The Ring and the Book

by Robert Browning

Other authorsRichard D. Altick (Editor)
Paperback, 1971

Status

Available

Call number

821

Collection

Publication

Penguin Books Ltd (1971), Paperback, 707 pages

Description

Fiction. Poetry. HTML: Browning's dramatic poem The Ring and the Book narrates the trial of a Roman for the death of his wife and her parents. He suspected his wife of having an affair with a cleric. The man appeals his sentence, though unsuccessfully. The poem is narrated by many different voices, each adding their version of events to the whole in a series of monologues..

User reviews

LibraryThing member thorold
Book-length Victorian narrative poems are pretty low on most people's list of reading priorities these days, and if you are going to read one then you are very likely to go for Aurora Leigh, In Memoriam, or The Princess before attempting any of Robert Browning's longer works. Browning has a
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not-entirely-undeserved reputation for obscurity, and the sheer density of information you get in one of his poems can be daunting even in the shorter Dramatic Monologues. His poetic language rarely has the lightness and fluidity that you get from Tennyson and Mrs Browning. All the same, I think it's worth the effort to struggle through The Ring and the Book.

If you like the Browning of Dramatic Monologues like "My Last Duchess", you'll be happy to know that that's essentially what you get here, only more of it. A lot more. Sandwiched between relatively short head and tailpieces written in the voice of the poet, we get ten long monologues (about 2000 lines each), all telling or commenting on the same story — a late-17th-century Roman murder case — from different points of view. Browning got the idea for this from a collection of documents about the case he found in an old book in the market in Florence, but he didn't actually write it until about ten years later, after his wife's death.

The various monologues touch on all sorts of things: fine points of law, Italian politics, relations between husband and wife, the notion of "honour", the role of the church, the transition between Baroque and Enlightenment, the decline of religious faith, etc, etc. But what Browning seems to be interested in above all is the difficulty of arriving at any kind of objective (legal, scientific) truth about human acts and their motivation, set against the possibility "art" gives of depicting ambiguities and contradictions. Each participant and observer describes an entirely different version of events, coloured by what they have seen and by what they want to achieve though their statements. The individual monologues all make fascinating reading in isolation, but when you put them together they start to form a complex, matrix view of the murder that goes beyond what you get from any of the individual accounts. The final effect is a bit like reading all four books of the Alexandria Quartet.

The pace varies a bit: in the first three monologues, where the speakers are external observers of the events, it feels rather slow, but then it livens up when we get the accounts of the three main characters. The monologues of the two advocates (the defence rather oddly gets to go first) provide the opportunity for some rather laboured jokes against the law and lawyers, but the real high-spot of the whole poem is in the last two books: the Pope's wonderfully-discursive summing-up, where he often seems to be summing up the whole Baroque period, not just this one case; and Guido's dramatic rant against the verdict. These two are often reprinted on their own in anthologies. Guido's final monologue would certainly work well on stage as well: Browning's psychological insight really captures the character in a way that seizes the reader's attention there.

As an experiment, I got this as a print-on-demand hardback. The quality of the book was OK, not wonderful, but it was simply too big and heavy to read comfortably: I ended up reading most of it on my e-reader.
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LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
This is a fascinating book of lengthy dramatic monologues that all center around a single true crime. It takes energy and thought to understand and stay focused through the lengthy poems included that make up the story, and you don't have to read them either in sequence or all together to find the
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value in the book, but if you devote the time, you'll find them worthwhile. The voices come across sincerely and the monologues overall are simply striking. If you're a fan of Browning, or of Dickens, I'd strongly recommend these. Those few of you who have enjoyed epic poetry will find a great deal here to love and come back to also. Highly recommended, if not for everyone.
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LibraryThing member Algybama
Have a dictionary/Internet handy, especially if you're unfamiliar with Italian culture/history/Roman Catholicism. Extremely moving in parts, interesting in all, boring in a few... overall very good.

Hard to describe. Sometimes comes across as encyclopedic, sometimes like a shopping spree...
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sometimes the language feels strained and other times melts like butter. Staggering variety.

Pacing is difficult to manage. The philosophical arguments slow the reading down, so that each section should be thought over slowly; and yet this is made difficult by the generally fast pace of the monologues (Pompilia seems abruptly slow). But pacing is also one of its great joys and achievements, as each voice has its own rhythm that carries you along, sometimes deceiving you into moving too fast.

I'd recommend it to those unsatisfied with formal poetry and want something a little unhinged.
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Language

Original publication date

1868-1869

Physical description

700 p.; 6.85 inches

ISBN

0140802835 / 9780140802832

Local notes

The Penguin English Poets
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