Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

Gr-r-r — there go, my heart’s abhorrence!
   Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
   God’s blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?      5
   Oh, that rose has prior claims —
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
   Hell dry you up with its flames!

At the meal we sit together;
   Salve tibi! I must hear                                        10
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
   Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
   Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt;
What’s the Latin name for “parsley?”                 15
   What’s the Greek name for Swine’s Snout?

Whew! We’ll have our platter burnished,
   Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished,
   And a goblet for ourself,                                     20
Rinsed like something sacrificial
   Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps —
Marked with L. for our initial!
   (He-he! There his lily snaps!)

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores                 25
   Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
   Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
   — Can’t I see his dead eye glow,                      30
Bright as ’twere a Barbary corsair’s?
   (That is, if he’d let it show!)

When he finishes refection,
   Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,                            35
   As do I, in Jesu’s praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
   Drinking watered orange-pulp —
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
   While he drains his at one gulp.                      40

Oh, those melons? If he’s able
   We’re to have a feast! so nice!
One goes to the Abbot’s table,
   All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double?             45
   Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange! — And I, too, at such trouble,
   Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

There’s a great text in Galatians,
   Once you trip on it, entails                                                50
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
   One sure, if another fails:
If I trip him just a-dying,
   Sure of heaven as sure as can be,
Spin him round and send him flying                                   55
   Off to hell, a Manichee?

Or, my scrofulous French novel
   On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
   Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe:                         60
If I double down its pages
   At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
   Ope a sieve and slip it in ’t?

Or, there’s Satan! — one might venture             65
   Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
   As he’d miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
   We’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine ...                                    70
“St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratiâ
   Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r — you swine!

Notes

Devices:  These terms will help you understand “Soliloquy of the Spanish Closter”.  We will define them, discuss them, and explore how Browning used them to create this poem.  

Rhyme Scheme:

            Feminine:

Masculine:

            Triple Rhyme:

Rhythm (Foot) and Meter:

Interjection:

Verbal Irony:

Setting:

Rhetorical Question:

Inversion (Anastrophe):

Enjambment:

Anathema/Imprecation/Malediction:

Simile:

Personification:

Hypotyposis:

Syncopation:

Poetic Style and Genre:  There are many different types of poems such as sonnets, odes, haikus.  Some forms of poetry have stylistic rules that poets follow strictly to show they have control over their art.  We will learn many of these styles and their characteristics in order to help us understand some of the added meaning that comes from style and genre.

Soliloquy:

            Setting:

            Characters:

                        Speaker:

            Plot:

            Point of View:

Quatrains and Octets:

Interpretation/Meaning: This perhaps is the most interesting and challenging part of reading literature because we all bring our own experiences to a poem, yes the reader is a big part of relationship a poem creates.  At first we will read formally using traditional methods that will help us understand a poem; as we become more mature readers, we will explore broader interpretations because we will have the experience of other readings.

Poet:

Literary Era/Period: 

Exploratory questions:

1.      In line 2, why would the speaker wish Brother Lawrence to continue focusing on his gardening chores?

2.      How deep does the speaker’s hate go according to lines 3-4?

3.      What contrast to the watering imagery in line7 is presented in line 8?

4.      Figuratively what would being dried up suggest (line 8)?

5.      In line 7, what do the sounds found in the alliteration seem to imitate?

6.      What alternate setting does the speaker take the reader to in lines 9-23 and later in lines 33-44?

7.      What doe s the verbal irony in lines 17-23 makes fun of about Brother Lawrence? What does the sarcasm tell us about the speaker?

8.      Although parentheses are meant for less important ideas, in line 24, what does the idea in parenthesis remind the reader about?

9.      What does the simile in lines 25-31 accuse Brother Lawrence of doing?

10.  Consider the parenthesis in line 32.  Does the speaker have any actual proof of the lustful behavior?  What might the irony and hypocrisy suggest about the speaker?

11.  In what way does the speaker feel himself superior to Brother Lawrence concerning eating habits?  Lines 33-40.

12.  Why don’t Brother Lawrence’s flowers or fruit trees grow plentiful? 

13.  Why does the speaker envision tripping Brother Lawrence up just at the moment of death?

14.  Who is the owner of the “scrofulous French novel”?

15.  What do the speaker’s hopes for Brother Lawrence ironically suggest about his own character?