The Virtual Coffeehouse

Since I'm the first post I guess I get to be the obvious one - While Browning may have written "Fra Lippo Lippi" autobiographically, he isn't the speaker. The speaker is an artist who actually did live in the 15th century. It isn't like Great Expectations, where the speaker is also the main character, telling us his story the way he lived it. You can see some connections in Browning's poem: between art and poetry , and Browning did live in Italy after marrying Elizabeth, and he was an atheist for awhile, like the monk who never wanted to be a monk; but I think if he intended it to be autobiographical it's a bit of a cop-out to write it from the persona of someone from the 15th century.

I agree with Amanda. It is quite obvious one of the differences between the poem "Fra Lippo Lippi" and 'Great Expectations.' That difference is that one is told from the main characters point of view (Pip). And the poem is not told from the main characters point of view, it is from an outside source. I think in some cases, it's more interesting and believable when a story is written from a main characters point of view. In that case, we get to see what the character is thinking, feeling, and experiencing at all times. In the case of 'Great Expectations,' the story would not have been the same if it had been written from an outside source, like the poem we have read for today.

I think one difference between Great Expectations and "Fra Lippo Lippi" in terms of how the protagonist's identity is described comes in how the speaker views their own identity and how it was created. Specifically, Pip views his identity as a product of his experiences, viewing himself as ignorant, inferior, etc. His whole quest that ensues is to shed his identity as it was framed by his experiences.

In "Fra Lippo Lippi," his identity seems to be created as a result of his existence. The speaker says "...flesh and blood, that's all I'm made of" (lines 60-61). To me, this indicates that the speaker's initial recognition of identity comes from his birth and his composition.

I agree with what has been said so far. The main difference is within the narrator of the two works. It seems that by having Pip narrate his own, Pip can directly portray Dickens's thoughts and ideas on the society he lived in. Browning's third person narrative seems to allow more freedom and creativity when it comes to expressing opinions. Browning's atheism is real life is reflected in Lippo's opinions of the church and other monks.

I agree with what people have been saying about the narrators of both works. In the introduction to Browning on page 1250, it says that Browning was "a poet preoccupied with masks." I think this shows in "Fra Lippo Lippi," which seems to be a "mask" in itself; Browning is presenting his own ideas through the speaker of the poem. While Browning sets his poem in the past, Dickens set Great Expectations in his current time period. This affects the identities of the protagonists, because while Dickens can directly make statements about the current time, Browning disguises his ideas about faith and art by setting them in the Renaissance.

I also agree with the comments about the narrator of each work. Dickens chooses to write Great Expectations from the voice of the main character, Pip. While Browning writes his autobiographical poem Fra Lippo Lippi not in his voice but in the voice of an artist from the 15th c. The identity of the artist in Fra Lippo Lippi is a little less believable because Browning creates a fictional autobiographical poem where in Great Expectations Dickens tells the story from Pips point of view which makes the story more believable.

To go along with everyone else...the main difference in these two pieces is through the narration of them both. Personally, I like the narration in Great Expectations better since it allows the reader to feel as though you are right there alongside Pip seeing everything he sees and feeling like you are right there in the middle of the action taking place. In Browning's poem, like Sarah stated, the narrator is a fictional character from the fifteenth century, so it is a lot less believable, and for me, not as exciting as first person narration.

i agree with the previous post that browning's narration is not as effective as pip's in great expectations. coming from pip's point of view does make the reader more aware of what is going on in the character's life rather than reading it from another person's perspective. fra lippo lippi did not grab my attention the way great expectations did.

I obviously agree with my fellow classmates, mainly because they have brought up very good reasons these two pieces of literature differ in their narration techniques. I think that without sounding redundent, i will go out on a limb and think of another way I see them differ. Browning's character is revealed in a very dramatic way. His use of language portrays the protagonist in a very matter of fact way with the use of wonderfully descriptive language. In lines 85-87, Browning describes the protagonist using such dramatic language,

One find frosty day,
My stomache being empty as your hat,
The wind doubled me up and down I went.

These lines are revealing about the character.

Also I find that Brownings's character differs from Pip because Pip struggles with his identity, whereas in Browning/'s poem, he is aware of himself and his questions he asks of himself are merely questions one has regarding life in general. For example in line 14 he asks "Who am I?" but it does not seem as though he is troubled by these questions.

I agree with many things that have been said previously. In Great Expectations, we see from Pip’s perspective, and Dickens seems to be pretty dedicated with just showing Pip’s point of view. In “Fra Lippo Lippi” Browning has a lot less room to show the speaker’s perspective, but he does so and also explains the major complaints against him. I feel like Browning is able to do this in verse a lot more effectively than Dickens did in a 500+ page novel.

I agree with a lot of what has been said about the identity of the speaker. It's true, the fictional character of Pip is more malleable in the skillful hand of Dickens than the actual person of Fra Lippo Lippi is in Brownings (equally?) skillful hand. But at the same time, both Dickens and Browning are using someone else's life to draw parallels about their own.

On somewhat of a side note, I couldn't help but do a double take at a few lines that struck me a quite similar to Great Expectations. On pg 1273 lines 80-83 says

Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now!
I was a baby when my mother died
And father died and left me in the street.

And lines 88-89...

Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand,
(Its fellow was a stinger as I knew)

And, of course, line 270

You understand me: I'm a beast, I know.

The orphaned thing, the "bringing up by hand" thing, and the becoming a beast thing all resonated with some of the things we talked about early on with Pip.

I do agree with what the previous posts have said but I am also going to point something obvious too. The voice the poet uses and the language he uses differs greatly from the voice in Great Expectations. For example the length in the novel is much much much longer, and many more details and plots can be developed. I feel as though the poem is more concise in it's language but less believable. The narration in Great expectations is much more human and the language in the poem is inflated. That's what I took away from it.

I agree with much of what has been said. I enjoyed Cherilyn's post and the parallels she drew between Pip and Lippo Lippi through use of direct quotes and close reading. I agree, also, in that Browning is limited in his writing due to the fact that his protagonist is a real historical figure. In this way, Browning must use actual facts of the life of another to relate to his own life. Dickens' protagonist is fictitious and, therefore, as Cherilyn aptly put, more "malleable." In the introduction to the Browning section, it is said that Browning tended to abstain from delving too directly and personally into his own life in his poetry, for he was once called "morbidly self-conscious" by John Stuart Mill. I wonder if, in using the life of another person -- a real person -- he is employing a more impersonal method of creating something autobiographical.

I agree with what everyone has been saying. I think because “Fra Lippo Lippi” is set in the past and is in the third person, it is harder to get into the narrator’s head. I never really has a probably getting inside Pip’s head, since the story is from his perspective, and is also happening in Dicken’s time, not the fifteenth century.

I agree with a lot of the points brought up above. I think the ending is important to note because the priest is content (or at least says so) in lines 244-245. Pip, on the other hand does not seem fulfilled even as the novel comes to a close. They both came from similar backgrounds and had a diffcult time rising through the ranks of the hopes they'd established for their future while young, but unlike the priest Pip doesn't seem to want what he thought he'd want as a child.