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A dramatic monologue by a woman who plots to poison her lover's wife with a deadly powder. She reveals her motives, her feelings, and her plan to the poison maker in a devil's smithy.
- Summary
- Structure, Form, and Meter
- Analysis, Stanza by Stanza
- Conclusion
- Context
The setting for this monologue is in a laboratory, where a vengeful wife oversees an apothecary as he blends a poison; its intended use is to kill her husband’s lover. Despite the dark subject manner, the tone of the poem is gleeful and energetic; Browning’s character is like a pantomime villain, and we see her excitement mount as she witnesses the...
‘The Laboratory‘ is a dramatic monologue spoken by a vengeful noblewoman. It consists of 12 tightly structured quatrains with a consistent couplet rhyme scheme (AABB). The orderly, formal structure reflects the speaker’s outward refinement, which contrasts sharply with her inner madness and vengeful fantasies – the regular rhyme scheme makes each v...
Stanza One
Browning immediately creates an eerie scene. We sense the villainous wife looking on with deep interest, through the ‘faint smoke’. The use of the word ‘gaze’ suggests that she is staring in wonder; fascinated as she looks on. Immediately we are aware that this is a sinister place, as Browning employs the metaphor ‘devil’s-smithy’. Normally we would assume that an apothecary is where one visits to find healing medicines, but this one is being used for the opposite purpose. The alliteration an...
Stanza Two
Here we gain an insight into the affair which is spurring the wife to commit this act of vengeance. The use of repetition in the first monosyllabic line, creates a mirrored effect, and highlights how brazen the couple are, as they flaunt their adulterous relationship. It seems that they almost have contempt for the cuckolded wife, and the repetition of ‘laugh’ compounds this sense. However, the narratortells us, she will have the last laugh. They believe her to be seeking solace in a cold, gr...
Stanza Three
This stanza is full of active verbs such as ‘grind’, ‘pound’, ‘moisten’ which vividly recreate the actions of the apothecary as he prepares the deadly elixir. This is illustrated by the dash and exclamation mark in the second line. The plosive ‘p’ sounds and assonancealso replicate the motion of the process, which the Speaker clearly enjoys watching, even more than she would go to court to dance.
Poison obtained, the spurned wife gleefully heads off to put it to use, leaving to go to the court to mingle with the other aristocrats, who suspect nothing of her cunning plan. She is not unlike arch-villain Lady Macbethwho tells her husband:
Robert Browning (1812-1889) was born in London, though he lived the latter years of his life in Italy with his wife, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning. He published this poem in 1844. Although he also wrote children’s work, such as ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin,’ it is for dramatic monologues such as this, with the psychological and historical commentary whi...
- Female
- English And French Teacher
A dramatic monologue by Robert Browning about a jealous woman who plans to poison her rival with the help of a chemist. Explore the themes, symbols, poetic devices, and historical context of this classic poem.
The Laboratory. Robert Browning. Track 34 on Browning’s Shorter Poems. The poem is a dramatic monologue narrated by a young woman in the presence of the unseen, silent figure of an apothecary...
The Laboratory (1895), painting by John Collier, inspired by Browning's poem "The Laboratory" is a poem and dramatic monologue by Robert Browning. The poem was first published in June 1844 in Hood's Magazine and Comic Miscellany, and later Dramatic Romances and Lyrics in 1845.
Summary. The poem is narrated by a young woman to an apothecary, who is preparing her a poison with which to kill her rivals at a nearby royal court. She pushes him to complete the potion while she laments how her beloved is not only being unfaithful, but that he is fully aware that she knows of it.
13 de mai. de 2023 · A poem by Robert Browning, published in 1844, in which a woman asks a poison-maker to kill her rival for her lover. The poem explores themes of jealousy, revenge, love, and fate in a dark and ironic tone.
