“Art in obedience †o the laws” : form and meaning in Brownoing’s Abt Vogler.

u Art in obedience to laws”: Form and Meaning in Browning's "Abt Vogler" ti ALAN BISHOP AND JOHN FERNS = * Abstract. In “Abt Vogler” (1864), Browning does not assert the superiority of music to all other forms of art. Rather, in order to secure the poem’s central statement that all art is of divine origin, he endorses within the poem his protagonist’s belief that the creation of music reveals God’s inspiration more directly than the composition of poetry, which obeys laws created by God but comprehensible by man. To achieve his purpose, Browning appears to have employed, for the creation of “Abt Vogler,” a system of laws derived from Pythagorean and medieval number symbolism, as was appropriate to the poem’s musical, philosophical, and religious concerns, Thus, the stanza form of “Abt Vogler” seems to have been dictated by number symbolism; and the poem’s thought demonstrably evolves in accordance with each stanza’s numerological significance. The result is a fine matching of form and meaning through which “Abt Vogler” comes to embody a paradox central to its meaning: quintessentially “art in obedience to laws,” it simultaneously achieves the freedom and immediacy of “all triumphant art.” | S ELECTED BY its cteator in 1885 as representative of his highest achievement in lyrical poetry of moderate length,’ “Abt Vogler” has since become “generally accepted as one of Browning’s finest poems,” receiving “the suffrage of the English-speaking world”? Yet close critical analysis of the poem has been comparatively rare—perhaps in part because its Îgee Letters of Robert Browning Collected by Thomas J. Wise, cd, Thurnian L. Hood (London, 1933), p. 235. 2C, Willard Smith, Browning’a Star Imagery: The Study of a Detailin Poetic Design (Princeton Univ. Press, 1941), 3 yilliam Clyde DeVane, A Browning Handbook, 2nd ed. (New York, 1955), p. 292.

meaning has seemed so clear, its form so simple and obvious, The négleet ly Moreover, once petietrated by the reader, it identifies itself as the source of a formal pattern tematkable for its potent combination of beauty, order and unfortunate, first, because the meaning of “Abt Vöplèr* has been widely misconstrued and, second, because its formal achteverriënt has hot beer full recognized, “Abt Vogler” has been praised but not appreciated, … C. Willard Smith has paraphrased what he cotisidets to be the poets 7 flexibility—in fact, as the source of an aesthetic achievement that superbly Btomotés the poetii’s argument. Although Smith found that “Abt Vogler’s” “several structural phetiomena are difficult to specify,” his impressions of the theme in these words: “It aims to persuade the teader that music is supertof to all other forms of artistic expression. Paintitig and poetry, great as th poem’s form are most perceptive: “Its logical divisions merge with an Imagistic pattern equally important to the turn of the argument, and, white may be, are ‘but art in obedience to laws,’ while music trahscetids the laws 6f the. poem tises with the cumulative insistence of the formal fugue, the Impression of the freedom of improvisation remains” (Smith, p. 183). Freedom within bonds: a paradox completely and significantly at home in art to become one with the laws of God” (Smith, p, 182). Several critics hava; echoed this interpretation—ignoring, among other factors, that “Abt Vogler! the poems endeavor, and in its intetfused modes of religious, aesthetic, and philosophical thought, … These three modes of thought are the progenitors and preservers of Humber symbolism. Browning-who was extremely well-tead in Greek philosophy, the Kabalah, Dante, in medieval and Retiaissatice literature is cast as a dramatic monologue and thus its statements are (at least in the; first instance) the speakers. Even so, Vogler at no point elevates music abot3 poetry and painting as art (if he had, his close association of music ait architecture would have been confused if hot self-cotitradictory). Rathet, d$ Vogler meditates on the processes of artistid creation, he &öhcludes that thé: “ impenetrable mystery and beauty of inusical compositiöh (its “process: generally and nutnerous aesthetic writings, as well as being himselfa devotee ı wohder-worth”) is a mote ditect tevelation of God’s beneficent power (“BUY here is the finger of God”) that the composition of poetry, which obeys laws iMüsic, Painting, and atchitecture—was undoubtedly fatniliar with mate God-ordained but accessible to human comprehension ($0 that we can “khEW ES why the forms ate fait” in poetty). Music, then, provides the Hatural at paradigm of art's divine inspiration—hot in a superlority of kind, but in th nature of its creation, The poem accepts this preise in order to sécuièi Vogler’s central statement (central in fact as well ds fétaphot, we should! than one tradition of number symbolism, There is no eviderice, as far as we khüw, of his drawing on this knowledge for other poems. But “Abt Vogler,” In its theme and its modes of thought, made number symbolism an obvious, Bethaps an inescapable, formal agent: Moreover, it is possible that Browning Hay have beer influenced in his use of number symbolism by his reading re. droutid the time he was engaged with this poem (between his wife’s death in Hig mee, 1861 and the poem's publication in 1864). It seems likely, for instance, that, pervasive redemptive goodness: “It is all ttluimphatit art, fot God is thé! creator of aesthetic laws, and so of poetry no less than music. É 5 céhtury work in the theory of music-Charles Avison’s Essay on Musical note) as its theme: that all art is inspited by God and so tnänifests ‚It cotisidering the subject of “Abt Vogler,” Browning reread an eighteenthdedicated and inventive Abbe, solitary, rapt, extetnpotizing at | his Expression—which he possessed in two editions. One of several indications \c Supporting this stipposition is a notable cortespondence between the line “Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?” and Avison’s assertion that “Discords are necessary to telieve the Ear, which is orchestrion—in itself finely fulfills the process of musical composition that hé: describes. But if the poem as a whole is forcefully to endorse Vogler’s centtal: * Harmony.”® If Browning did reread Avison, he might well have pondered Perceiving this fundamental argument of “Abt Vogler” provides one with a key to an understanding of its formal qualities and of their tole in the total: work. Clearly the presentation of thé protagonist and his situation—the: statement—and so to move it beyond the draitiatic motiologue’s limitation 6: the speaker’s point-of-view—it must embody the truth that Gud Is “existent scan behind all laws”: for Vogler’s description of müste’s ihdescribable process BIS here rendered (in a double paradox) through poetry; an att that he claims 18° be “in obedience to laws.” In othet words, the poëm as ‘a whole tail convincingly embrace and expand Vogler’s ctüclal statement of faith only bY: evolving into “triumphant art” through a willed and perceptible submitssto of the poet’s art to a system of laws. And this "Abt Vogler” accotiiplishes, 7: The system of laws that Browning posited fot the création of his pudtit! was apparently eclectte in origin, but completely apptöptiate to its there,” thetwise immediately satlated with a continued, and unvaried Strain of that author's chief analogy between music and painting (for, like Browning, visofi frequently comparés music with painting and poetry): “They are both dutided in Geometry, arid have Proportion for their Subject” (Avison, p. 21). This statement alone could have turned Browning’s mind in the direction of Pythagotean number symbolism. Then there is the possible influence of. the «i ptéatest medieval number-symbolist, Dante: we know that in or soon after See Browning Collections Catalogue: Sotheby, May, 1913), b. 71, Nos. 360, 361. Wilkinson and Hodge (London, SChaties Avison, An Essay on Musical Expression (London, 1753), p. 23.

1859, Browning was given a copy of The New Life (tte Nuova) by: ttanslator, C‚ E, Norton,® who, in essays appetided to his translation, dré \ Mote important, and more securely demonstrable, is the progressive Humber symbolism which orders the poem’s thought and shapes its form … attention to the numerologlcally based syminetry of Vitd Nuova, and “ee Dante% Use of “the mystical properties of nuinbers.”? … … But the evidence for the nuthber sytnbolist of “Abt Vogler isinter | tänza by stanza, To evaluate its role and importance, this must be followed fag It unfolds in the coutse of the poem. » The basic sighificatioti of the number 1 is unity: It, subsumes all other Humber, being the first principle from which all the other fümbers flow; atid “father than external. In the évuise ofa detailed eritical analysts of the poëft wehope to demonstrate, first, the existetde of a System ‘ef laws based t ‘the religious context it represents God, the creator of all things, Thus the fist lie of the first stanza in “Abt Vogler” asserts a unity mitaculousty number symbolisin, and, second, its potdticy in molding thé podtti as a whe étéated out of divetsity—the musician’s “structure brave,” built of “manifold into an expression of the belief that poetry-Browning’s art as againd Vogler’s-is ho less profound an effect of divine inspiration than music; thi “the finger of God,” if not directly apptelietisible In the actual creation of AN “uslc."# The whole of the first stariza then proceeds to expand this idea: poetry, is nevertheless patently ttésxistetit behind all laws,’ shaping afd eled at the sound of “the ineffable Name” by a swarm of Henze, diverse ; guiding all creation towards unity and ultintate fulfillitient it the pere numerical ptesctiplion, and helps to establish 4 union of the poems three of heaven, étéatots: Vogler and Solomon até both artists, and both can create only through the miraculous power of the Supreme Creator. The number symbolism of “Abt Vogler? seëttis composed of twa strands: the musical and the teligious-philosöphical: But these intertwih naturally, since both spritig essentially from the Pythagoteatt tradition: It 18 impossible, of course, to discern the actual sources of Browning’s © system; and indeed this is so pattly becaüse, as the poeth reveals this syste to us, it becomes clear that the poet has élosely followed the gettétal lines the Pythagorean tradition, with its developthents in thewotk’of Dante úfid other medieval writers. Thus, although several Hurhetdlogical studies ware cotisulted in the preparation of this paper, it includes Hô attribution 6 meaning that cannot be easily validated by- consulting the. authorltatl But, ds the first lines of the second stanza regretfully admit, the ititisician’s “beautiful buildiig” must rapidly unravel into time. The number 2 teptesents corruption, transitoriness, diversity: introducing evil in its flight from the Creator’s unity, duality implies the imperfections of sinful human ‘eXpetieticé. In this statiza Browning consequently stresses duality and diversity (Ah! one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now boitibine"), and in basing Vogler’s building on the floor of hell combines a tefetence to duality (hell arid earth) with a fecognition of the inevitable involvement of evil in any earthly creation. Yet the evil is seen as contributing Medieval Number Symbolism by Vincent F. Hopper.‘ It seems very likely that the “Abt Vogler” stähza-form Was created with careful attention to number symbolism. Espectally in the context of a puétif about music, its eight lites immediately suggest the musical octaves:88 Bi niystically to the ultimate triumph of good; just as medieval numerologists, like Dante, found a benevolent quality for 2 in Its linking of the holy Hütnbets.1 and 3, (Through this adaptation they wete able to discountenance signifying completion; perfection, unity, dé each statiza runs through all the any attribution of evil to Christ, the Second Perspn of the Trinity.) notes of the diatonic scale and comes to test bit the tonie, One might als assume, mote hesitantly, a similat meaning fot thé unvaïying hexatieters! 618 the first perfect number in Pythagorean thought, beliig the stint of its divisofd + Centered on d vision of the New Jerusalem, the third stanza completes ‘thé poetii’s essential triads atid brings its first movement to a close. The imperfect earth and hell of the first two stanzas now yearn upwards towards the perfection of heaven; the evanescence of Vogler’s “beautiful building” ‘atid Solotion’s pleastité-palace foreshadow the immutable glory of the New "Jerusalem with its “rampited walls of gold as transparent as glass,” whose . éätthly reflection Is the dorrie of St. Peter's splendidly illuminated on a feastnight. Vogler’s creation unites with this vision of aesthetic and heavenly 1, 2, and 3. Perhaps, also, the fout rhymes of each stan2a make thelf contribution, pointing to the Pythagoteañ tetrad, whitch syinbolizes thé, universe. Each stanza, then, would appear appropriately to épitoniize related qualities of completion, perfection, and unity for which all att strit and which God’s beneficerice bestows; and thus to Underline formally the poem’s theme. H ®See Sotheby's Catalogue, p. 90, No. 603. 107 "The New Life of Dante Alighieri, trans. Charles Eliot Norton (Boston, 1867), p 9 perfection: just as the number 3, holy, perfect, and joyous, unites the triad of Father, Son, attd Holy Ghost into a mystical Unity more perfect than unity itself. Perhaps Browning also had in mind Dante’s association of 3 with Beatrice, the miraculous earthly symbol of perfection, As the stanza consummates coalescing unions of the three-in-one-earth, hell, heaven;

spltitual infusion of the earthly: “And I know not if, save in this, such gift be owed to man, / That out of three sourids he frame, not a fourth sound, but Vogler's musical structure, Solomon's palace, God's New Jerusalem; presefiti past, fututé; titisic, architectute, religion—tHé poemi surpes upward to rauch de “the pinnacled glory,” - But not yet. For the vision of unity is itself limited, an Inadequäle stat.” #Se The end of thé aesthetic process is acknowledged as the eighth stanza ‘begins: “Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared.” The octave is a köncluston, with its teturn to the tonic (“Never to be again’); but it is sinultatteously à new beginning, the start of another scale (“But many more earthly attempt to house the immeasutable glory; and as its fourth stand begins, the poem expands in a new direction, The first three stanzas hy! been drawn together in the frenetic activity of the myriad minions serving the aesthetic desites of Vogler and Solomoh under the sway of God; running th Bf the kind/ As good, nay, better perchance... what was, shall be”). breovet, 8 is the tiumbet of baptism, symbolizing salvation, regeneration, a fetutn to original unity with God; Browning sutely had this In mind as Vogler ers that he “must be saved because Í cling with my mind / To the same, fame self, same love, satte God.” And so Vogler ptays, calling on the Ineffable Name as had Solomon, gamut of all living creatures-angels, demons; "man, brite, reptile, fly” they have scurried about the earth, plunged down to hell, matched up to heavéi Now the fervent effort of the artistic will reaches its climax atid céases, BOE the act of creation continues as Nature tesponds prodigally, potting dowti Het marvels of beauty to extend the process of creatlon through their shihiAy filling the hinth statiza with his optimistic faith if the berievolent power of benediction—"novel splendouts,” stars, "meteor-moons, balls of blaze,À his unchanging God and in the complete triumph of good in heaven: “On the this is in accord with the significativi of the number 4, Which la: the ‘earth the broken arcs; in thé heaven; a perfect round.” 9 is a circular and “Fountain of Nature”: it stands for the cosmos, Implying thé four eletnetiti of which all matter is composed. _ ähgelic number, associated with the unity and perfection of God (and, for Dante, with Beatrice) through its intimate mathematical relationship with 3, E Again completion seems to have been attained, but just as the begining *- 10 is, lit the pute Pythdgoreat traditioti, the most perfect of all numbers, of the fourth stanza has asserted that the diatinie scale of creatlon was “H6 half? completed, so the fifth stanza expands the creative dct yet further, Nowra Implyitg the coitipleteness of multiplicity returning to unity. So the tenth all creatures of the past and the future How itito the present ta conttibute 3 Statiza develops Vogler’s belief in the ultimate redemption of all man’s best pulses. But there is iti this stanza a tepetitiveness not characteristic of the ém, which maintains a strong forward movement even through its Meditative passages: Why does the tenth stanza simply fill out an assertion already forcefully made in the second part of the preceding stanza? Perhaps ‘Browning intended a noticeable slackening, which can certainly be justified on pittely structural grounds—a pause prolonged in order to make the final their powet. Time is obliterated, temporatily; all is concéntrated within tha timeless moment—as holy and circulat as the number-5; thé quintessehed= drawing together all things in a mystic ring, static yet ever-tnoving, what never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anioni} And what is—shall Y, say, matched both? for 1 was made perfect, too Be And this does mark the climax of the act of creation. During the sitth and seventh stanzas there is a gradual contraction as time teassetts itself and tadetice more satisfying. But there may be another reason, in the close the music moves onward towards silence. 6 is the number of eatthl perfection, which has now been reached, so that the artist is free to meditate È" association of the numbers 9 and 10 in medieval symbolism, which retained ‘the Pythagorean tneaning of perfection for 10 but, for religious reasons, on the experience while it continues under its own momentum. As the poe e! nisistéd that 9 connoted perfection with equal force. pivots on its axis, the awareness of earthly perfectioti modulates Into | és: grateful acknowledgement of art’s power as ati expression of God's glory, *.. The seventh stanza brings us to the edge of silence, iti the diatonic scald; the seventh note is the final one. Browning seems to bè drawing attention to this significance of 7 in Vogler’s statement that “each totie of our scale itself is nought.” But 7 is also the number of humanity; coiiposed of 3 atid 4, which stand for the spiritual and the material respectively, it expresses the union of man’s double nature. Both contributoty numbers are indicated 43 Vogler meditates on God’s goodness in giving musie td man through A $ The significance of 11 in medieval symbolism is very clear: sin, with the consequences of sin. This the eleventh stanza vividly fulfills in the litany of alture, withering arid agonizing, discords, sorrow, doubt, suffering, woe. But, in the second stanza, though mote explicitly, evil is recognized as a 'Hecessary stage in the triumphant progress of good. As the discord but weetens the beautiful effects of harmony, so evil is ultimately in the service f good, As “Abt Vogler” moves towards its conclusion in the twelfth stanza, towning again points to an important musical significance. Feeling for the

common chord of C Major (which clearly tépresents the teturn to Mudie experience), Vopler’s fitigets slide “by: sèmltones* Whilé the diatoñl ita _ consist of seven hotes, the chromatic scale—which is the entire rañgéË : sounds ercotnpassed by each vetave-tonslsts of twelve: So, Int sytnbolic dssertlori of unity achieved out of diversity, the peer rehe explotation of the entire fänge of experience, for d motnent recall! sharp ecstasy of creation (“1 blunt ‘it dite a ninth”)“and the consolitigly to rest in “the € Major of this life! fn medieval symboll a sacréd humber: it siptifles unlversality, beitig asbclatéd with Chef Apostles and the Church; and it $ighifies completion, being associate the zodiac and the months of the year. ‘Thus, thé reéolütion of “AbEV. in twelve stanzas tadiates a sehse of completlon;perfection,‘ unltyee consummates the poem’s celebration of its thente atid eonvinelngiy en the quiet, profoundly optimistic close, “Abt Vogler” is a poem of éxquisite ctaftsmdnship, lie assureda movement and finely sustained totie of calt ecstasy indicate that Bidwalt in submitting his art to a system of laws, did hot sacrifice his poetic freed Drawn from an eclectic number-symbolism entirely appropriate to the poet's: thematic concerns, these laws provided a fortital ‘agent that otderéd shaped, but did not constrict, the evolution of “Abt Vogler,” The resul joyful marriage of form and meaning, "Abt Vogler’, Is “att in obedient laws”: “Abt Vogler”is “all triumphant art.”