A little disappointing

For whatever reason, today I listened to the Adventures in Poetry programme about My Last Duchess that I mentioned a couple of posts ago, and didn't wait for the Saturday repeat as is my want.

I have to say it was quite disappointing. As far as I could tell, the programme continually took the lazy way out. They discussed Browning's original inspiration for the poem, his elopement with Elizabeth Barrett, the form of the dramatic monologue and how Browning virtually created / promoted it single-handed, the relationship with Browning's plays - they even had someone quoting from a yet-to-be-published novel 'inspired' by the original, but as far as I could tell they said very little about the poem itself. Lots of secondary (and easy to do) biographical, historical, sociocultural stuff but that was all.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that - while feeling comfortable when using the usual 'practical criticism' skills to analyse or understand Adlestrop, or An Arundel Tomb , the programme makers found that they seemed to work less well with a poem such as Browning's - which is dramatic, narrative and seemingly not as 'poetic'. In many ways thinking about the language and organisation of that kind of poem feels less rewarding, at least at first - it is a harder job. Rather in the way that English students trained in the canon can find it hard to discuss comic novels or genre fiction.

So (I'm guessing) they didn't try, and talked about all the other stuff instead.

Anyway, whether or not I've got the reason right, it was all a little disappointing.