The Sin of Materialism in the House of God - Research Paper Example

August 19, The Sin of Materialism in the House of God Several poems have criticized the overt immorality of the Catholic Church in early times. Browning also opposes the moral decay of the Catholic Church, whose materialism is best exemplified in his poem, The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxeds Church. The predominant theme of the poem is the gross materialism of humanity, which is more paradoxical in its case, because the Church should embody piety and self-sacrifice, not materialism. Brownings poem, however, demonstrates the sharp contrast between what the Church teaches to its followers and how the former denigrates its own teachings. This paper analyzes what the literature is saying about materialism in The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxeds Church. Several authors agree that this poem is an effective dramatic monologue that exposes the materialism of the Catholic Church through irony and parody. The Church admonishes greed and corruption and yet the Bishop in The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxeds Church has lived and wants to die with his material needs and goals in mind. Cervo mentions “hedonistic skepticism” present in Brownings poem, which parodies the essence of “understanding faith” (205). The more that the Catholic Bishop in this poem explains the details of his tomb, the more he underscores the death of the essence of faith. Indeed, The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxeds Church says more about faith than the Bishop wishes to reveal. There is irony in how in his dying moments, he is exposing himself as a spiritual fraud. He is a fraud for not living the teachings of Saint Praxed. Saint Praxed gave everything to the poor; the Bishop, on the contrary, saves the best for himself. This article shows the hypocrisy of priests, because they do not practice piety. Instead, the Bishop in this poem, even at the point of his death, shows obsession for material possessions. He wants a “slab of basalt” for his tomb (Browning 25), so that he would outshine his rival Gandolfs final resting place. The poem is then filled with descriptions of the tomb that underscores a priests absence of spiritual richness. The Bishop is only concerned of his tombs opulence, so that he can continue looking down on his predecessor, Gandolf. While Gandolf lives in eternity with his cheap “paltry onion-stone” (Browning 31), the Bishop will rest on basalt, surrounded with “Peach-blossom marble all, the rare...” (Browning 29). This is how the Bishop wants to die- with a bang of splendor around him, so that he can continue outshining Gandolf. Pride is a sin, and so is greed, but the Bishop demonstrates his sinfulness in his last wishes, a shameful example of a supposedly Godly man. Another article agrees with the crude worldliness of high-ranking priests, with emphasis on the role of the dramatic monologue in satirizing Renaissance Catholic faith. Rosmarin stresses that the bishop has “worldly pride” (80), given the title of the poem, where he “orders” how his tomb should be made and where it should be. He wants it to be made with beautiful stones that even his dead rival will envy, and though Gandolf has a better location for his tomb, he knows that his tomb is not so poor at all. He will ensure that the materials, design, and layout of his tomb will be spectacular enough to compensate for the loss of precious location and reflect his earthly stature. Rosmarin notes Brownings effective use of dramatic monologue to explore the implications of a dying Bishops ramblings. She specifically focuses on the situational irony of the Bishop, because no matter how many instructions and threats he gives, the Bishop is powerless in truly ordering his tomb. He is only “pleading” for his sons or nephews to make his tomb according to his instructions. Rosmarin says that there is drama and irony on how his pleas or orders will be “denied,” which shows the “discrepancy between how he sees himself and how he is seen” (80). For example, he notices that his sons whispered to each other after learning about the lapis lazuli that is as “Big as a Jews head cut off at the nape” (Browning 43), which he hid in “...tore of rotten fig-leaves soft,/ And corded up in a tight olive-frail” (Browning 40-41). This lapis lazuli comes from his former church. This demonstrates not just greed but stealing from the Church of God. Even if the Bishop thinks himself as pious, he is far from Saint Praxed. In addition, he thinks he has authority over his sons, but he does not. As a result, he bribes them with promises of properties, such as villas, as well as horses, manuscripts, and mistresses: Theres plenty jasper somewhere in the world-- And have I not Saint Praxeds ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? (Browning 72-75). He mixes his bribes with threats, such as giving his properties to the Pope instead: “...Else I give the Pope/My villas!...” (Browning 102-103). Despite these bribes and threats, nevertheless, the readers are aware that the monologue is a one-way communication. Even Anselm, who could be the one that the Bishop relies on, will not follow his orders. Wheeler agrees with Rosmarin about the “Bishops idealized self” (37). Indeed, the Bishop has an illusion that he can order his sons to do his bidding. In reality, the mentioning of pricey materials has only ignited greed among the Bishops sons. The Bishop says: “Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee” (Browning 63). But this idealization goes beyond the Bishop. It is argued that the idealization includes the idealization of the Renaissance Church. The ideals that the Church teaches are the opposite of what some high Church leaders are doing. The Bishop should be practicing celibacy, but he has a beautiful mistress that Gandolf envies: “Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!” (Browning 5). Priests should also have no material possessions, but even popes and bishops have accumulated expensive real properties. The Bishop highlights his sons inheritance to force them into following his orders, for example. This shows that he has numerous properties in his name, when these should all be in the Churchs name and used for spreading the Word of God. These properties are being used, instead, in forcing his sons to follow his orders. One source remarks on the narrative component of Bishops poem. McHale mentions the importance of “counterpoint” to the narrative of lyrical poems (17). He says that counterpoint is found in narratives and lyric poems, where the narrative segment provides a “meaningful” (18) contribution to the “poetic narrative” (McHale 18). My understanding of this is that the counterpoint of the narrative provides more details that lyric poems may lack. For instance, in The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxeds Church, the narrative about the Bishops last wishes for his tomb delineates his moral corruption, a corruption that is present from the level of the Pope himself, down to his own bishops. At the same time, this counterpoint represents the conflict between the ideal and the real. The ideal Bishop is one who lives a simple life. The real Bishop is morally corrupt, because he is boastful and materialistic. The ideal Church of God is about Gods love and teachings. The leaders of the church ideally represents Jesus Christ, who shuns material and physical needs. In reality, the Church has morally decayed, because its leaders are immoral human beings. They crave for power and material possessions. They teach their followers to live holy lives, but the formers lives are the opposite of holiness. The counterpoint represents the evil present in the house of God. One of the analyses that these authors lack is the sexualization of the Bishop. He relishes his sexual nature, as he ends his monologue with: “Old Gandolf--at me, from his onion-stone,/ As still he envied me, so fair she was!” (Browning 23-24). The Bishop loves excess too much, including excessive sexual desires. It seems that dying as he is, he relives the glory of his youth, when his virility is at its peak and his mistress is envied by all. His sexual desires are embodied in several suggestive phrases, such as “...the Madonnas breast” (Browning 44) and “mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? (Browning 75). The Bishop fixates on his physical, sexual needs his entire life, which manifests in having many sons from his own limbs. It is important to also underscore his sexual nature, because it discloses the immorality of priests in terms of sexual perversion. Browning shows that these priests are like ordinary men- they crave for carnal pleasures too. The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxeds Church symbolizes the sham of spiritual leaders and the religion they preach. Browning effectively uses dramatic monologue with his lyric poem to emphasize the difference between the teacher and his teachings. The Bishop is not a holy man living according to the words of God. He lives an utterly sinful life, as he dies obsessing about his sexual and material desires. He competes with a dead similarly-materialistic predecessor, which manifests the sin of pride too. The literature agrees that the Bishop symbolizes the Churchs gross materialism, with its opulence ironically marking the greatest sins of the supposedly holiest of men. Works Cited Browning, Robert. The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxeds Church. 1845. Web. 17 Aug. 2011. Shorter Poems. Cervo, Nathan A. “Brownings The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxeds Church.” Explicator 61.4 (2003): 204-206. Web. 18 Aug. 2011. Literary Reference Center. McHale, Brian. “Beginning to Think about Narrative in Poetry.” Narrative 17.1 (2009): 1-30. Web. 18 Aug. 2011. Literary Reference Center. Rosmarin, Adena. The Power of Genre. Minnesota: U of Minnesota P, 1985. Print. Wheeler, Michael. Heaven, Hell, and the Victorians. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1990. Print. Read More