Soliloquy Of The Spanish Cloister Analysis

I.



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?

Oh, that rose has prior claims---

Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?

Hell dry you up with its flames!



II.



At the meal we sit together:

_Salve tibi!_ I must hear

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''?_

What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?



III.



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,

Rinsed like something sacrificial

Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps---

Marked with L. for our initial!

(He-he! There his lily snaps!)



IV.



_Saint_, forsooth! While brown Dolores

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,

Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?

(That is, if he'd let it show!)



V.



When he finishes refection,

Knife and fork he never lays

Cross-wise, to my recollection,

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.



VI.



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

Not one fruit-sort can you spy?

Strange!---And I, too, at such trouble,

Keep them close-nipped on the sly!



VII.



There's a great text in Galatians,

Once you trip on it, entails

Twenty-nine distinct damnations,

One sure, if another fails:

If I trip him just a-dying,

Sure of heaven as sure can be,

Spin him round and send him flying

Off to hell, a Manichee?



VIII.



Or, my scrofulous French novel

On grey paper with blunt type!

Simply glance at it, you grovel

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:

If I double down its pages

At the woeful sixteenth print,

When he gathers his greengages,

Ope a sieve and slip it in't?



IX.



Or, there's Satan!---one might venture

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 ..._

'St, there's Vespers! _Plena grati<a^>

Ave, Virgo!_ Gr-r-r---you swine!

.: :.

Browning's interesting poem makes use of an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme to express the hypocrisy of a monk (the speaker) berating another, Brother Lawrence.
Stanza I is a clear reference of this, see lines 2-3, " If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence/ God's blood, would not mine kill you!" Thus the monk's motives are established early on, essentially to ruin this seemingly immoral fiend of a monk.
The speaker continues to comment on the clear distinctions between himself and Brother Lawrence through everyday routine, attempting to convince the reader of his blatant moral superiority. Stanza IV describes a scene of two nuns, Dolores and Sanchicha, washing their hair outside. The monk accuses Brother Lawrence of lusting after them, sinful even if the two were not monks. However line 32, " (That is, if he'd let it show!)" suggests there is no actual evidence of such thoughts of Brother Lawrence, revealing that the speaker, alone, noticed a need for such lust.
Furthermore, the monk attempts to establish, once more, a sense of moral superiority to Brother Lawrence by commenting on the subtle but great symbolic divide of the two's differences in table manners. For example, he speaks of crossing his silverware once finished in remembrance of Jesus' mortal death, noting that Brother Lawrence does no such thing. Also, the speaker insinuates a lack of faith in the trinity on the part of Brother Lawrence, noting he finishes his drink in one gulp (referencing the Arian doctrine denouncing the holy trinity) while the monk consumes his in three.
As harsh as the comments may be against Brother Lawrence, the reader can see doubt forming in the speaker's words, especially in stanza VII, lines 53-54, " If I trip him just a-dying/ Sure of heaven as sure can be." This implies that the speaker knows deep down that Brother Lawrence is a moral and holy man, set for heaven unless he (the speaker) manages to make him stumble upon such a pious road.
This understanding leads the reader to suspect that the harsh words of the speaker are merely those of jealousy, for Brother Lawrence is actually what the monk wishes to be, as he takes more pleasure out of life than his service to God, perhaps.
The poem thus appears on the surface to be the passionate rants of a bitter monk, but in deeper analysis one can see that the speaker unintentionally revealed the flaws of HIS monk hood, rather than that of Brother Lawrence.
I know how annoying it is to look for an interpretation of a poem and only get copies upon copies of it, rather than an analysis, so I thought I would share the love and summarize what I found, considering i was completely lost without some sort of guidance.
For further information, be sure to take a look at Associated Content:
x Sutton, IB 12

| Posted on 2009-11-20 | by a guest