Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister is a comic dramatic monologue written by Robert Browning, first published in his collection Dramatic Lyrics (1842). It is written in the voice of an unnamed Spanish monk. The poem consists of nine eight-line stanzas and is written in iambic tetrameter. The plot of the poem centers around the speaker's hatred for Brother Lawrence, a fellow monk in the cloister.

The speaker notes the trivial ways in which Brother Laurence fails in his Christianity, and then plots to murder or damn the soul of Brother Laurence. However, the poem ends before the speaker can finish.

References

• Lecture on the subject — English 262 "A Survey Of British Literature", Columbus State Community College "Global Campus"
• Nancy B. Dessommes (1993). "Browning's Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister". The Explicator. 52. Retrieved 2008-11-12. [1]

Further bibliography

• Gwara S., Nelson J. (1997). "Botanical taxonomy and buggery in Browning's Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. (Robert Browning)". American Notes and Queries. 10 (4): pp30–32. ISSN 0895-769X. OCLC 60637053. PMID 11619510. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) Abstracts: Heldref Publications, HighBeam Research, FindArticles.
• McCusker, Jane A. (1983). "A Note on the Last Stanza of Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister". Victorian Poetry. 21: pp421–424. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
• Wear, Richard (1974). "Further Thoughts on Browning's Spanish Cloister". Victorian Poetry. 12: pp67–70. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
• Starkman,Miriam K. (1960). "The Manichee in the Cloister: A Reading of Browning's Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister". Modern Language Notes. 75 (5): pp399–405. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) Extract: JSTOR.