you’re graying, mr. browning
Robert F. Garratt’s essay examines Browning’s fabricated personae. These personae are classified by Garratt as disparate and distinct productions of what he calls their author’s “system of objectification” which masks human psychological interiority and individuality. Garratt subsequently posits that “The subtle development of Browning’s monologues lies in a kind of double objectification on the part of the poet, where in addition to the primary creation of the character or speaker, there exists a secondary creation, a mask, which the speaker utilizes in dealing with his auditor.” Garratt’s argument implies that Robert Browning is to be read as a strictly objective and social poet. What his reader is left to infer is that Browning’s approach ostensibly precludes the development of an individualized interiority.
Arguably, William Nestrick’s essay refutes, or, in the very least, modifies Garratt’s theory regarding Browning’s methodology. Nestrick focuses, instead, upon Browning’s publicized beliefs regarding both the aesthetic and societal roles of poets and poetry. Nestrick opposes Garratt and seems to suggest the opposite—interpreting Browning’s methodology relies upon a consideration of the subjective, personalized interiority of his characters and not predetermined and standardized “masks” that can be used as tools for classification and interpretation. Thereby, Nestrick identifies Garratt’s “double mask” as but a small appendage of Browning’s humanistic interest in “individual human beings”. This essay will attempt a reconciliation of these divergent opinions, specifically within the context of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess.” I will argue that the complexity inherent to Browning’s fabricated personae rebuts the simplistic claim made in Garratt’s critique. Rather than categorically diluting his characters—e.g. the Duke in “My Last Duchess”—into static and fabricated objects, or masks, Browning’s poetic method advocates interpreting its various portrayals of individuality from the inside out. As Nestrick posits, Browning “tries to show the soul”—the individual, the intellect—“beyond the flesh,” or perhaps underneath Garratt’s mask. In so doing, Browning established the groundwork upon which modern literature would subsequently be built. Browning was among the first to look within instead of without.
Robert Garratt sets up his argument with the following proposal—
“Dramatic monologue…which gave Browning distance through the creation of a persona, or mask, has been the subject of continuing study and analysis. I intend here not so much to enter into that discussion, but rather to isolate an aspect of Browning’s dramatic monologue which critics have thus far overlooked: the double mask.”
Garratt goes on to reveal a critical approach based on literary theory developed by William Butler Yeats which “called for the existence of a mask or “anti-self” opposite in nature from the self, to facilitate certain personality types in their dealings with the external world”. Garratt therefore seeks to “isolate” and categorize “types” of personae within the poetic oeuvre of Robert Browning. His critical approach adopts the lexicon of scientific exaction; Garratt’s effort is premised on naming and classifying the various components of Browning’s work. I.e. He is isolating a specific “aspect of Browning’s dramatic monologue,” much to the detriment of the poem itself. Garratt seems intent on arguing that Browning’s personae—including the Duke—are solely concerned with the maintenance of decorum under the scrutiny of a visible or invisible auditor. The root of this phenomenon is left unnoted; the mask simply exists as the character exists for, according to Garratt, they are much the same thing. Garratt thus thinks in absolutes—the character is this way solely because that is the way he/she was designed by Browning. The character accordingly becomes a type that must be categorized by and linked to a specific mask that brings with it an abundance of associations and tools for “understanding” the character. Garratt is uninterested in what caused the character to originally don the mask. He only seeks to show that it is there.
In his essay, “The Maker-See,” William Nestrick upsets and refutes the idea that Browning was exclusively concerned with a socially motivated decorum of character. According to Nestrick, Browning rather “sees into the deeper processes of human nature. He sees us in our secret moments; he writes about the very things we wish to hide, things which, in truth, form as much a part of our personality as any public image”. Browning, in consequence, “reaches into our innermost beings for his subject. The deepest seems to be synonymous with the darkest aspects of human nature”. These assertions both complement and oppose Garratt’s model. Seemingly, Nestrick, too, saw the basis of Browning’s poetry as social reticence. But the distinction is clear: rather than typifying Browning as a poet who categorizes his poems’ inhabitants as objective representations of specific types of personae, Nestrick points to the fact that, as a poet, Browning was more interested in the human root of his poems than the critical abstractions by which they might be dismantled. The approach is psychoanalytic, but not in the Freudian sense. Browning, Nestrick argues, rather wants his reader to discern what lies beneath his creations, so that he might “involve us in the process of grasping truths lying beneath the surface of the poem”. Opposite Garratt’s theory, Nestrick implies that the significance of Browning’s poetics is not to be found on the surface of any masks that conceal his fabricated personae but rather within and underneath. Nestrick’s method is subterranean in design, and though infinitely more vague, it achieves an accuracy which Garratt’s cannot on account of its debilitating precision. Rather than isolate one element in Browning’s poetics, Nestrick colors our broad understanding of Browning’s dramatic monologues with biographical minutiae as well as the author’s own convictions regarding poetry. In so doing, Nestrick recognizes the modernity inherent to the interiority of Browning’s personae and Browning himself.
A reconciliation of the two texts must be possible as both, though in opposition, tend to complement the other. Both critics recognize the centrality of the dissimulation of personae within Browning’s poetics; arguably, both concentrate their arguments on the theme of obscuring the self as a means of social gain. However, where Garratt generalizes his approach in an attempt to construct a system through which all of Browning’s poetry can be addressed, Nestrick denies this possibility—“Since almost every poem [of Browning’s] introduces a new persona, large systems of symbols would violate the integrity of individual expression”. Nestrick suggests that Browning’s dramatic monologues were designed as an experiment in surveying and not sampling humanity. Thus, “man’s consciousness of himself, the introspective quality… explains man’s fundamental dignity,” a dignity which cannot be categorized under a system of absolutes. Nestrick insists on accounting for free-will and psychological realism in a consideration of Browning’s personae. Therefore, they resist being neatly partitioned into a generalized system of classification.
We see in “My Last Duchess” that the Duke indeed dissimulates, and, in his words, does so “by design”. The Duke is obsessed with ideas of decorum, and Garratt is accurate in saying so; the social complex that the Duke must maneuver is emphasized over the internal tensions that may or may not be the root cause of his assumed external persona, or, what Garratt calls a mask. His persona is in direct harmony with its lavish surroundings. The Duke incessantly draws attention to aesthetically sumptuous outliers that display his wealth and influence. This tendency simultaneously draws attention away from the objects’ owner—“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,” the poem opens with the Duke speaking, but immediately, the reader is asked to focus on the Duchess, not the Duke. The Duke’s persona is categorized by Garratt as a “conscious and deliberate double masking…for the Duke to maintain the control he obviously needs”. What Garratt ignores, however, is the mask’s failure. For the Duke’s interiority is drawn outward around line 30 when his bitterness is revealed in the fact that
———————————she ranked
My gift of nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling?
It is imperative, as Nestrick indicates, to see every word the Duke uses as a window that offers a view into his subconscious mind. “The rhythms of everyday conversation humanize the speaking voice…The rhythm dynamically rises and falls with the speaker’s tides of emotional involvement and consciousness”. This rhythm was designed to keep the reader directly in tow. Even the Duke’s use of the personal pronoun in the speculative mode should indicate a break in the poem’s trajectory and tone—“how shall I say?”
Prior to the Duke’s meditation on his “nine-hundred-years-old name,” he attempts to shift the focus away from a consideration of his self and motives. After this break, however, the Duke’s internal self is revealed through his own human frailty. Therefore, we should consider this moment as indicative and elucidatory of the Duke’s mysterious interior which, to this point, has been repressed. The foray into the repressed culminates in the Duke’s mystifying “commands” which led to a censure of “all smiles”. This is as far as the reader is allowed to go. The Duke’s externalized defense mechanism is again raised, and we are left to speculate on the meaning of the preceding lines. Browning was not interested in the masks his characters wore, but rather the inner turmoil that causes each manifestation of these masks.
Conclusively, understanding Browning’s poetic edifice is as difficult as understanding the human nature from which it was derived. “My Last Duchess” assumes the complexity of the interiority or “human nature” it portrays. I have argued that William Nestrick notes this and refuses to classify Browning’s personae underneath “large systems of symbols” or masks. Browning’s conception of his developed personae rather implies “a complementary conception of his audience”. And there, I would argue, is the weakness of Garratt’s argument—Garratt is anachronistically applying a theory of criticism developed by Yeats in order to understand a poet of a different era and of a different type. The psychologically induced wickedness of Browning’s Duke is read only through its outward signifiers. Consequently, Garratt covers the realism and humanity of Browning’s ominous Duke with his objective and static mask.
Both critics have developed unique and functional approaches to deconstructing Browning’s poetry. However, both in tandem indicate the difficulty of their shared task. Perhaps Browning’s personae, as representatives of human nature, are simply meant to be misunderstood.