‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’ by Robert Browning: A Review
‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’, by Robert Browning, written in 1842, is at first reading an extremely complex poem, with seemingly confused outbursts of various emotions, mainly deep-rooted hatred. But, on further analysis, it turns out an unusually entertaining metered poem wherein Browning’s protagonist, the monk who soliloquizes, actually castigates himself in a harangue against a fellow monk, Brother Lawrence, a sort of transferred epithet in a distant sense. It is most likely that the poem, directed at the moralists and preachers of Browning's day, is an expose of such people's hypocrisy and essential immorality.
Browning uses nine stanzas of eight lines, each serving a specific function, as well as providing a rich variety of images, comparisons, and intonations. He takes advantage of poetic license, using both bestial and reflective sounds, bordering on the onomatopoeia-like ‘Gr-r-r-‘ and ‘He-he!’ as well as unbridled invective, like ‘Water your damned flower-pots, do’ and ‘Hell dry you up with its flames!’ He explores morality, the grumbling monk presenting himself as the model of virtue. After revealing his bitter feelings, he lists his grievances against the despicable Brother Lawrence, who he judges against his own standards. He finds the way Lawrence speaks of his flowers repulsive; that he talks at the table is a cross he has to bear, slyly injecting sarcasm with references to ‘parsley’ and ‘swine’. He accuses him of moral turpitude and poor table manners, not knowing how to close his plate after a meal. All the while, he is seeking ways of luring the ‘model’ Brother Lawrence to perdition, in direct contravention to what his vocation and dress symbolize. He abhors Lawrence and rages against him for reasons that seem trivial, which is where the poem has its most ironic yet exhilarating stanzas. He would like to send Lawrence ‘off to hell, a Manichee¹’. He also portrays Lawrence as a pagan who is worse than an Arian² and would stoop to any level to indulge Belial³ - three not so flattering comparisons- that too in an Abbey, the last place a monk should consider communing with the Devil!
Few methods of expression are as powerful as the language of rage. This soliloquy is mainly an extended fit of rage brought on by his deeply rooted hatred of his alter ego, Brother Lawrence, giving an important clue to his seething mental state. To heighten the sarcasm, Browning makes ample use of punctuation marks rarely seen in poetry of that era and emphasizes the strength of his feelings. Exclamation and question marks are used aplenty, from the first octet onwards. The question marks are interesting in that they are usually not used to ask a question but to heighten sarcasm. "What? your myrtle bush wants trimming?/ Oh that rose has prior claims/ Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?" His sardonic references to Lawrence’s flowers only serve to re-emphasize his bent of mind. These punctuation marks occur regularly throughout the piece, indicating that the speaker's bitter emotion never slackens.
He mixes the antithesis artfully, coming across as erudite enough to know where each of the twenty-nine damnations are in Galatians, besides being conversant with French and Latin, which is out of place with a bestial nature. It could be his way of saying that his education has made him superior. It is in this belief of superiority that the ultimate irony of the work lies. The narrator, despite his disapproval of Lawrence's frivolity is lower than Lawrence in spirituality. However, there is a dispute here, in that it may have been Browning’s idea to refer to another passage in the Bible, Deuteronomy (xxviii, 15-45).
Hatred has devoured the speaker. Every line of the poem reveals this fact, but it is crystallized by his mutilated praise of the Virgin Mary. Instead of the proper, ‘Ave, Maria, gratia plena,’ the speaker delivers a twisted form of the phrase, ‘Plena gratiâ // Ave, Virgo!’ His singular hatred, so well expressed in a bout of rage, proves that he is not holy now, if he ever was.
Footnotes
1. Manichee: Manichee, archaic for Manichean, a follower of a religion or philosophy that believes God and Satan have equal power. The Zoroastrians, an ancient Persian faith, are the best-known Manichean denomination; St. Augustine followed Manichineanism before converting to Christianity.
2. Arian: Arian was a follower of Arius, a heretic who denied the doctrine of the Trinity.
3. Belial: Belial is another name for Satan in the Old Testament of the Bible, used here to represent wickedness.
References: This author would like to thank http://www.victorian.web.org/, among others, for providing reference material.