Question

Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church

Accepted Answer

dramatic monologueR. Browning1845in modern painters J. Ruskin says about this poem that , 'I know of no other piece of modern English, prose or poetry, in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit - its worldliness, its inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury and of good Latin. it is nearly all that I said of the central Renaissance in thirty pages of the stones of Venice, put into as many lines.Let's face it: deathbed scenes are usually tearjerkers. The family gathers around, words of wisdom and love are exchanged, and the waterworks start to flow—unless you're Robert Browning.His poem, "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church," stars a bishop on his deathbed, but that's about as conventional as it gets. For one thing, this is a bishop with a past—and also sons from a long-dead mistress. Plus, he's got some wild obsession with a dead rival named Gandolf (not that Gandolf—sorry, LOTR fans) and he's continually trying to one-up him by bringing up how hot his mistress was (weird) and fantasizing about how he's going to bling out his own tomb (weirder). We're not even going to get into some of the dude's decorating tastes. You'll just have to read the poem to believe them.When it first came out in 1845, though, the only way you could read this poem was in a short-lived magazine called Hood's Magazine and Comic Miscellany. Later that same year, Browning put it in his self-published collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics. (See? Even the greats self-published. We hope you're taking notes out there, aspiring poets.)Though his fame was slow to grow (and he was often overshadowed by his better-known wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett), Browning eventually gained a reputation as a well-read, sophisticated artist. He was particularly famous for his dramatic monologues, which often featured speakers who were historical characters going on (and on) about a particular subject."The Bishop Orders His Tomb" is a textbook example of this style. It's also an indictment of the hypocrisy that came to be associated with the Catholic church during the Renaissance, when many church officials abused their positions of influence for personal gain. Writer and critic John Ruskin, in fact, once wrote that this one poem said everything that he did about the Renaissance period. The only difference was that it took Ruskin three books, while Browning only needed one poem.So check out this quirky and insightful snapshot of a spiritual leader who has lost his way as a man of God, and instead found his true calling as an interior designer.

Bishop Browning Poem Orders Tomb Church Renaissance Saint