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Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" is a soliloquy written by Robert Browning, first published in his collection Dramatic Lyrics (1842). It is written in the voice of an unnamed Spanish monk . The poem consists of nine eight-line stanzas and is written in trochaic tetrameter .
It is most famous as the first appearance of Browning's poem The Pied Piper of Hamelin, but also contains several of the poet's other best-known pieces, including My Last Duchess, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, Porphyria's Lover, and Johannes Agricola in Meditation.
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister – A comic monologue in which a monk spews out venom against one of his colleagues, Brother Lawrence; in the process, he merely reveals his own depravity while showing what a good, pious man his "enemy" is. "Where the Wild Roses Grow" – A contemporary song sharing similar themes.
The poem's opening lines are renowned for their evocation of patriotic nostalgia: [3] Oh, to be in England / Now that April’s there. Browning makes sentimental references to the flora of an English springtime, including brushwood, elm trees and pear tree blossom and to the sound of birdsong from chaffinches, whitethroats, swallows and thrushes.
Robert Browning, Dramatic Lyrics, including "My Last Duchess", "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" and "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"; the author's first collection of shorter poems (reprinted, with some revisions and omissions in Poems 1849; see also Bells and Pomegranates 1841, reprinted each year from 1843–1846) [1]
Many of the original titles given by Browning to the poems in this collection, as with its predecessor Dramatic Lyrics, are different from the ones he later gave them in various editions of his collected works.
"Count Gismond" is a poem by Robert Browning, frequently anthologised as an example of the dramatic monologue. It first appeared in 1842 in Browning's Dramatic Lyrics, where it was known simply as "France". [1] The poem is written in 21 verses. "Count Gismond: Aix in Provence" may, on one reading, be seen as a story of the vindication of innocence.
Browning wrote the collection in London, where he had returned with his son after the death of his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.It was his first publication after a nine-year hiatus.