Scripture for His Purpose”: a Study of Robert Browning's Use of Biblical Allusions in the Ring and the Book
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This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 68-3016 LOUCKS, n, James Frederick, 1936- "SCRIPTURE FOR HIS PURPOSE”: A STUDY OF ROBERT BROWNING'S USE OF BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS IN THE RING AND THE BOOK. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1967 Language and Literature, modem University Microfilms, Inc.. Ann Arbor, Michigan "SCRIPTURE FOR HIS PURPOSE": A STUDY OF ROBERT BROWNING*S USE OF BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS IN THE RING AND THE BOOK DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University er By James F.c Loucks, II, B.A. , M.A. ****#*• The Ohio State University 1967 Approved by Adviser Department of English Antonio: Mark you this, Bassanio, The dlvel can cite Scripture for his purpose, An evil soul producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart, O what a goodly outside falsehood hath. Merchant of Venice (1.3,97-102) ii PREFACE To Browning*s readers it is perhaps a commonplace that the poet makes extraordinarily frequent use of Scriptural allusion, even when considered in the context of his own Bible-quoting age. But few modern readers understand how Browning used these allusions for rhetorical effect; this lack has "been partially remedied by a few sketchy critical studies, presided over by Mrs, Minnie Machen*s The Bible in Browning» which shows commendable knowledge of the Bible, but little of the poet*s use thereof. It was my desire to elucidate some of the obscurer The Ring and the Book pas sages containing Biblical allusions that led me to the pre sent subject; but as I began to collect examples, I became aware that Browning*s manipulation of Scripture raised a larger question, that of the poet*s attitudes toward lan guage itself— its protean, elusive, impermanent and decep tive character. How better could one illustrate the verbal trickery of men than to allow a monologuist to conveniently alter Scripture for his purpose? To his contemporaries, especially, the often unscrupulous distortion of the Bible practiced by the more sly speakers (who are numerous, of course, in Browning) was not only readily recognized, but iii probably caused, among the more pious at least, a startling rhetorical effect which is largely lost todays a willful distortion of God*s word would instantly label a given speaker as a self-seeking and deceitful man. For Browning, then, Biblical allusions are usually bound up with moral and philosophical questions. Not that he is a theological speculator in the abstract; his interests lie almost invari ably in the practical verbal application of Biblical truths to the lives of specific men. In examining Browning*s allusiveness, therefore, one must first discuss the poet*s attitudes toward language, and then study inductively the poet*s use of the Bible in The Ring and the Book. I wish to acknowledge the kind assistance of Professor Richard D. Altick, and the patience of Beverly, whose time has been given unstintingly. iv VITA February 7» 1936 Born— Lakewood, Ohio 1957 B.A., Yale University, New Haven Connectlcut 1960-1963 Teacher of English, The Columbus School for Girls, Columbus, Ohio 1963-1967 Teaching Assistant, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1965 M.A. , The Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio PUBLICATIONS Browning1 s Roman Murder Story: A Reading of 11 The Ring and the Book," in collaboration with Professor Richard D. Altick, To be published in 1968 by the University of Chicago Press. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Literature Victorian Literature. Professor Richard D. Altick v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE ................................................. ill VITA ...................................................... v INTRODUCTION ............................................. 1 PART Is 11 THE VARIANCE NOW, THE EVENTUAL UNITY": THEMATIC PATTERNS IN BROWNING*S BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS Chapter 1 . INTRODUCTORY ................................... 13 2. MAJOR THEMATIC PATTERNS ....................... 22 3. MINOR THEMES .................................. 129 4. SINGLE ALLUSIONS . 156 PART II: "THE TWO-EDGED SWORD": IRONISTS VERSUS LITERALISTS 1. I N T R O D U C T O R Y ...................................172 2. IRONISTS ....................................... 185 3. LITERALISTS ................................... 239 CONCLUSION ..... 325 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................... 328 Vi INTRODUCTION: BROWNING AND LANGUAGE AS DECEPTION Browning*s longstanding mistrust of language— he speaks of its imperfections as early as Sordello— is indis solubly connected with his ethical and moral concepts. In this Heraclitean world of flux, language is at best fraught with the imperfections inherent in flux: inconsistency, ambiguity, and attenuation of meaning. At worst— in the hands of the unscrupulous or the deceitful— language can become the very Instrument of falsehood. For Browning, language is a mark of man*s fallen state, since it is by nature indirect, using inherited symbols, signs and con ventions of expression to convey, with lamentable inade quacy, man's deepest truths. Speaking for Browning (as he nearly always does), the Pope, in The Ring and the Book wearied nearly to death by the repeated examination of testimony and legal arguments, characterizes language as a consequence of man's proclivity to err. None of this vile way by the barren words Which, more than any deed, characterise Man as made subject to a curse: no speech— That still bursts o*er some lie which lurks inside, As the split skin across the coppery snake, And most denotes man! since, in all beside, In hate or lust or guile or unbelief, Out of some core of truth the excrescence comes, And, in the last resort, the man may urge "So was I made, a weak thing that gave way 1 2 To truth, to impulse only strong since true, And hated, lusted, used guile, forwent faith." But when man walks the garden of this world For his own solace, and, unchecked by law, Speaks or keeps silence as himself sees fit, Without the least incumbency to lie, — Why, can he tell you what a rose is like, Or how the birds fly, and not slip to false Though truth serve better? Man must tell his mate Of you, me and himself, knowing he lies, Knowing his fellow knows the same,— will think "He lies, it is the method of a man!" And yet will speak for answer "It is truth" To him who shall rejoin "Again a lie!" Therefore this fslcl filthy rags of speech, this coil Of statement, comment, query and response, Tatters all too contaminate for use, Having no renewing! He, the Truth, is, too, The Word. We men, in our degree, may know There, simply, instantaneously, as here After long time and amid many lies, Whatever we dare think we know indeed — That I am I, as He is He,— what else? But be man's method for man's life at least! (X. 3^8 -81) The attitude toward language evinced here— especially in the "rags of speech" metaphor— may have been inspired by Carlyle's familiar likening of language to clothing which 1 at once conceals and wears to tatters. Carlyle's con ception of language as being "but a mockery of what one means"2 had a continuous currency in the Victorian period, *Seemingly it is one of those metaphors whose employ ment is almost inevitable. It occurs, for instance, in the North British Review (XIV [1830-18311,^), Max Muller's Lectures on the Science of Language (London, 186^, p. and the Cornhlll Magazine (XXXIX [1879], 586). Tennyson sums up the idea without recourse to the metaphor: "For words, like Nature, half reveal/ And half conceal the Soul within." (In Memoriam, V) 2Froude, Carlyle* s Life in London (London, I8 8 5 ), I. 198. 3 stretching not only from Sartor Resartus to The Ring and the Book but beyond the poem*s publication; for it was but the prelude to our far-reaching modern inquiry into the whole metaphysics of language. In an age of Angst and doubt equalled only by our own, when the ultimate questions of the spiritual life loomed large, it was natural that language itself should be held up to scrutiny. This was of course nothing new; the inadequacies of verbal communication are as old as Western philosophy. Plato held the poet suspect, and thinkers from Aristotle down through the German idealists inherited an ambivalent attitude toward language: a concurrent deep-seated mis trust with a fearful respect for its powers, together with an acute awareness of language’s failure to be precise and its tendency to decay. In their various ways Kant, Goethe and Hegel, while admitting the utility of language, said that words were ultimately only counters or tokens either drained of meaning or invested with factitious meaning, and that the deepest truths lay altogether outside the pale of speech. Carlyle it is who best expresses this inherent decep tiveness of language in his Sartor: The secret of Man’s being is still like the Sphinx’s secret: a riddle that he cannot rede; and for ignorance of which he suffers death, the worst death, a spiritual. What are your Axioms, and Categories, and Systems, and Apho risms? Words, words. High Air-Castles are cunningly built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good logic-mortar; wherein, however, no knowledge will come to lodge. • . Be not the slave of words.3 The paradox here is clear: while language is our chief means of communication, it is also fraught with error. More than any other poet of his age, Browning was conscious of this built-in treachery, for he often sought to reach souls through linguistic avenues obscure and untested; to him therefore the imprecisions of language loomed especially large. The frailty of language is even more apparent when contrasted with the enduring Word of God, whether spoken or miraculously conveyed in silence through intuition.