Robert Browning, Augusta Webster and the Role of Morality

Abstract

It has sometimes been asserted that a refusal of straightforward communication is definitive of literature as such, or at least definitive of poetry. Such a definition is however not neutral; it reflects instead a preference for certain poets and poetic styles over others. Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues have occasionally been presented as his greatest poetic achievement, highlighting the ironic distancing supposedly central to poetics. However, a look at Augusta Webster’s contemporaneous dramatic monologues reveals that Browning’s irony does not define the genre: Webster uses the form not to create distance between the speaker and the reader but to highlight the intellectual problem she is addressing. Looking at how both poets addressed the role of morality in human life, the chapter contends Webster’s poetry demonstrates that many poetic traditions have emphasized content just as much as form.