Embodied Truth: The Ring and the Book Reconsidered

J __ .. .. ... H.L. 'Vi J..:. 1'1 1"\ \,J n f\ f\l Embodied Truth: The Ring and the Book Reconsidered Man can embody truth, but he cannot know it. W. B. YEA T S Anyone reviewing the critical literature surrounding Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book is likely to be led at some point to ask why, given what critics assume to be Browning's goals for the poem, he seems to have taken such a peculiar, clotted, and roundabout path to their realization. If the poem is designed to convince us, say, of Pompilia's innocence, why has the poet built in so many elements that distract us not just from a conviction of such innocence but even from any steady concern with seeing it established? Why, if the poem's climax comes with the Pope's monologue, do the two books which follow do so much to complicate our sense of having arrived at the truth? When questions like these are raised at all, they are usually raised by critics who believe the answers must necessarily reflect negatively on Browning, that their needing to be raised at all calls into question not the critics' assumptions about what the poet was trying to do but the success of the work itself. Loosely following the lead of Ralph Rader in another context,' I would seek to ask instead the following general question as a means of resolving the many minor disputes that have dogged the work since its publication in four volumes in 1868-9: what must Browning have been trying to do, what larger intention for the construction of the whole must have determined the choices of developing each part in order that the poet, so familiar with the pain of being misunderstood, should have chosen to present the poem as he did, despite the risks of confusion such a complex presentation involved? A satisfactory answer to this question would, I believe, go far towards correcting any false assumptions that have been made about the poem in the past, and help us to see particular effects and sections of the massive work in light of the author's overarching design, his controlling intention. Such a process must begin with a brief rehearsal of the most common and general critical controversies surrounding the work, followed by an attempt to resolve such controversies from the broad perspective of a posited controlling intention. Several major issues run through the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUM.E 52, NUMBER 3, SPRING 1983 0042-D24718y'0500-D263-D276$ol .501o C UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS 204 JOHN M. MENAGHAN criticism of the century and more since the work's appearance. The first centres upon the famous 'Yellow Book: discovered by Browning in 1860 in the Piazza San Lorenzo in Florence. Despite the many imaginative embellishments evident in the poem, Browning insisted that he had adhered to 'the facts' in presenting the tale of Pompilia, Caponsacchi, Guido, the Pope, and the others in a series of alternately sordid and noble adventures. The obvious discrepancies between the limited and fairly unromanticized picture ofboth characterand event which emerges from a reading of the 'Yellow Book' and Browning's imaginative, symbolic treatment of them have not been so obvious as to preclude their being pointed out, 'substantiated: and used as a bludgeon by those critics disinclined to believe that Browning must have been aware of such discrepancies and have meant by the 'facts' something more primary and less open to interpretation. The hue and cry against the poet's rather liberal reinterpretation of the characters and their motives begins early in the criticism and is given repeated impetus by the introduction of the 'Yellow Book' itself and other documents relating to the case as they appear successively in English translations.2 A second controversy centres upon the ring metaphor, the object over the years of nearly every sort of scientific, aesthetic, and philosophical scrutiny and interpretation. The problem of deciding whether the metaphor works has been complicated by a series of disagreements over what it means, with every new commentator working a variation on Browning's original explanation. Related to both of these issues has...