Browning’s Grammarian : An Epitome of Renaissance

A Grammarian’s Funeral is not only a much admired piece of verse, a quarry of quotations, but also a very typical of its author in its subject, thought and technique. It is one of the best of Browning’s studies of ‘The Revival of Learning’. During the period the pursuit of knowledge to be procured from Greece and Rome was carried on with a hungry passion. And by choosing as his hero, as his example of the sacred thirst for learning, a Grammarian, and a dry as dust Grammarian, who has laboured after explaining the 'function of ancient Greek adverbs and participles’, Browning has endeavoured in a right manner to present the spirit of the 15th century Renaissance in the poem.

The poem has three paragraphs of unequal length.The first describes how the Grammarian’s disciples,”singing together, carry his body in triumph up the mountain. This is metaphorically said to be “citied to the top, crowded with culture.” It is symbolic of the higher reaches of thought, and towers above “the unlettered plain” representative of the ignorance of the common multitude. On the other hand, the citadel ‘circling its summit is a real citadel a fortified little town through whose market place the procession eventually marches.

The second paragraph, with its rapid changes of metaphor, requires careful reading. The Grammarian was born with the beauty of feature represented i n the statues of Apollo, the Greek god of lyric poetry. He gained no fame in youth, but when this passed he did not complain mournfully that “my dance is finished”, that the worthwhileness of life was over. On the contrary he devoted himself to learning, to interpreting the works, so far partly a sealed book, of the great classical poets and philosophers. Scholars now gathered round him, to find him an old man, bald stammering, leaden-eyed. Another might have said – “Now that I am famous, it is time to enjoy life.” But the Grammarian would not rest content; he had mastered the crabbed text of learning – but there was still the commentary. He was eager to know all that he could know; he had grasped the meaning of the whole, but had still to study the parts, like an architect who plans the whole fabrick before any portation of it is executed.

The third paragraph, which contained the main ideas of the poem, has fewer difficulties. Back to his books, the Grammarian was attacked by disease, a stone in the kidney (calculus) and bronchitis(tussis). But he still aimed at the whole of the knowledge, and would not be satisfied with mere instalments. Even with death approaching “ground he at grammar”, and discovered the functions of Greek conjuctions ‘hoti’ (that), the Greek adverb ‘oun’ (therefore) and the enclitic ‘de’. The poem ends with the arrival of the procession at the top of the mountain, where the scholars bury their master, leaving him-

Still loftier than the world suspects,
Leaving and dying.

Some of Browning’s favourite ideas are expressed in the poem. One is that to devote oneself to high ideas unattainable in this life is better than to succeed in a lower aim. See :

That low man goes on adding one to one ,
His hundred’s soon hit:
The high man, aiming at a million,
Misses a unit.

It is in the life to come that a noble failure here will be crowned with success. Further he says:

What is time? Leave now for dogs and apes;
Man has for ever.

The metre of the poem is skillfully employed to suit the changing pace of the funeral party. It is in perfect accord with the steps of the men ascending a mount. There are, however, some grotesque rhymes: cock-crow and rock-row, fabric and dabbrick, loosened and dew send. These grotesque rhymes have been employed to serve the purpose of grandeur. These violent grotesque rhymes echo the broken steps of the marching men. It also can be interpreted as suggestive of the Grammarian’s rugged journey through life.

Althoough the poem is not all obscure at places it is difficult to comprehend. The difficulty arises out of its intellectual bent and content. There is more of ideas than of emotion. This difficulty is further aggravated by (1) involved syntax, (2) the omission of a word here and there, (3) hibit of saying things in parentheses, that is within brackets and between dashes. See:

(Here’s the town-gate reached ; there is
The market place
Gaping before us)
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace
(Hearten our chorus)
That before living he’d learn how to live-

I would like to conclude the discussion by quoting the lines from a short poem by H D Lowry which provide both a parrallel and a contrast to the poem:

He gave his days to learning and high content was his;
Great stove had he of learning in all the mysteries;
He thought, when he was wakened, ‘twas how his hour to live,
But time, the kind old Father, had only death to give.