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| 1882 caricature of Robert Browning from Punch Magazine |
By Moristotle
On my morning walk yesterday, as I contemplated the gift of Eric Meub’s Poetry & Portraits column, I was struck by another gift: the realization that Susan C. Price’s drawings (which she insists they are, and not portraits) become portraits through their transformation, in Eric’s verse, into representations of recognizable persons. Thus, the column name, “Poetry & Portraits,” and the statement, “Drawing by Susan C. Price,” are both accurate. Another gift here was the feeling of relief I had that Eric and I weren’t really misrepresenting Susan in continuing to use the column name. And I hope Susan will accept this.
What Eric does in these poems made me wonder about the history of “portraits in verse,” and one poet came to mind – I’m not that well-versed in the history of poetry, and I’ve probably forgotten more things than I remember of what I may have been versed in. The one I could think of was Robert Browning (1812 – 1889), “an English poet whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, and challenging vocabulary and syntax.” [Wikipedia]
In short span (twenty lines), yesterday’s poem is rich in five of the six qualities attributed to Browning’s poems. The vocabulary and syntax of “Screwge” are not particularly challenging – but others of Eric’s poems are challenging in those respects.
| Copyright © 2018 by Moristotle |
Oh Morris, what a kind post! Indeed, Robert Browning is one of my favorite poets. His dramatic monologues are often brilliant: “The Bishop Orders His Tomb,” “Fra Fillipo Lippi,” “Caliban Upon Setebos,” “My last Duchess.” I remember, a few years back, working my way through the incomprehensibilities of his long poem “Sordello.” The poem is incomprehensible mainly because of his elaborate sentence structures: one doesn’t know if it’s a double or a triple negative, if the intent is irony or narration, if the emotion is hopeful or despairing, etc. But his ability to get inside the head of a fictional character inspired many subsequent writers, including Ezra Pound and James Joyce. Of course, the writer is never entirely creating a fictional character: the landscape is usually partly personal. None of us know completely about internal thoughts and emotions except through our own thoughts and emotions. We assume that others think and feel, if not the same, then at least in a similar way. Susan’s drawings are often emotionally charged. She herself often attaches a quote or phrase beneath them that can lead to an interpretation. And yet, it often astonishes me to hear the trues stories behind some of her models: they’re not the least bit like the people I’ve imagined! They’ve lived a different life in the drawing and thus into the poem: like Alice in the looking glass.
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