Overview

The poem is spoken by a vengeful woman in a dramatic monologue. She is in a laboratory, watching poison being made to kill her romantic rival. She feels excited, obsessed, and ruthless about her plan. The setting is pre-revolutionary France, around 200 years before the poem was written in 1844.

Themes

The poem explores jealousy and revenge, as the speaker wants to harm someone out of spite. It also looks at death and obsession, showing how deeply the speaker is consumed by her emotions. Power and beauty are linked through the poison’s appearance. The poem also touches on sexual politics and social inequality.

Tone and voice

The tone is chilling, gleeful and bitter. The speaker is excited about committing murder and shows no remorse. She speaks as a wealthy female courtier whose lover has left her for another woman, and her voice is proud, obsessive and focused on appearance.

Context

Robert Browning often used dramatic monologues to explore dark and disturbed minds. He was interested in psychology and social injustice. This poem criticises the French court, where the rich lived in luxury while others suffered.

Form and structure

The poem is a dramatic monologue, meaning we only hear the speaker’s voice. It has 12 stanzas, each with four lines. The use of rhyming couplets gives the poem a neat and ordered feel. Browning uses dactylic metre (DUM-da-da) to create a fast and urgent rhythm. Changes in rhythm show the speaker’s excitement and obsession.

Poetic devices to spot

• Imagery – poison is described as beautiful, showing how the speaker links beauty with danger.
• Repetition – words like “her” and “laugh” are repeated to show obsession.
• Metaphor – the lab is called a “devil’s-smithy”, suggesting evil.
• Rhetorical questions – these show the speaker’s madness and lack of empathy.
• Caesura – pauses in lines show her changing emotions.

by Robert Browning

Ancien Régime

Ⅰ
Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely, As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy— Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

Ⅱ
He is with her, and they know that I know Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—I am here.

Ⅲ
Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste, Pound at thy powder,—I am not in haste! Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things, Than go where men wait me and dance at the King's.

Ⅳ
That in the mortar—you call it a gum? Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come! And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue, Sure to taste sweetly,—is that poison too?

Ⅴ
Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures, What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures! To carry pure death in an earring, a casket, A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!

Ⅵ
Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give, And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live! But to light a pastile, and Elise, with her head And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!

Ⅶ
Quick—is it finished? The colour's too grim! Why not soft like the phial's, enticing and dim? Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir, And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!

Ⅷ
What a drop! She's not little, no minion like me! That's why she ensnared him: this never will free The soul from those masculine eyes,—say, "no!" To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go.

Ⅸ
For only last night, as they whispered, I brought My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought Could I keep them one half minute fixed, she would fall Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all!

Ⅹ
Not that I bid you spare her the pain; Let death be felt and the proof remain: Brand, burn up, bite into its grace— He is sure to remember her dying face!

Ⅺ
Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose; It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close: The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee! If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?

Ⅻ
Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill, You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will! But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings Ere I know it—next moment I dance at the King's!

The text of this poem is available in the CCEA Poetry Anthology, which can be downloaded from the CCEA website.

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A dramatic monologue delivered by a vengeful woman who has come to the laboratory to buy poison she will use to kill her rival in love, and possibly others too. First published in 1844 but set around 200 years earlier in the 'Ancien régime', the pre-revolutionary political and social system of France.

• Title: Gives the setting in which the monologue takes place, while offering no clue as to the murderous intent of the speaker. This may be a nod to her deceptive façade, looking sweet on the surface but harbouring hatred and vengeance within. Some printed versions of the poem add 'Ancien régime' in the title or as a footnote after it, providing context as to where and when it is set.
• Themes: Vengeance, jealousy, obsession, death, sexual politics, power, science.
• Tone: Ruthless, excited, chillingly vengeful, sometimes bitter, sometimes gleeful, obsessive.
• Speaker: First person, in the personaof a seventeenth century female courtier whose lover has left her for another woman, and who is now resolved to kill her rival as revenge.

• Browning grew up with an extensive library at home and parents who encouraged his interest in literature. He often used the persona of another character in his poems, probably informed by the many historic characters and situations he read about.
• Browning was politically liberal, supporting women’s rights and the abolition of slavery. Poems like this dramatic monologue were probably used not only to expose the horrific intentions of the individual speaker but also to critique the unjust, uncaring societies that produced such individuals – in this case, the decadent (and often deadly) French court.
• Browning’s interest in the developing “mental sciences” (the forerunners of psychology and its associated studies) of the Victorian era led him to use monologues to connect readers to the inner mindsets of characters who were choosing to do terrible things. This offers an insight into these characters’ reasons and ideas, as seen in The Laboratory.
• The ‘Ancien Régime’ setting of The Laboratory reflects a society that was hugely unequal, with extreme poverty for most ordinary people and legendary decadence for those at the top. Louis XIV (the real French King who is most likely the one referenced in the poem) valued beauty, his right to rule and his own comfort above anything else, holding lavish parties for elite court members while his subjects starved. The speaker in The Laboratory is so concerned with pride, vengeance, and her own perceived beauty and delicacy that she has no humility, sympathy, or love for anyone else. A caricature of one beautiful on the outside but rotten in spirit.

Only a little context is needed for each poem; where used, it should be applied to the point you're making.

• The Laboratory is a dramatic monologue, spoken by a single character and giving us insight into what she thinks and feels. Browning used this form often to help explore particular characters’ psychological states and their views of the world.
• The poem is divided into 12 stanzas with four lines each – these are known as quatrains. Rhyming couplets are also used, giving a sense of order that supports the speaker’s outward appearance as someone genteel and well-bred. Yet the things she says are fiendish and shocking, and delivered in a gleeful tone that implies she takes great joy in her cruelty and malice.
• The poetic metre varies throughout, though it usually contains four stressed syllables per line. The most used metre throughout is dactylic – one dactyl is a three-beat unit with the first syllable stressed and followed by two unstressed syllables: a DUM-da-da rhythm that sounds driving and urgent, like the speaker’s need for revenge. In the following example, three dactyls are followed by a trochee (a two-beat unit with the first syllable stressed):
  
  | Which is the | poison to | poison her | prithee? |
  | DUM-da-da | DUM-da-da | DUM-da-da | DUM-da |
  
  This main driving rhythm shows the speaker’s enthusiasm for killing her rival, as well as her determination. The variations in rhythm sometimes show her reactions, and sometimes suggest she is daydreaming to herself about committing other murders. But always manage to capture the excited energy she has about being in the Laboratory and on the brink of executing her revenge. She cannot control her delight.

What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!

• The most notable change in metre may be the first two lines of stanza 10 – when the speaker states with chilling clarity that the apothecary should not “spare her the pain; / Let death be felt and the proof remain”, these lines are two syllables shorter than most of the rest of the poem, giving a pared-down, exacting and emphatic quality that shows the speaker’s stony and unflinching malice.

• Imagery of beauty and wealth: The Laboratory is resplendent with references to the beauty of the poisons in the apothecary’s lair. “Gold oozings” and “exquisite blue” potions are pointed out. She exclaims that the finished poison he has made for her has “too grim” a colour, wanting it to be “soft” and “enticing” like another she has seen; she looks at it closely and calls it a “delicate droplet”.
  
  To someone as concerned with appearances as the speaker, her fascination with the visual is significant. As a woman in her time, she is largely powerless in society – her only strength comes from her beauty and in using it to get men to do what she wants. She values the beauty of the poisons, as she sees beauty as being equivalent to power.
  
  As with the imagery of wealth throughout the poem – gold, jewels, jewellery, trinkets – the speaker is concerned with superficial things and surface appearances, but has little concern for truth, human connection or even love; her actions are motivated by jealousy and pride, not by the fact that she loves the man who has left her for another.
• Repetition: There are many small but clever repetitions in the poem, all of which help to underscore the speaker’s crazed, obsessive state of mind. The repetition of “poison” in the closing line of the first stanza – “Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?” – uses the word as both a noun and a verb, emphasising to the reader that this speaker has their mind firmly made up and will be taking sinister action.
  
  The second stanza uses several repetitions – “they know that I know / Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow / While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled…” – to reveal her obsessions in a very telling way. The repeated words show that she is fixated on “they” and the idea they “laugh” “at me”. The repeated words not only emphasise that it is her pride they have hurt, not her heart, but also give her voice a spluttering, seething quality, like a person so angry they cannot get their words out clearly. They make her sound unhinged and manic.
  
  Repeated references to “The King” could show that she is trying to sound impressive, or simply that she is so immersed in court life that she has no external sense of reality beyond it. Over half of the stanzas contain the word “her” – the object of the speaker’s fanatical hatred is repeated throughout the poem, impersonally reminding us of the speaker’s deadly motivation.
• Metaphor: The blacksmith’s workshop, in which iron shoes for horses’ hooves would be fired, cooled, hammered and fitted, was known as a ‘smithy’ for short; blacksmiths often made other iron and metal objects such as farming tools or basic weapons. The workshop would have had extremely hot fires, sparks, clanking and hammering, steam and smoke, and a great sense of work going on.
  
  The metaphor of a “devil’s-smithy” in stanza one plays on this idea to set the scene in the laboratory itself, evoking similar images of heat, smoke and busy industry, but with a demonic edge. This implies that the devil himself is at play among the many potions and ingredients the apothecary has around him. The speaker has no illusions about the fact that what she is asking for is wicked, and she has no shame in openly admitting her deadly intent, which shows how sharply focused on revenge she is.

As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy—
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

• Rhetorical question: The speaker asks many questions in The Laboratory – her dramatic opening stanza, inquiring which poison will work; the inquisitive engagement with the apothecary’s ingredients in stanza four; the urgent demand whether the potion is finished and the subsequent complaint about its colour are all questions, mostly used to show her enthusiasm and interest.
  
  However, the penultimate stanza ends with a loaded rhetorical question: “If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?”. The irony created by this musing is fairly obvious when we consider how obsessed and cruel the character has become – she has compromised her soul and her humanity by planning this murderous revenge. The “hurt” she will cause to her rival will indeed hurt her too – but she is so consumed with vengeance that she does not seem to realise this.
• Caesura: There are several uses of caesurae in the poem – look at stanza four, for example, where she seems to be pointing out things she can see and asking the apothecary about them: “That in the mortar – you call it a gum?”. The dashes and commas imply her looking, thinking about, describing and quizzing him on what she can see; the breaks make her observations shorter, giving a sense of excitement and wonder, and suggesting there are many interesting things to comment on.
  
  Perhaps the most significant instance of caesura in The Laboratory occurs in stanza two. The speaker follows an increasingly manic description of her former lover and his new mistress, imagining the speaker to be at church, with the tersely factual and ominous statement “I am here.”. This is preceded by a dash, created a dramatic pause for emphasis that helps to heighten the contrast between her agitated tone before the dash and her deadly calm immediately after it.

While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—I am here.

This is not a list of every method or notable use of language and structure in The Laboratory.

Look at the poem again. Can you find any of the following?

• I Am Very Bothered – another poem in which the speaker causes injury to a person that they claim to love.
• How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43) – a greatly contrasting poem about genuine love, also with a female speaker who speaks directly and honestly to her beloved (rather than deceptively about them to the apothecary).
• To His Coy Mistress – a speaker addressing the object of his affection and likewise concerned with earthly pleasures.

Use these questions to hone your knowledge of The Laboratory, and to practise using your notes and analysis in organised paragraphs that focus on how particular themes or ideas are shown in the poem. There is an example answer in the following section to demonstrate how you can do this.

• How does Browning reveal the character of the speaker in The Laboratory?
• What does The Laboratory show us about Browning’s attitude to the society of the ‘Ancien Régime’ that produced the poem’s speaker?
• What poetic methods does Browning use to show the speaker’s feelings about death in The Laboratory?
• How does Browning create a tone of excitement in The Laboratory?

Below is a demonstration of how to use the material in this section to answer an example essay question. The answer below is not a full essay, but only an extract of a longer answer showing some of the points that could be made.

Q: How does Browning reveal the character of the speaker in The Laboratory?

A: Browning uses dramatic monologue, a favourite form of his, in The Laboratory, to give the reader access to the speaker’s thoughts and motivations. The nameless first person speaker is in fact in the presence of an apothecary during the poem but we hear only her side of any conversation that may take place; Browning uses some variation in poetic metre to convey that the character is excited to be where she is. Dactyls give the poem an urgent, driving, DUM-da-da rhythm that shows her commitment to her mission, while the frequent variations from this main metre give a sense that she can barely contain her excitement. The fact that she is so driven by the prospect of murderous revenge shows her to be a vengeful character who will stop at nothing to punish those she feels have wronged her.

The speaker is clearly an elite member of the French court – she makes allusions to “the King’s”, meaning the palace where courtiers would dance and socialise. She has gold and jewels with which to pay the apothecary’s fee, showing her to be wealthy, and lists off the kinds of trinkets – earrings, signet rings, fan-mounts – that show she is familiar with the fashions of the day. These advantages, however, mean nothing to her; her whole being is consumed by the idea of revenge. The imagery of wealth occurs in casual, throwaway statements – “take all my jewels” for example – but there is imagery of beauty that is directed towards the potions themselves: “gold oozings”, “exquisite blue”, “soft”, “enticing”, “delicate”. This not only shows her fascination with the poisons that will help her win her revenge, but draws a clear comparison between beauty and power. As a woman in her time, she is largely powerless in society – her only strength comes from her beauty and in using it to get men to do what she wants. She values the beauty of the poisons, as she sees beauty as being equivalent to power. We could have sympathy for her as a powerless character, but she is so obsessed with appearance, riddled with jealousy and consumed by revenge. We instead feel her to be a toxic character, warped by superficial concerns and lacking any human kindness or empathy.

This essay could go on to make the following points, backed up by evidence from the poem and detailed analysis of that evidence:

• The speaker is motivated not by love but by pride, as shown through some repetition in stanza two.
• The speaker is obsessively jealous, directing her rage not towards the man who cheated on her but to the woman, and fantasising about killing other women too.
• The speaker is spiteful and ruthless, not only wanting her rival dead but disfigured too, and hoping her former lover sees and remembers the disfigurement.
• The speaker is fully consumed by vengeance, failing to recognise how it affects her as well as her victim.