Browning

-avoided autobiography in his writing, using instead dramatic monologues with imaginary speakers as mask

-religious optimism

-more prose-like writing style than his contemporaries

-energy

-philosophy of the imperfect (success in failure); once self actualization is reached, not further development is possible, so the obstacle is what promotes growth

-heart versus head (take seriously your deepest intuitions). Submitting longings to rationalization wastes opportunity

-time does not equal loss; does not look back into the past. Caught in the “stream of becoming.”

-audience (real or imagined) of the dramatic monologue that affects what the character is saying (acts like a jury)

-likes to create tension between sympathy and judgment

-characters with good rhetorical skills are the worst kinds of characters

“Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”

-jealousy and its destructive effects

-speaker is monk mocking a colleague, trying to get him to commit a heresy, while revealing his own morally flawed personality

“My Last Duchess”

-royal “we”

“Porphyria’s Lover”

-persona’s solution to time is freezing the moment: just as he realizes she loves him, he strangles her