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. 2nd
Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 275-259. Print.
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