"The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, ..."
It is doubtful whether she died of a broken heart or was deliberately murdered. His commands, of course, would not be given to her, but to his lackeys. Many think she was murdered. Browning leaves it artistically suggestive and uncertain.
These questions, of course, will not be answered in any regular order. One point will suggest another. The meaning will be partially apparent from the first; but usually the points will be discovered in this sequence. When completed, the whole is as simple as a story. The pompous, contemptuous air of the Duke, the insinuating way in which he speaks, the hint afforded by his voice that he will have no trifling, that he had made his demands, and that was the end of it; all these details slowly unfold until the whole story, nay, even the deepest motives of his life and character, are clearly perceived.
What a wonderful portrayal in fifty-six lines! Many a long novel does not say so much, nor give such insight into human beings. Many a play does not reveal processes so deep, so profound as this.
Browning hints in his subtitle, "Ferrara," the part of the world and the age in which such a piece of villany would have been possible.
If the reader will examine some of the most difficult monologues of Browning, or any of the more popular monologues, by the questions given, he will see at once the peculiar character of the monologue as a form of dramatic poetry. Such work must be at first conscious, but when it has been thoroughly done, the rendering or reading of a monologue will be as easy as that of a play. The enjoyment awakened by a good monologue, and the insight it gives into human nature, will well repay the study necessary to realize the artistic peculiarities of this form of poetry.
VII. THE MONOLOGUE AS A FORM OF LITERATURE
The nature of the monologue will be seen more clearly and forcibly if compared with other forms of literature.
Forms of literature have not been invented or evolved suddenly. They have been in every case slowly recognized; in fact, one of the last, if not most difficult phases of literary education and culture is the definite conception of the difference between the various forms of poetry. To many persons the word lyric and the word epic are loose terms, the one standing for a short poem and the other for a long one. The real spirit and character of the most elemental forms of poetry are often indefinitely and inadequately realized.