Poetry Month 3: A Monologue from LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST

We continue Poetry Month with a bit of a switcheroo. We're going back further in time to Elizabethan England and the lyrical pastoral comedies of William Shakespeare. Though As You Like It and Much Ado about Nothing are better plays, Love's Labor's Lost has its moments, particularly the beautiful speech given by Lord Berowne in Act 4, Scene 3 of the play.

While Kenneth Branagh did an excellent job in his film adaptation (a musical, the monologue led into a Gershwin tune), I offer my rendition of the speech. The play concerns a group of men who join the King of Navarre for three years of fasting from women and full of study. This plan, however, is foiled by the arrival of a group of ladies arriving with the Princess of France. Finally, Berowne has had enough and delivers a monologue that celebrates God's masterpiece, the woman.

We now go to the King of Navarre's park as the lovesick Berowne shows Ferdinand and his students the folly of their attempts in the face of love...

Poetry Month 2: A Recitation of "My Last Duchess"

We continue Poetry Month with another audio recitation from the Victorian poet/playwright Robert Browning, a master of the dramatic monologue.

Another from 1842's Dramatic Lyrics, Browning's "My Last Duchess" shares with last week's "Porphyria's Lover" a feeling of impending dread, but also how much it masters the depiction of human behavior and the jealousies of the mind. Often anthologized, I offer it for you here.

I invite you now to overhear one side of a dangerous conversation in a hallway in the palace of the Duke of Ferrara...Oh, yeah, and Happy Valentine's Day!

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said

“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not

Her husband’s presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps

Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace—all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked

Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech—which I have not—to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—

E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master’s known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretense

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Poetry Month 1: A Recitation of "Porphyria's Lover"

As with February of last year, it's Poetry Month again on the blog. This month is dedicated to the Victorian poet/playwright Robert Browning, who was a master of the dramatic monologue.

Browning's 1836 poem "Porphyria's Lover" is a twisted, psychological masterpiece and one of my favorite poems. Included in his collection Dramatic Lyrics (1842), it is now considered one of the finest Romantic poems of the Victorian Age.

I invite you now into a dark room on a rainy night and into the mind of madness, which is what romantic love is after all, isn't it?