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Browning's Metaforms: Transformation and the Work of the Artist in The Ring and the Book
Victorian Poetry Pub Date : 2021-03-11 , DOI: 10.1353/vp.2020.0015
Caitlin Crandell

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Browning’s Metaforms: Transformation and the Work of the Artist in The Ring and the Book
  • Caitlin Crandell (bio)

Of bodies turned to other forms I tell

—Ovid, Metamorphoses

So find, so fill full, so appropriate forms

—Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book

As Guido prepares to be beheaded near the close of his second monologue in The Ring and the Book (1868–1869), he considers punishments alternative to the execution called for by the Pope. In place of his death sentence Guido imagines a more mythical meting out of justice:

no punishment, no painChildish, preposterous, impossible,But some such fate as Ovid would foresee,—Byblis in fluvium, let the weak soul endIn water, sed Lycaon in lupum, butThe strong become a wolf for evermore!1

This fantasy builds itself on a logic that subverts the Roman conception of justice: rather than punish the violent bloodlust that Count Guido Franceschini identifies in himself—a characteristic branded as animalistic, inhuman—this Ovidian fate would celebrate and confirm that trait. In this alternative ethics, wolfish people are not to be cured of or punished for their wolfishness but rather metamorphosed into the shape that best expresses that feature. If you can’t take the wolf out of the man, then you can take the man out of the wolf, Guido supposes: [End Page 237]

Let me turn wolf, be whole, and sate, for once,—Wallow in what is now a wolfishnessCoerced too much by the humanityThat’s half of me as well! Grow out of man,Glut the wolf-nature,—what remains but growInto the man again, be man indeedAnd all man? Do I ring the changes right?

(XI: 2056–2062)

There is a certain fitting quality that accompanies this shift from split identity to completeness: Guido is not only whole but “sate[d], for once” in becoming wolf. However, the energy of unfulfilled desire, coded here as hunger, quickly overextends itself into the exuberant indulgence of wallowing and glutting. To become a wolf, in these terms, is to release oneself from the strictures and rules of human activity and to relish the freedom of extreme behavior. This passage, as such, links the metaphorical transformation of man to wolf with a complex and subtle verbal shift that embodies the liberation of a ravenous being. Only after a moment of contemplation does it become clear that Guido envisions two alternatives of material form that articulate two different verdicts on his murderous behavior.2The Roman law finds him inhuman and determines to unman him through beheading: the execution corrects for a disjuncture between material form (man) and spiritual character (wolf), making incomplete the human body that lacks in human morality. Guido’s wish to be transformed into a wolf, conversely, removes the human vestiges within him and thereby exempts him from the rule of human law, leaving the insatiable beast to glut itself with animal autonomy.

This Ovidian vision of transformation should strike the reader of The Ring and the Book as familiar. Guido’s description of his half-mannish, half-wolfish nature—a split medium striving to “be whole”—fits precisely the pattern set out in the opening of the poem: it formulates a figure of distinct but melded halves that expresses the work’s combinate form. Indeed, as he does throughout the poem, Browning hides a hint in plain sight with Guido’s question whether he “ring[s] the changes right.” The primary symbol of the entire work, Browning’s “ring-thing” (I: 17), is itself a product of halves—an alloy of gold and wax, or fact and fiction—that finds completeness through a process of transformation:

There’s one trick(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved deviceAnd but one, fits such slivers of pure gold [End Page 238]

As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,. . .To bear the file’s tooth and the hammer’s tap. . .Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.That trick is this: the artificer melts up waxWith honey, so to speak; he mingles goldWith gold’s alloy, and, duly tempering both,Effects a manageable mass

(I: 8–21...



中文翻译:

勃朗宁的变形:《指环王》中的转型与艺术家的作品

代替摘要,这里是内容的简要摘录:

  • 布朗宁和他的Metaforms:转型与艺术家的工作的戒指和书
  • 凯特琳·克兰德尔(Caitlin Crandell)(生物)

我告诉身体转向其他形式

—卵,变态

所以找到,所以填满,那么合适的表格

-罗伯特·布朗宁,《指环与书》

一个小号圭多准备他的第二独白临近收盘被斩首的戒指和书(1868年至1869年),他认为处罚替代由教皇呼吁执行。吉多(Guido)代替他的死刑判决,想到了一种更加神话般的正义聚会:

没有惩罚,没有痛苦幼稚,荒诞,不可能,但是奥维德会预见到某些命运,-比布鲁斯陷入困境,让软弱的灵魂在水中终结,吕卡昂在l中镇定,但强者永远变成狼!1个

这种幻想建立在颠覆罗马人对正义的观念的逻辑之上:而不是惩罚吉多·弗朗切斯基尼伯爵(Count Guido Franceschini)本人所识别的暴力嗜好,这是一种动物性的,不人道的特征,这种奥维多式的命运将庆祝并确认这一特征。在这种另类的道德规范中,狼ish的人不会因为狼cured而得到治愈或受到惩罚,而是要变态为最能体现这一特征的形态。Guido认为,如果您不能将狼从人中带走,那么您可以将人从狼中带出。[End Page 237]

让我一次变成狼,使之变得饱足,并且饱足地吃饱— —吞噬现在的狼性,被人类压倒了太多了,这也是我的一半!从人中生长出来,狼性的勾引,剩下的东西又又长进了这个人中,确实是人,而且是所有人吗?我会正确地按一下更改吗?

(十一:2056–2062)

从分离的身份到完整的转变伴随着某种契合的品质:Guido在变成狼时不仅是整体,而且是“一次”。然而,未实现的欲望的能量在这里被编码为饥饿,很快就过度膨胀为沉迷和沉迷的旺盛放纵。用这些术语说,成为狼,就是要摆脱人类活动的约束和规则,并享受极端行为的自由。这样,这段话就将人类向狼的隐喻转换与复杂而微妙的言语转换联系起来,体现了贪婪的生物的解放。只是经过一会儿的思考,吉多就清楚地想到了两种物质形式的替代方案,它们阐明了关于他的谋杀行为的两个不同的结论。2个罗马法律发现他不人道,并决定通过斩首将他解散:处决纠正了物质形式(人)与精神品格(狼)之间的脱节,使缺乏人类道德的人体残缺不全。相反,圭多希望变成狼,这消除了他身上的人类痕迹,从而使他免于人类法则的统治,使永不满足的野兽以动物自治的方式自食其力。

奥维德式的转型观应该使《指环王》和《书》的读者耳熟能详。圭多(Gido)对他的半家养,半狼鱼性质(一种力求“完整”的分裂媒介)的描述正好符合诗开头所阐述的模式:它描绘出一个截然不同但融合的半身图,表达了作品的结合形式。事实上,像他那样在整个诗,勃朗宁隐藏在众目睽睽暗示圭多的问题,他是否“[S]权的变化。” 整个作品的主要符号是布朗宁的“戒指”(I:17),本身就是两半的产品(金和蜡的合金,或者是事实和虚构的东西),可以通过转换过程来实现完整性:

有一个窍门(工匠指示我)是一种批准的设备,但有一种适合这种纯金条[End Page 238]

就这样,-仅仅是矿井里的渗出物。。。承受锉刀的牙齿和锤子的敲击。。。这些东西会长出戒指的佩戴权。这个技巧是这样的:可以说,工匠用蜂蜜将蜡融化了他将金与金的合金混合在一起,并适当地对两者进行回火,以达到可控的质量

(我:8-21 ...

更新日期:2021-03-16
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