Browning - Art Poems

A. Ekphrasis

B. Objectification

C. Paradox of identity and art

A. “Fra Lippo Lippi”


1. Reaffirmation of masculinity


a. Response to fear of effeminacy

b. Lippo’s masculine characteristics

c. Success with interlocutor

2. Problematic paradox – is he still imprisoned?

B. “Andrea del Sarto”


1. Substitution of financial world for sexual world


a. Andrea’s rhetoric of economic terms

b. Art production as a means of purchasing sex

2. Sarto’s only means of controlling her


a. Interlocutor is object of his desire

b. Attempt to control her through art:

3. Sarto’s self-imprisonment


a. Acknowledgment and denial of his limitations

b. Liminal space

c. Walls of self-enclosure/solipsism and inaction

d. Escape into an Other time

C. “My Last Duchess”


1. Control through art

2. How successful is he though?

D. “Porphyria’s Lover”

1. Is this poem about “art”?


a. Freezing the moment

b. Painting an image of Porphyria

c. Mental images

2. Role of the reader