A Grammarian’s Funeral, poem by Robert Browning
Analysis by Dipanwita Bhattacharya, Sayan Mukherjee
Abstract: Life worth living with all its forms and patterns, or is it merely an academic learning. Browning dealt with this issue in his long poem A Grammarian’s Funeral.
Keywords: Grammar, Grammarian, Funeral, Renaissance, Life, Living, Browning, Academic.
In earlier ages, reading and learning Grammar of any language, especially that of Greek, was considered a classy element of a learned society. A Grammarian would stand the best of all amongst the dignified persons, and the Grammarian would be considered a savant that would be bestowed upon every respect.
In his long poem, The Funeral of the Grammarian, the corpse of the Grammarian was being carried. The Grammarian who had devoted his life in learning and completing the whole of the Greek Grammar. Life is both tragic and comic-making a perfect example of tragicomedy. A ‘life’ can be known and learnt, or a ‘life’ can be lived. Unfortunately, both cannot be done simultaneously, at least to the fullest. The Grammarian wanted to know life in its dry academic format, and incidentally learnt to die in I’ll health! He failed to learn the art of living life. It was his choice. He did not experience life; instead, he learned life in its taciturn way, reserving inch by inch to its dry affair. It was purely and merely academic, without a touch of any practical experience of joy and sorrow involved with living.
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
‘This low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred’s soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
A learned man has everything in its head in multitude. Thus, a learned man lives less and learns more. But a man not so learned-‘low man’, never misses life, never leaves life unfathomed as a whole. The Grammarian in his constant endeavour for learning, returns “Back to his book then: deeper dropped his head: Calculus racked him:
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:
Tussis attacked him
‘Now, Master, take a little rest! -not he!
(Caution redoubled,
Step two a-breast, the way winds narrowly!)
Not a whit troubled,
Back to his studies, fresher than at first
Fierce as a dragon
He ( soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
The Grammarian always seeks, seeks for knowledge. Come what may, life or death, the learned man chases knowledge.
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
If a man’s head is always occupied with excellent knowledge, it is rarely that the man gets rid of its ego.
And it so happens that the learned man is so simple that no egoistic persona can be observed of him; but then too, the man has failed to possess the eyes for viewing the whole world in the most simplistic way. The Grammarian became a Grammarian and nothing but that only; and lacked the eyes for viewing the whole world and for gathering enough of experience from it. Now, it to be considered what is best for life; what to be craved for. Diplomatically it can be concluded that the choice is individual. But that is too general a statement for a conclusion. We have to analyse it with a little of rumination and research applied upon it. To live a life, just to attain knowledge, is worth definitely; but to the limited means. But to live a life, and live with life, with all its nuances and experiences gathered, with all its ups and downs collected- is something more natural and worthier. Something more dynamic. For Browning, living with life was more significant and important than merely collecting some dry facts from the world. Grammar is necessary and learning of it signifies taste- but that should not leave a means that ultimately would prove a toll upon health and youth. It was for Browning a dry effort, lifeless, a sort of super-existence that was not an existence at all.
‘Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all the books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it. ‘
After dealing with this sort of dryness, one is destined to invite monotony. And the ‘units’ of life and living are missed. One cannot look at the ‘whole’ in its true sense. One misses the ‘units’, the small fragments that gather and comprise the ‘whole’.
In the Renaissance, and the Post-Renaissance Period, in Europe, it proved a craze for learning and molding the society to its absolute attainment of education in every sphere of life and living. A great victory of mankind was Renaissance. But what Browning wanted us to learn was that education would ultimately prove a dry affair, lifeless, if it would limit itself to books only. Instead, if a man learns to embrace life as it wants to embrace knowledge, then the whole of the living will prove joyous and beneficial. One has well lived a life if one has learnt and experienced life and living, if one has tasted good and bad and ugly of life and living. That experience will make a man knowledgeable. But again, we have to consider and balance all things equally. Fir gaining experience, a man cannot be a Dr. Faustus who could shake hands with Mephistopheles and would end up being spiritually ruined.
To conclude, it is for a man to choose the way. The way of dry learning, purely academic; or, the way of living and experiencing. But again, it remains as warning, living merely, without learning, may lead to disaster.
