Summary and Analysis of “The Pragmatics of Silence, and the Figuration of the Reader in Browning’s Dramatic Monolugues,” by Jennifer A. Wagner

Summary

Wagner’s essay is about the role and function of the reader in Browning’s poetry, particularly as the reader first identifies herself with the poem’s silent listener and then separates in order to make meaning of the poem and develop a larger sense of the character of the poem’s speaker. In Browning’s monologues, she points out, “the pragmatic ambiguity of the second-person silence in monologues highlights the tension between consensus and resistance” (577). This tension, Wagner argues, is central and crucial “because it clarifies the genre’s ultimate irony: dramatic monologue ends up spotlighting the silent auditor precisely by effacing him/her in shadow. Like the stage whisper for all to hear, the shadowy figure who is the auditor cannot help but be seen finally by the figure for whom that auditor is obviously a stand-in—the reader” (577). In other words, despite the dominant and aggressive speaker in most dramatic monologues, it is the listener and, by extension, the reader who becomes most important. Because the reader’s role is to interpret—because students of literature interpret texts—the reader develops a role different from that of speaker and listener and “in doing so...fulfills [and] also ironically undermines, the speaker’s apparent tyranny over the communicative situation that makes up the discourse of the poem” (577). In essence, the reader, by interpreting the speaker and drawing conclusions about his character based on his speech, takes on the most important role. He has the last say, not the poem’s speaker.

In the first section of her essay, Wagner traces the shifting roles of the speaker, listener, and reader in Browning’s monologues, emphasizing that the listener is in an “imposed” silence, rather than a “voluntary” one (579). He or she is intimidated by the speaker in a silence that is rooted in fear. As a result, it’s easy to remain silent and overlook the listener, especially because the speaker of the poem demands the reader’s attention as well. Although we listen in silence, we don’t all listen the same way. As Wagner explains, there are two different kinds of “judgmental” silence: “positively, silence can signal assent and favor; negatively, its signals dissent or disfavor” (580). She sees these roles as similar to the ones Langbaum explores when he talks about sympathy versus judgment.

In the second section of the essay, Wagner focuses closely on the role of the reader, pointing out that one way that listeners and readers are different is that readers have a text available to them. As she explains, “In pragmatic terms, the reader...may become “impolite” in a manner that the textual listener, too intimidated or to acquiescent to challenge the speaker’s superiority, dares not be. In hermeneutical terms, the reader has become an interpreter” (583). This, ultimately, is the speaker’s undoing; the “textual status” of them poem betrays the speaker who, “however narcissistic he may be, only exists through figuring himself in language” (584). The only actor in the poem who has the power to interpret vocally is the reader. It seems to me that what Wagner is doing in this essay is providing a methodology for taking on the role of judge that Langbaum talks about in his essay; whereas he’s concerned with how we sympathize with Browning’s speakers, Wagner is more concerned with the process we go through as readers who judge. This, for her, is a sight of irony: “the self-image that the speaker would delineate is only achieved when the reader distinguishes her/himself from the shadowy passivity of the listener’s silence, and pulls away from a sympathetic association with that manipulated reader” (589).

Questions for Discussion

Instead of analyzing the essay, I’m going to propose several questions for class discussion based on quotations from Wagner’s essay.

“Foregrounding the aggression and rhetorical power of the speaker has thus tended to allow the effacement of the second-person addressee in favor of exploring the complex brush-work in the speaker’s self-portrait” (576).

How and where do we see this in “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” and “Johannes Agricola in Meditation”? How aware are you of the addressee or listener as you read through these poems for the first or second time?

“Since Langbaum published his work, most criticism on dramatic monologue has concerned itself with that speaker and with his verbal self-delineation—how it is accomplished, how the textual auditor or we, the “real readers,” are lured into the speaker’s verbal webs, and how irony springs the verbal traps that have been set” (578).

Let’s talk about this in relation to “Soliloquy.” How does the speaker accomplish his “verbal self-delineation”? What’s his method? How does he lure the listener/reader in? And where do we see irony in this poem?

Wagner quotes linguist Deborah Tannen in her essay: “whether or not silence is uncomfortable in interaction hinges on whether or not participants feel something should be said, in which case silence is perceived as an omission” (580).

Wagner later writes, “In pragmatic terms, the reader (unlike, for example, ...the “next duchess”’s envoy..) may become “impolite” in a manner that the textual listener, too intimidated or too acquiescent to challenge the speaker’s superiority, dares not be” (583).

How might this apply to the listeners in “My Last Duchess” and “Soliloquy,” in particular? We know who the duke’s listener is, but what about the speaker in “Soliloquy”? Why does he stay silent? What could he speak about, if he spoke?

Wagner also quotes Mary Louise Pratt in her essay: “The fictional speaker thus produces a lack of concensus, and the author implicates that this lack of consensus is part of what he is displaying, part of what he wants us to experience, evaluate, and interpret. He may intend us to replace the speaker’s version with a better one, question our own interpretive faculties, or simply delight in the imaginative exercise of calculating ‘what’s really going on’” (584).

If we play the “what’s really going on?” game with “Soliloquy” or even “Porphyria,” what image of the speakers emerges?

Wagner, Jennifer A. “The Pragmatics of Silence, and the Figuration of the Reader in Browning’s Dramatic Monolugues.” Robert Browning’s Poetry. Ed. James F. Loucks and Andrew M. Stauffer. 2^nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 275-259. Print.

Summary and Analysis of Victorian Views of Robert Browning's Poetry

In this blog, I will be summarizing and analyzing three texts from the “Victorian Views” section of Robert Browning’s Poetry: “Browning’s Alleged Carelessness,” by William Morris; “Strictures on Browning,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins; and “Browning as a ‘Writer of Fiction,’” by Oscar Wilde. Morris, Hopkins, and Wilde were all Victorian authors themselves, so I was interested in their views on Browning.

Summary

Taken together, these three excerpts give the reader a good sense of the Victorian debates about Robert Browning’s poetry. While Morris and Wilde are both great fans of Browning, Hopkins aligns himself with other Browning detractors. One of the arguments against his poetry is that it was too obscure, and it is with this claim that Morris disagrees. Those who claim obscurity, he argues, do so based on a narrow reading of Browning’s early poems only. His beef with such critics is that their views—erroneous but popular—discourage people from even attempting Browning’s poetry. Wilde’s piece is primarily an argument for Browning “as the most supreme writer of fiction [whose] sense of dramatic situation was unrivalled” (519). Hopkins, on the other hand, thinks Browning’s poetry is frigid, claiming that “Any untruth to nature, to human nature, is frigid” (516). Hopkins openly aligns himself with the early critics who dismissed Browning for being too obscure, concluding that “Browning is not really a poet” (517).

Analysis

I was disappointed to read that Hopkins doesn’t think Browning is a real poet. I haven’t researched his views before, but given that Hopkins also experimented broadly with form, I sort of assumed he would admire Browning for doing the same. I have to wonder if his rejection of Browning isn’t partially based on his own religious views (Hopkins was a Jesuit who often wrote poems—like “The Windhover” and “God’s Grandeur”—that seem to be homages to the glory of God). As Langbaum argued in his essay on dramatic monologue, Browning doesn’t expect his readers to hold with standard Christian theology when they read his religious poems. Instead, the argument for—or against religion—comes entirely from the circumstances inside of the poem. Part of the reason I wonder this is that Hopkins dismisses The Ring and the Book (which he hasn’t read) because he has heard that is isn’t “edifying” or “of our people” (517). In other words, it doesn’t provide moral or religious instruction. While we tend not to critique literature in terms of its potential for edification in the 21^st century, Victorian critics had no such qualms.

I was also struck by Wilde’s argument that Browning is a “supreme writer of fiction.” Although Wilde isn’t concerned with Elizabeth Barrett Browning here, I would argue that she, too, is a skilled fiction writer. For the most part, I like novels. I like to study them, write about them, and teach them. While I enjoy teaching poetry, I don’t often study it or write about it outside of the classroom context. But I’ve always been a fan of the Brownings, and I’ve claimed over the years that the reason I like them so much is that their poems have elements of fiction and narrative in them that we don’t often see in other poetry. More so than other Victorian poetry, theirs is about stories. Because they’re stories relayed via poetry, they lack some of the typical characteristics of fiction—like overt character development—but for the most part, they have similar features.  

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “Strictures on Browning.” Robert Browning's Poetry. Ed. James F. Loucks

and Andrew M. Stauffer. 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 516-517. Print.

Morris, William. “Browning’s Alleged Carelessness.” Robert Browning's Poetry. Ed. James F. Loucks

and Andrew M. Stauffer. 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 501-502. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. “Browning as ‘Writer of Fiction.’” Robert Browning's Poetry. Ed. James F. Loucks and

Andrew M. Stauffer. 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 517-519. Print.