Browning, “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”

Mermin & Tucker, Victorian Literature, pg. 546, 1812

“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!” (1–4)

The highly entertaining poem “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” by Robert Browning unleashes the lengthy diatribe of a jealous monk towards his colleague, Brother Lawrence. The unnamed speaker hates everything Brother Lawrence does, including watering his flowers, talking about the weather, and not drinking his orange juice “in three sips” to represent the Trinity.

First and foremost, this poem is an important example of Browning’s dramatic monologue, an experimental form of poetry in which the speaker is not the poet and combines elements of theater and classical lyric poetry. Beyond that, as the poem goes on the reader unveils the truth of the matter: the speaker himself is guilty of all the things he accuses Brother Lawrence of doing. This is made obvious when he suggests to convict him he should show Brother Lawrence “My scrofulous French novel / on grey paper with blunt type” (57). Later the speaker goes on to consider “Satan - one might venture / pledge one’s soul to him” (65–66). If the speaker is really as altruistic as he believes, he should neither possess such intimate knowledge of a book of pornography nor consider selling his soul to Satan.

Moral hypocrisy is a huge problem, not only in the Victorian Era but also in 2015. Some Christians viciously persecute the LGBTQ community, but when someone asked the pope on the matter, he humbly said in 2013 — “ If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” Look at how radical Islam perverts the peaceful nature of the Quran. Thousands of people have turned into the speak of this poem, and ultimately, This poem reminds us that as people get so caught up in hate, they forget the principles of abnegation.