Anthony Hecht was obviously fond of the dramatic monologue; there are examples of it in books throughout his career: “Consider the Lilies”, “Green: an Epistle”, “The Venetian Vespers”, “See Naples and Die”, and “Death the Whore” all come to mind, and all have attracted critical attention. In his last book, The Darkness and the Light, there is an example, “A Brief Account of Our City”, which I have always liked, though it does not seem to have attracted much comment (none that I know of) and was omitted by J. D. McClatchy in the Selected Poems which he edited (Knopf, 2011).
The poem seems to be set in Germany or Austria, perhaps some minor principality, and the period, though unspecified, is neither contemporary nor in the remote past. The unidentified narrator is writing a letter to a friend or acquaintance, who is soon to make a visit to the city where the narrator lives. The first half of the poem offers the visitor a survey of the town, focusing on the Old Fort with its “dungeons, barbicans and towers”, and the “incomparable view” that can be had from it. The survey culminates in a startling, indeed shocking, revelation, the presence in the city of a public executioner, maintained with his family at the city’s expense, but kept in permanent quarantine from the other citizens. Strangely, the narrator seems unaware that this revelation is shocking. This is immediately followed by a brief coda urging the visitor to sample the excellent food (the dumplings are highly recommended) and beer when he comes. And that’s it.
It was not until I had read “A Brief Account” a number of times, over the course of a few years, that I sensed the presence of another poem, a famous one, lurking behind it, parts of it, at least —not in any obvious or direct way, or in lock-step detail, but as a kind of ghostly stencil or watermark just faintly visible here and there. The poem I have in mind is Browning’s “My Last Duchess”, and the similarities I notice are not in content so much as in the shaping and pacing, the rhetorical and narrative strategies. On the face of it, the two poems have almost nothing in common, but on closer inspection some interesting parallels can be seen.
Both poems are in the second person, speaking to “you”: the Duke addresses the agent of a Count, the letter-writer addresses his correspondent. (A minor point: both poems are almost exactly the same length—fifty-six lines for Browning, fifty-eight for Hecht—so they have the same space in which to get their business done.) Both begin abruptly without any introductory scene setting, as though we are overhearing a conversation that has been proceeding for a while: “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall”; “If you approach our city from the south.” The bulk of each poem engages in a detailed account of the ostensible subject, the portrait of the Duchess, or rather her character, the physical details of the city, culminating in a shocking revelation: the removal (in fact the execution) of the Duchess; the city’s executioner and the arrangement with him. Both speakers reveal something repugnant in their character (the real subject): in their different ways they are both self-satisfied and insensitive—the Duke, in his menacing arrogance, is without qualm or feeling for his former wife, and betrays no sense of his own ruthlessness in getting rid of her; the citizen is blithely untroubled either by the fact of his city’s employing an executioner or its hypocritical sequestration of him from civic life. At the same time both are completely unaware that they have been self-revealing: the Duke’s comprehensive demolition of the Duchess’s character and blindness to his own are breathtaking; the citizen’s dismissal of the local barons of an earlier era as “murderous vulgar men” while he and his fellows still employ an executioner is equally blind. Both in fact seem very pleased with themselves and seem to imagine that they have shown themselves in a favourable and enhancing light. Finally, the culmination of the narrative passes without comment, as the speaker abruptly turns aside to another subject and a swift businesslike conclusion: in Browning, marriage negotiations, leading to a glance at the sculpture of Neptune; in Hecht, a recommendation of the local cuisine and beer to the prospective visitor. In each poem the coda contains a sort of conversational injunction to the addressee: “Notice Neptune, though” and “be certain that you dine”.
I wouldn’t want to push the comparison too far. Obviously, the poems are for the most part quite dissimilar, but there do seem to me to be intriguing points of resemblance, which I would like to believe are deliberate.
Click below to read "A Brief Account of Our City"
for Dorothea Tanning
If you approach our city from the south,
The first thing that you'll see is the Old Fort,
High on its rock. Its crenellated walls,
Dungeons and barbicans and towers date back
To the eighth century. The local barons
Of hereditary title moved their courts
Inside whenever they were under siege
With all their retinues, taxing the poor,
Feuding with neighboring baronies, masterful
Only in greed and management of arms.
Great murderous vulgar men, they must have been.
The fort, history records, was never taken.
It might be worth a visit when you come.
For a mere thirty kroner you can ascend
The turrets for a quite incomparable view.
From there our forests look a lot like parlsey
And cress; there the wind enters your throat
Like an iced mountain stream. Piled here and there
You will find pyramids of cannonballs
In the great courtyard, stacked like croquembouches,
Warm to the touch where the sun glances of them
And chilly in the shade. The arsenal,
Containing arquebuses, fruitwood bows,
As well as heavy mortars and great cannons,
Is open to the public. The furniture
Is solid, thick and serviceable stuff,
No nonsense. But what may strike you most of all
Is the plain, barren spareness of the rooms.
No art here. Nothing to appease the eye.
And not because such things have been removed
To our museums. This was the way they lived:
In self-denying, plain austerity.
As you draw nearer to the city itself
You will make out, beyond the citadel,
The shapely belfry of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Then you will see, in the midst of a great field,
Surrounded on all sides by acres of wheat,
A large, well-cared-for, isolated house—
No others neighboring, or even within view—
Which is given free of charge by the city board
To the Public Executioner. His children
Are allowed a special tutor, but not admitted
To any of our schools. The family
Can raise all that's required for their meals
Right on the grounds, and, if need be, a doctor
Will call on them, given half a day's notice.
The children are forbidden to leave the place,
As is, indeed, the entire family,
Except when the father alone is called upon
To perform official duties. And by this means
Everyone is kept happy; our citizens
Need have no fear of encountering any of them,
While they live comfortably at our expense.
Whenever you visit, be certain that you dine
At one of our fine restaurants; don't miss
The Goldene Nockerl, which for potato dumplings
Cannot be matched, and our rich amber beer
Is widely known as the finest in this region.
by Anthony Hecht
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