Human Speech is Naught”? The Authoritative Word in Robert Browning's Poetry

It has often been argued that Browning's poems, culminating in the form of the dramatic monologue, evince a rejection of the authoritative authorial voice and insist on the elusiveness of objective truth. Indeed, Browning repeatedly presents human speech as inherently flawed, distinct from the religious idea of the efficacious Word and intrinsically inferior to it. However, the Word, in its various senses, is of major importance to Browning's thought and work: he questions it, emulates it and appropriates it, and always in relation to the authority and truth value of poetic language. References to the Word in “An Epistle ... of Karshish”, “A Death in the Desert”, The Ring and the Book and “Fust and his Friends” reveal Browning's appropriation of the authoritative Word within poetic language, with the effect of granting his poetry religious authority, juxtaposed with the nineteenth century crisis of biblical authority taking place in the background

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• The presence of the word

  Walter J Ong•The presence of the word•1967

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