Soliloquy of The Spanish Cloister - Analysis

Analysis

The poem deals with themes of pride, jealousy, repressed sexuality and moral hypocrisy. It develops the character of the speaker as a covetous monk, who hates Brother Lawrence only because he wants what his fellow monk has. The speaker attempts to present reasons and justifications for his hate, making the paragraphs form a list and emphasizing his obsessiveness. In the second stanza he attempts to paint Lawrence as prideful, in the third as having possessions beyond his means (such as his own drinking goblet). In the fourth, he attempts to accuse Brother Lawrence of having licentious thoughts toward women, showing only his own capacity for such thoughts. The list only grows until we reach the seventh stanza in which we view a revelation of the speaker's character — he is not only a jealous man, but an evil man as well, resolving that he wants to find a way to condemn Brother Lawrence's soul to hell. He thinks up a plan to trick Brother Lawrence into reading a "scrofulous" French novel, damning the Brother's soul immediately. Amusingly, we as readers are left wondering how the speaker knows the contents of the French novel if he is such a pious monk. Failing the novel ploy, the speaker resolves that he could always sell his own soul to the devil to also condemn Lawrence's and begins to speak satanic worship—then the poem ends as the speaker is distracted by the call to Vespers.