Unattainable Infinity: The Divorce Between Art and Life in Robert Browning’s Three Renaissance Poems

Robert Browning is celebrated not only for his refinement of the dramatic monologue, which unveils the complexity of human psychology, but also as a poet of art who explores the role of art in life. For him, art and life are inseparable, forming a union through which humanity pursues the infinite. This infinity rests on the idea of “perfection in imperfection”: only by confronting imperfection with passion can human life approach the divine. In “My Last Duchess” (1842), “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” (1845), and “Andrea del Sarto” (1855), Browning dramatizes characters whose attachment to art is reduced to materialism or vanity, exposing the limits of their finite existence. Their finitude is mirrored in the form of the dramatic monologue, underscoring isolation and rigidity. By revisiting the Renaissance—a moment of artistic and humanistic liberation—Browning articulates his philosophy of art and life, perfection and imperfection, the finite and the infinite.