BLOG

Sunday, August 21, 2011

1 a)There isn’t always a right answer, just better answers, . worse answers, and wrong answers. For instance, this . poem is NOT about potty training. That would be a . wrong answer.

2 b)Often, the message is a feeling instead of a fact or . opinion.

3 c)We, poetry lovers, love complexity. if a poem makes us . consider eleven things, that’s great!

4 d) The speaker in a poem isn’t necessarily the author, so we . have to measure each statement with our B.S. meters. “Is . that true? If not, why would this speaker say it? What’s . his or her angle? And what’s the author’s point in having . the character lie?”

Poetry is different from most of the other stuff you study in school because ...

That’s why Robert Browning is one of the best. He makes up characters who say all kinds of half truths, revealing factoids, and outright lies. The technique is called Dramatic Monologue, and Browning kills me each time he does it.

“Light” in the title could be translated as l0ose, but already Browning is messing with our minds. Who says she’s loose? Some guys call girls sluts for selfish reasons, and a guy is the speaker in this poem.

This speaker is pretty sure of himself. He’s going to tell us the story of a menage a trois and have us judge who the biggest loser was. The fact that he’s telling us about one of his seductions makes me not trust him. By the way menage a trois doesn’t have to mean three people making out. In more polite times, it just meant a love triangle, an affair of three.

Here he claims that his friend was a nice guy who got tangled up with a predatory seductress. She snared his friend, he says. Well, that’s possible. We sometimes can see that a guy has a bad girlfriend. Still, as we read on you’ll see the speaker has ulterior motives for making us not respect the girl.

I doubt that the woman has had 99 lovers. How would the speaker know? So, I figure he’s exaggerating. What’s his motive? And, now that I know he can be unreliable, I’ll have to evaluate each of his assertions.

Okay, he says he wants to prove to his friend the girl’s a tramp before the friend makes the mistake of marrying her. But notice, he says she would prefer an eagle to a wren, making himself, the eagle, sound studly and his friend, the wren, sound weak. What a pompous punk!

So he seduced his pal’s girlfriend???? Not noble, even though he says he’s noble. Maybe he’s a nobleman. Maybe that’s why she turned for his noble sake. (Browning didn’t like noblemen. See “My Last Duchess.”) Then they’re both pretty shallow.

Now he says he’s powerful and manly and famous while his friend is a girly-man. Even if this were true, what kind of a-hole says it? Notice that Browning has two characters here, the speaker and the listener. The listener thinks the speaker is a creep, and looks away. There’s evidence in the last stanza that Browning may be the listener!

A basilisk, as you Harry Pottnerds know, is an animal whose gaze can turn one to stone. So his friend has found out about the seduction. He turns pale, gives the speaker the evil eye, and complains that she was his sunshine, but now, without her, he is in darkness.

I’ve seen lists of rules in trashy magazines like Cosmo and Maxim about when it’s ok to sleep with a friend’s lover. Not even Maxim says it’s ok while the two are together. Even when they break up, there is usually a grace period.

Okay, the rules are flexible depending on how much you like the friend, how hot the friend’s lover is, etc. Still the speaker says he seduced her to do his friend a favor...weak sauce. And, he says here, she was ripe for the picking. But hey, if you don’t like her peaches (or pears in this case) don’t shake her tree!

He calls her a pear, the second sexiest fruit in poetry (after a peach.) He says, “She was easy. She was voluptuous and juicy. What? How could I not?” Again, he seems to love himself more than the friend or the woman.

Come on? Now he admits he didn’t love her. He takes another exaggerated jab at her honor. I doubt that the girl had been making out with a dozen others behind the friend’s back. Why say it? If he demeans her, then his using of her is less of a big deal.

Here’s a great little snippet. He says to Browning.. “You can see that my friend thinks I’m a traitor and that the woman will soon realize I’m a player. The weird thing is, I disgust myself a little bit.” I infer that what really happened is the speaker just seduced his friend’s girl because she was hot. Now he’s rationalizing that he did it to save his friend, but deep down, his conscience is digging at him.

Who plays with souls? A devil? He wonders whether he’ll make it to heaven. But then he goes back to his old argument. His friend was playing with fire and he saved him. It’s getting lamer by the stanza.

Here’s the only clue as to the woman’s perspective on what happened. She doesn’t say, “No, I’m not a slut.” She wonders why a guy she has slept with would talk trash about her. She may be not unguilty herself. She says, “Hey, I showed you a good time. Why ruin my rep? Whether it’s true or not, you’re not being cool.”

Now we get the whole picture. The speaker has read some of Browning’s poems and he wants to be in one. That’s why he has told this story. He’s so vain, he probably thinks this poem’s about him! Does he realize that he has made himself look like a sleaze? Maybe. I mean, people go on reality TV all the time.

A Light Woman

by Robert Browning (1812-1889)

So far as our story approaches the end, Which do you pity the most of us three?--- My friend, or the mistress of my friend With her wanton eyes, or me?

II.

My friend was already too good to lose,

And seemed in the way of improvement yet,

When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose

And over him drew her net.

III.

When I saw him tangled in her toils,

A shame, said I, if she adds just him

To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,

The hundredth for a whim!

IV.

And before my friend be wholly hers,

How easy to prove to him, I said,

An eagle's the game her pride prefers,

Though she snaps at a wren instead!

So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,

My hand sought hers as in earnest need,

And round she turned for my noble sake,

And gave me herself indeed.

VI.

The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,

The wren is he, with his maiden face.

---You look away and your lip is curled?

Patience, a moment's space!

VII.

For see, my friend goes shaling and white;

He eyes me as the basilisk:

I have turned, it appears, his day to night,

Eclipsing his sun's disk.

VIII.

And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:

``Though I love her---that, he comprehends---

``One should master one's passions, (love, in chief)

``And be loyal to one's friends!''

IX.

And she,---she lies in my hand as tame

As a pear late basking over a wall;

Just a touch to try and off it came;

'Tis mine,---can I let it fall?

With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!

Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?

'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst

When I gave its stalk a twist.

XI.

And I,---what I seem to my friend, you see:

What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:

What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?

No hero, I confess.

XII.

'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,

And matter enough to save one's own:

Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals

He played with for bits of stone!

XIII.

One likes to show the truth for the truth;

That the woman was light is very true:

But suppose she says,---Never mind that youth!

What wrong have I done to you?

XIV.

Well, any how, here the story stays,

So far at least as I understand;

And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays,

Here's a subject made to your hand!