Women and Roses is a Robert Browning poem that explores the concept of love dreams, and especially sexual love. The speaker imagines that the three women from time are roses: past, current, and future. Browning managed to create sexual fantasies even though the poem was written at the time of the Victorian era.
Browning depicts love as personal. His stark opening — “I dreamed of a red rose tree” — portrays love in a private way. Browning takes on the subject of women’s preservation in art, “sculptured into stone.” Although preservation has positive connotations and implies objectification, the act implying containment is what makes the tone possessive. The Duke in My Last Duchess says “no one puts back this curtain but me” to suggest total possession. He not only owned the Duchess during her lifetime, but also owns the portrait of the Duchess now that she is dead. The speaker ends the poem by saying “I will create an Eve, I’ll be the artist who began her”. This suggests that he is not only the owner of women but also the first woman in human history. He has become God. Darwin’s The Origin of Species was being published at the same time Browning wrote his poem. This book developed the ideas of evolution and led to the concept of a Mitochondrial Eden’, the first woman who would pass DNA down through her mothers. Browning suggests the speaker is the first woman to pass DNA down through mothers. The speaker, like God, appears outside of time. In order to realize his fantasy, he must exist throughout eternity. It is similar to A Grammarian’s Funeral, where the Grammarian believes that “What’s Time?” in order to reach his goal of total knowledge. Browning explores here the idea that there is no time in love and it is completely liberating.
Browning depicts women only as relevant due to their beauty. The polysyndetonics in “Living And Loving And Loved To-day” are a celebration of life, youth, and fertility. Browning may have loved and enjoyed the youth and liberty of these women at first, but the speaker later suggests that Browning only fantasizes about them. These figures are created solely to fulfill his fantasy — “Beauties still unborn”. This will cause his love to deteriorate.
Pollination of flowers is a metaphor that continues to illustrate this destructive nature. “Bees pass unimpeached”, a phrase that depicts men like bees who sterilise women while sucking their life away, provides a powerful image. By objectifying women men corrupt and blacken the love. Two in the Campagna uses the same imagery in “Feathery, green grasses everywhere…Rome, the ghost of her demise” to discuss the nature theme. The beautiful countrysides and fertility can only last so long, but everything will eventually die, if you don’t respect it or love it. The fragility that flowers and love share is also reflected in this conception. Roses, while connoting passion, romance and beauty, also denote fragility and fragrance. Once plucked, they die instantly. Browning suggests that the speaker’s virginity, and his idea of true beauty, are limited by juxtaposing “Women” with this love concept. Through his control and possession, the speaker destroys what he meets. This theme was further developed in My Last Duchess by the terse monosyllabic line “I issued commands; all smiles then stopped together.” The Duke killed his wife because he would not allow her to smile at compliments from other men.
Browning implies that women also have sexual fantasies. Browning implies that women have sexual fantasies. “The bee sucking in the hyacinth,” could mean that women are attracted to men. In Victorian times, women could not make noises while having sex. Instead, they had to stay motionless. Browning’s poem explores the frustration that sexual pleasures were not fulfilled. Instead, they had to be enjoyed in dreams.
Browning explores sexual tension through these devices. While such fantasies may be stigmatized in society, Browning suggests that everyone is able to enjoy them in their dreams and visions. While the Victorians attempted to repress such feelings, it was the very act that repressed them which exacerbated these dreams. Browning might have been implying at this time that love had taken on a perverse shape, in which sexual restraint was the cause of objectification and possession.
