatred toward a fellow monk, plays an important role as the guide in the world of the poem. The diction, structure, and tone of the entire poem communicate the speaker's motives, perceptions
creating a startling aspect to his poetry. In poems such as “Porphyria’s Lover,” and “My Last Duchess,” for example, Browning induces a feeling of intimacy by presenting the reader as the ‘confidant’ to the narrator’s crimes; in “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” the reader is more a witness to the narrator’s increasing instability. Thus, Browning is able to use the dramatic monologue form both to expose the narrator’s frailties, and as a channel for them to relinquish their sins. Furthermore
Comparison of Poems Coming straight from the dictionary, a narrative poem is “a poem that tells a story and has a plot” (Dictionary.com). We can create a mental picture within our minds with the way the narrator tells the story. In the second stanza from the poem “In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day” by X.J. Kennedy it goes as follows, “Now who of you’d think from an eyeload of me That I once was a lady as proud as could be? Oh I’d never sit down by a tumbledown drunk If it wasn’t, my
Abrams 1354-1356. ---. "Dover Beach." Abrams 1366-1367. ---. "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse." Abrams 1367-1372. Browning, Robert. "The Laboratory." Abrams 1192-1193 ---. "My Last Duchess." Abrams 1190-1192. ---. "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister." Abrams 1188-1190. Carlyle, Thomas. "From Characteristics." Abrams 923-932. Rossetti, Dante. "The Blessed Damozel." Abrams 1461-1464. Swinburne, Algernon. "Hymn to Prosperine." Abrams 1514-1516. Tennyson, Alfred. "Locksley
Browning’s works have something in common. Browning believed in recitation with states of mind and he believed in extreme states of mind. Poems that had this reoccurring theme include “Porphyria’s Lover,” “Johannes Agri-cole in Meditation,” “Soliloquy of the Spanish Choister,” and “My Last Duchess”. Browning strongly believed in equality among the social classes as well as among genders; this is seen in his poems. Religion played a big part in the Victorian era as well as in Victorian poetry. Lord Alfred
The Victorian era was one teetering on the edge of a revolution. It was an age of scientific, economic and industrial revolution, but most notably, it was an age of a mass existential crisis. The publishing of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” caused a seismic shift in the lives of the Victorians by contradicting both the scientific knowledge and religious views of society at that time. Not only did it go against every creation story told in the bible, it also gave scientists proof that the earth was