Transcript Apparent Failure - A Level Literature at Keswick School

Apparent Failure
What do we know about this poem?
What does the title tell us?
Context: The Paris Morgue
1804-1864: The Paris Morgue was
located close to the River Seine, on the
site of an old slaughter-house. The
bodies of those who were found dead
in the river or on the streets were
placed in a room to await identification.
This room was a major tourist
attraction. The Brownings lived in Paris
in 1855-6, and would have visited the
morgue.
Have you ever taken a CPR course?
In the 1880s, the body of a woman was pulled from the Seine. The body showed no signs of
violence, and suicide was suspected. A pathologist at the Paris morgue was so taken by her beauty
that he had a plaster cast death mask taken. In the following years, numerous copies were
produced. The copies quickly became a fashionable morbid fixture in Parisian Bohemian society.
She was compared to the Mona Lisa, inviting numerous speculations as to what clues the eerily
happy expression in her face could offer about her life, her death, and her place in society.
L'Inconnue de la Seine (as she was known) was
photographed, reproduced in works of art, and referred to in
literature from around the world. Girls modelled their looks
on her.
And ‘Rescue Annie’, the CPR doll, was given her face, making
it “the most kissed face of all time”.
"We shall soon lose a celebrated building.” -- Paris Newspaper
The speaker in the poem (likely Browning himself) responds to a newspaper article
reporting the intended demolition of the morgue building. He states he will “save it” by
writing about it. The focus of the poem he writes is his walk along the Seine and visit to the
morgue, where he sees three bodies laid out for identification. The men have committed
suicide and he reads in each of their faces their struggles and disappointments.
He uses the poem to explore his philosophy of the imperfect: that life has only been
fully lived if one has tried to achieve something beyond one’s powers and so is
destined to fail: “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp” (Andrea del Sarto). The failed
attempt at impossible perfection becomes in itself an achievement as one is tested
and extended beyond one’s limitations. Through this exploration, he concludes that
the men only appear to have failed in life. Their doom is not final as what God has
blessed cannot be cursed.
Language and Imagery
Congress: Congress
of Paris, meeting to
agree terms of peace
following Crimean
war: 1856
Gortschakoff:
Russia’s
representative at the
congress
Cavour:
representative for
Piedmont (region of
Italy) at the congress
– wanted to unite
Italy
Buol: representative
for Austria at the
congress – ruled
Italian peninsula
Previous visit (7 years ago)
No, for I'll save it! Seven years since
I passed through Paris, stopped a day
To see the baptism of your Prince,
Saw, made my bow, and went my way:
Walking the heat and headache off,
I took the Seine-side, you surmise,
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,
Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies,
So sauntered till--what met my eyes?
Reason for the previous visit:
the baptism of Napoleon’s
son (Napoleon was one of
Elizabeth’s heroes) (1856)
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Style of Greek architecture
Only the Doric little Morgue!
The dead-house where you show your drowned:
Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,
Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.
One pays one's debt in such a case;
I plucked up heart and entered,--stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face
Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:
Let them! No Briton's to be balked!
The obligation to visit a famous place
10
Vaucluse in SE France
was home to Petrarch
(Italian poet c14th)
15
Sorgue: river in
Vaucluse
“The Sorgue is made
famous by the home of
Petrarch. The Seine is
made famous by the
morgue.”
Metal table on
which the dead are
laid out
First came the silent gazers; next,
A screen of glass, we're thankful for;
Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,
The three men who did most abhor
Their life in Paris yesterday,
So killed themselves: and now, enthroned
Each on his copper couch, they lay
Fronting me, waiting to be owned.
I thought, and think, their sin's atoned.
Safely out of the
clutches of those
who would defile it
(as is the man)
Poor men, God made, and all for that!
The reverence struck me; o'er each head
Religiously was hung its hat,
Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
His bounds, his proper place of rest,
Who last night tenanted on earth
Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,-Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.
20
25
30
35
Imperial
palace in Paris
Belonged to political
movement
demanding equality
and religious
tolerance
How did it happen, my poor boy?
You wanted to be Buonaparte
And have the Tuileries for toy,
And could not, so it broke your heart?
You, old one by his side, I judge,
Were, red as blood, a socialist,
A leveller! Does the Empire grudge
You've gained what no Republic missed?
Be quiet, and unclench your fist!
And this--why, he was red in vain,
Or black,--poor fellow that is blue !
What fancy was it, turned your brain?
Oh, women were the prize for you!
Money gets women, cards and dice
Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,
The right thing to extinguish lust!
Napoleon: military and
political leader of France
whose actions shaped c19th
Europe
40
45
50
Reference to
a long
journey/
distance
travelled /
area covered
(not
necessarily
physical)
It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce:
It's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Tho' a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.
55
60
On Elizabeth’s death:
“O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again / And with God be the rest!”
“...from this life I pass into a better, there / Where that lady lives of whom
enamoured was my soul.”
Form
• Dramatic monologue
• Is the speaker Browning?
• At first glance, the title appears to relate to
the building of the morgue but, in fact, it was
not demolished; the ‘apparent failure’ then,
appears to be the men and their suicide
• Nature of failure/success/death is explored as
the poem goes on
Structure
• 7 x stanzas; 9 lines per stanza – extra line
represents the outsider nature of the poem’s
subjects
• Rhyme scheme: ababcdcdd
• Final rhyming couplet in each stanza stresses
the finality of definitiveness of death