Browning and music: a study of Robert Browning's use of musical structuring principles to unify the dramatic monologues of the Men and Women of 1863 and The Ring and the Book
Robert Browning often insisted that he had studied music seriously and that he knew what he was about when he talked of or wrote about music. Moreover, he claimed that he had given “much attention to music proper…to the detriment of what people take for ‘music’ in his poetry.” Nonetheless, there has persisted among critics a nagging challenge as to the accuracy and depth of musical knowledge which Browning employed in fusing musical elements to poetry. My dissertation takes up this question with the aim of proving the validity of Browning’s claims. I begin by concentrating upon Browning’s “Music Poems” which have been the focus of commentators’ negative comments upon the poet’s knowledge of music. In the opening chapter several principles for a correct reading of these poems become clear and provide a corrective to the misconceptions which have dogged critics in their attacks upon Browning’s use of music in poetry. Basically, the errors of Browning’s critics have resulted from a too technical, non-literary reading of musical references as employed by the poet. In Chapters II and III, I introduce a much more theoretic use of music in Browning’s poetry, a use that hitherto has gone unexplored by critics—that is, the poet’s employment of musical structuring principles to organize the poems of the 1863 version of Men and Women into an organically unified work. The aim of these two chapters is to identify a specific organization in the selection and arrangement of the thirteen poems in this version of Men and Women, and then to demonstrate that this organization is rooted in structuring principles of music. In Chapter IV, I argue that musical structuring principles serve as a practical and effective base from which to understand the form of The Ring and the Book—Browning’s acknowledged masterpiece, yet a work which has defied critics’ attempts to identify convincingly its organizing principle. In spite of critical views to the contrary, Browning’s theoretical grasp of music was excellent, and such knowledge was employed by him in an effort to write a new kind of poetry—a poetry which aimed at overcoming limitations in language, even poetic language, when that language attempts to capture “ultimate” truth. I believe my dissertation contributes to an understanding of music in Browning's poetry and introduces new evidence of Browning’s genius in poetic experimentation.
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