The Full Text of “A Light Woman”
I.
1So far as our story approaches the end,
2Which do you pity the most of us three?—
3My friend, or the mistress of my friend
4With her wanton eyes, or me?
II.
5My friend was already too good to lose,
6And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
7When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose
8And over him drew her net.
III.
9When I saw him tangled in her toils,
10A shame, said I, if she adds just him
11To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
12The hundredth for a whim!
IV.
13And before my friend be wholly hers,
14How easy to prove to him, I said,
15An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
16Though she snaps at a wren instead!
V.
17So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
18My hand sought hers as in earnest need,
19And round she turned for my noble sake,
20And gave me herself indeed.
VI.
21The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,
22The wren is he, with his maiden face.
23—You look away and your lip is curled?
24Patience, a moment's space!
VII.
25For see, my friend goes shaling and white;
26He eyes me as the basilisk:
27I have turned, it appears, his day to night,
28Eclipsing his sun's disk.
VIII.
29And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:
30"Though I love her—that, he comprehends—
31"One should master one's passions, (love, in chief)
32"And be loyal to one's friends!"
IX.
33And she,—she lies in my hand as tame
34As a pear late basking over a wall;
35Just a touch to try and off it came;
36'Tis mine,—can I let it fall?
X.
37With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!
38Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?
39'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst
40When I gave its stalk a twist.
XI.
41And I,—what I seem to my friend, you see:
42What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:
43What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?
44 No hero, I confess.
XII.
45'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
46And matter enough to save one's own:
47Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals
48He played with for bits of stone!
XIII.
49One likes to show the truth for the truth;
50That the woman was light is very true:
51But suppose she says,—Never mind that youth!
52What wrong have I done to you?
XIV.
53Well, any how, here the story stays,
54So far at least as I understand;
55And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays,
56Here's a subject made to your hand!
The Full Text of “A Light Woman”
I.
1So far as our story approaches the end,
2Which do you pity the most of us three?—
3My friend, or the mistress of my friend
4With her wanton eyes, or me?
II.
5My friend was already too good to lose,
6And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
7When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose
8And over him drew her net.
III.
9When I saw him tangled in her toils,
10A shame, said I, if she adds just him
11To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
12The hundredth for a whim!
IV.
13And before my friend be wholly hers,
14How easy to prove to him, I said,
15An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
16Though she snaps at a wren instead!
V.
17So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
18My hand sought hers as in earnest need,
19And round she turned for my noble sake,
20And gave me herself indeed.
VI.
21The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,
22The wren is he, with his maiden face.
23—You look away and your lip is curled?
24Patience, a moment's space!
VII.
25For see, my friend goes shaling and white;
26He eyes me as the basilisk:
27I have turned, it appears, his day to night,
28Eclipsing his sun's disk.
VIII.
29And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:
30"Though I love her—that, he comprehends—
31"One should master one's passions, (love, in chief)
32"And be loyal to one's friends!"
IX.
33And she,—she lies in my hand as tame
34As a pear late basking over a wall;
35Just a touch to try and off it came;
36'Tis mine,—can I let it fall?
X.
37With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!
38Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?
39'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst
40When I gave its stalk a twist.
XI.
41And I,—what I seem to my friend, you see:
42What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:
43What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?
44 No hero, I confess.
XII.
45'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
46And matter enough to save one's own:
47Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals
48He played with for bits of stone!
XIII.
49One likes to show the truth for the truth;
50That the woman was light is very true:
51But suppose she says,—Never mind that youth!
52What wrong have I done to you?
XIV.
53Well, any how, here the story stays,
54So far at least as I understand;
55And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays,
56Here's a subject made to your hand!
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“A Light Woman” Introduction
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Robert Browning's "A Light Woman" is a dramatic monologue about love, friendship, and deceit, told from the perspective of a man who betrays his friend by seducing the woman he loves. The speaker justifies his actions by insisting that he only did this in order to prove to his friend that this woman was "light," or unserious and promiscuous. Yet, throughout the poem, readers get the sense that the speaker isn't being entirely honest with them or with himself and that his motivations weren't as selfless as he wants to make them seem. Even as he appears to feel some remorse for the consequences of his actions—his friend is now miserable and hates him—he still tries to convince the reader that his intentions were noble. "A Light Woman" was published in Browning's 1855 collection, Men and Women. Its unreliable narrator is a classic feature of Browning's dramatic monologues. The poem also exposes the sexual hypocrisy of Victorian society, in which women were held to a much higher moral standard than men.
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“A Light Woman” Summary
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As we near the end of our story, who do you feel the most sorry for—my friend, his promiscuous lover, or me?
He was already too good a friend to lose, and it seemed like he'd just keep getting better, when she hunted after him with her traps and pulled a net over him.
When I saw that he was all wrapped up in her schemes, I thought it would be a pity if she added him to her other 99 conquests—she'd make him number 100, just for the fun of it!
And before my friend gave himself over to her, I realized it would be so easy to show him that her ego would rather catch an eagle than the little songbird she's currently after.
So I offered her my own eyes instead, and I reached for her as if out of genuine desire, and she turned to me, thinking me honorable, and gave in to me completely.
You see, I'm the eagle—because I'm so famous—while my friend is the little songbird, with his youthful, delicate face. You're looking away in disgust? Be patient, give me a moment to explain!
You see, now my friend's face turns stony and white and he looks at me like I'm the basilisk—a snake whose gaze causes death). Apparently, I've made his days dark, blocking out his sun itself.
He thinks I did it because I'm a thief. He thinks that even if I love her, one ought to have control over one's desires (especially love) and not betray one's friends.
Meanwhile, I've got the woman he loves wrapped around my finger, docile as a pear dangling from a branch over a wall. I barely had to touch that metaphorical pear for it to fall off its branch into my hand. It's mine now—and wouldn't it be a shame to let it go to waste?
But I have no interest in eating it! That's the worst part. If I threw it in the road, what good would that do? The pear was already satisfying the thirst of a dozen blue-flies when I twisted it away from its branch.
You can imagine how I must come across to my friend, and you can guess how I will soon come across to his beloved. Are you asking me what I think of myself? I'll admit I'm no hero.
It's tricky, messing with people's souls, and hard enough to look after one's own. Still—think of my poor friend, who played with hot coals thinking they were just rocks!
It's important to be truthful: the woman was promiscuous, that much is true. But what if she were to say to me, "The past is the past! How have I ever wronged you?"
In any case, that's my story, at least as I see it. Robert Browning, you who write dramas, this story is just the kind of thing you'd write about!
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“A Light Woman” Themes
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Love, Friendship, and Manipulation
In "A Light Woman," a dismayed speaker recounts the story of a plan that has seriously backfired on him. Seeing that his friend has fallen in love with a woman he believes to be "light" (that is, promiscuous), he decides to seduce her himself to prove that she's no good—and finds himself in a real pickle when the lady falls in love with him and his friend is deeply hurt. While there are many hints here that he's not telling himself or the reader the whole truth about why he's done what he's done, his distress and remorse over his actions do teach him a genuine lesson: "'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls." Attempts to manipulate others—particularly in matters of the heart—rarely end well, this poem suggests.
The speaker sees himself as a worldly-wise man who knows what's best for other people, and he thus feels justified attempting to control his friend's love life. He sees his friend as someone who might be "in the way of improvement yet." In other words, though he considers him "too good to lose," he also feels his friend hasn't yet reached his full potential. Similarly, he judges his friend's beloved as "wanton," implying that she's immoral and that his friend will just be another notch in her belt. He obviously thinks himself a man of the world and a good judge of people, and this emboldens him to make decisions on both his friend's and the lady's behalf.
But in attempting to prove his point about the lady, the speaker discovers that the situation is more complicated than he thought: she's not just a playing piece, she has feelings. So does his friend, who of course does not see the speaker's behavior as a service to him! Rather, the friend (naturally) sees the speaker's seduction of his beloved as a betrayal. He believes the speaker stole the woman he loves because he also loved her, and that he didn't have the willpower to "master" his own "passions." His friend thus feels betrayed not only by the woman the speaker was trying to show up, but also by the person who was supposed to be "loyal" to him in friendship as well. Rather than saving his friend from pain, the speaker has multiplied it.
The speaker thus realizes he's been trying to "play with souls," to move complicated living people around like game pieces—and that doing so only leads to disaster. The speaker's intentions may have been justifiable (to himself, anyway), but the consequences of his actions speak for themselves. What he did caused far more harm than good, regardless of what his intentions might have been. The poem thus suggests that manipulating other people for good reasons (or what one believes to be good reasons) is still wrong, dangerous, and foolish.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Betrayal and Self-Deceit
"A Light Woman" is told from the perspective of a man who chooses to seduce the woman his friend loves. He claims he does this because he wants to protect his friend from a woman he judges to be promiscuous and heartless. However, the poem contains many clues that he's lying to himself and that his motivations are far from pure. The speaker's need to persuade the reader he was acting in his friend's interests suggests that his treachery is built on a foundation of self-deceit—and perhaps even hints that much bad behavior might involve people persuading themselves they're in the right to conceal their own fears, insecurities, and weaknesses.
On the surface, the speaker tells a straightforward story about sleeping with his friend's beloved in order to protect him from her "wanton" (or promiscuous) behavior. In his version of the story, his innocent friend was being manipulated by a woman the speaker didn’t trust. Seeing his friend "tangled in her toils," (that is, caught up in her schemes), he decided the only way to save him from her was to sleep with her first, thus proving to his friend that she was promiscuous. He didn't want his friend to be the "hundredth" in a long line of unsuspecting men, and if his friend realized she didn't really love him, he would be spared greater pain down the road.
But it's easy for the reader to see the holes in this explanation! Besides the fact that this is a self-evidently ludicrous and hurtful plan, the speaker's description of the situation also suggests that he had his own private motivations for doing what he did, none of them altruistic. He says, for instance, that he was able to seduce his friend's beloved because "an eagle's the game her pride prefers," when his friend is nothing more than a "wren" (a small songbird).
In other words, he's telling himself that he was just trying to demonstrate that this lady couldn't really love a gentle, sweet, wren-like fellow like his friend—she's the kind of person who prefers a tough, manly, eagle-like guy who's earned "fame in the world," as the speaker feels himself to be. However, in making this argument, the speaker unwittingly reveals his private motivations. He wants to think of himself as an "eagle," the bigger and better man than his friend—and sleeping with this lady makes him feel impressive and powerful.
While the speaker does seem to realize that he's done something terribly unkind to his friend, he continues to try to deceive himself—and by extension, the reader—until the end. The speaker plainly admits that he's "no hero"; he's not delusional enough to convince himself that his actions didn't hurt his friend and the woman his friend loves. He imagines the reader turning away with "lip curled" in disgust at his actions, suggesting he knows full well that what he did was unacceptable. He even goes so far as to point out that his story is a fit subject for a Browning poem—which often depict unsavory characters such as himself!
Yet he still wants the reader's "pity," and he still tries to justify his actions by arguing that his intentions were pure, even if the means didn't justify the ends after all. As such, it seems he still needs to conceal his own motivations even from himself—he can't own up to the real scope of his selfishness. The poem suggests his self-deceit protects him from having to feel the deep discomfort of recognizing how rotten he was being, but it also prevents him from really learning from this mistake and growing.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Gender and Hypocrisy
"A Light Woman" is about a man who betrays his friend by seducing the woman he loves to prove that she's promiscuous. But there's an irony here: the man judging this lady for being "light" and "wanton" is himself playing rather fast and loose with sexuality and loyalty. He has no qualms with seducing his friend's beloved even while accusing her of being promiscuous and uncaring. As such, the poem exposes a double standard of sexual morality for women and men. The man who seduces the woman gets to convict her of "light[ness]" because she accepts his advances; meanwhile, his own lightness is never questioned.
From the very start of the poem, the speaker portrays the lady as a debauched, sexually bloodthirsty "hunt[er]" with "wanton eyes" and insists she just wants to count his friend among her "ninety-and-nine other spoils" (or sexual conquests). She only wants his friend "for a whim," the speaker adds judgmentally, suggesting he believes it is wrong to sleep with someone one doesn't intend to stay with.
Yet ironically enough, this apparently sexually moralistic speaker does the exact thing he's accusing the lady of! He sleeps with her to prove a point, not because he has feelings for her or plans to be with her in the future. He eventually feels guilt for betraying his friend and maybe even for hurting this woman, but he never goes so far as to wonder why he has any right to judge her when he himself is behaving in the very manner he found so offensive. And although the speaker comes to understand his actions were harmful to his friend and even to this woman, he stands by his initial judgment of her: he doesn't condemn himself for the same behavior he judges her for. "That the woman was light is very true," he says, suggesting that even if he was wrong about everything else, he was at least right about this woman's promiscuity. In other words, even if she's not quite the monster he imagined her to be, he still justifies his actions based on the fact that she was sexually unrestrained. If she hadn't agreed to sleep with him, he implies, none of this would have happened.
Men, the poem thus suggests, are held to a very different sexual standard than women. They don't need to worry about how many people they sleep with or whether they actually love those they seduce. The poem's very title, "A Light Woman," ironically points out the hypocrisy here: the poem isn't called "A Light Man," after all, even though the speaker is the seducer here. Through this poem's hypocritical and unreliable narrator, Browning suggests that women's sexuality (particularly in the 19th century, when he was writing) was judged and policed unfairly by men who didn't hold themselves to the same standards they held women to.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “A Light Woman”
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Lines 1-4
So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?—
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?"A Light Woman" begins by making the reader feel as though they've just stumbled upon the last few minutes of a conversation. The speaker says that "our story approaches the end," implying that he's been telling his listener some tale for a while now. He then asks his listener whom they "pity the most of us three": his friend, his friend's "wanton" (or lustful, promiscuous) lover, or the speaker himself.
While there's no way for the reader to know who they feel most sorry for because they haven't heard the story yet, this question is pretty leading. In asking it up top, the speaker implies what he's hoping to achieve by telling this story: he wants his listener to feel bad for him. At the very least, he doesn't think his friend's "mistress" is deserving of "pity." He calls her a woman with "wanton eyes," meaning that she's sexually shameless or immodest. In Robert Browning's Victorian England, such qualities in a woman would be cause for social exile. Readers might not know exactly what happened yet, but the speaker's feelings about this woman are clear.
This stanza also establishes the poem's form. "A Light Woman" is made up of 14 quatrains (four-line stanzas) of accentual verse. This means that the poem's lines typically contain the same number of stressed syllables, but those stresses don't occur in a regular pattern. For the most part, the first three lines of each stanza contain four stressed beats, while the fourth line contains three. For example:
So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?—
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?The meter is at times ambiguous and open to interpretation, but overall it lends some structure and rhythm to the poem without making it feel formal or rigid. Each quatrain also features a simple ABAB rhyme scheme, in which alternating lines rhyme with one another.
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Lines 5-8
My friend was already too good to lose,
And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose
And over him drew her net. -
Lines 9-12
When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim! -
Lines 13-16
And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead! -
Lines 17-20
So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
My hand sought hers as in earnest need,
And round she turned for my noble sake,
And gave me herself indeed. -
Lines 21-24
The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,
The wren is he, with his maiden face.
—You look away and your lip is curled?
Patience, a moment's space! -
Lines 25-28
For see, my friend goes shaling and white;
He eyes me as the basilisk:
I have turned, it appears, his day to night,
Eclipsing his sun's disk. -
Lines 29-32
And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:
"Though I love her—that, he comprehends—
"One should master one's passions, (love, in chief)
"And be loyal to one's friends!" -
Lines 33-36
And she,—she lies in my hand as tame
As a pear late basking over a wall;
Just a touch to try and off it came;
'Tis mine,—can I let it fall? -
Lines 37-40
With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!
Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?
'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst
When I gave its stalk a twist. -
Lines 41-44
And I,—what I seem to my friend, you see:
What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:
What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?
No hero, I confess. -
Lines 45-48
'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
And matter enough to save one's own:
Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals
He played with for bits of stone! -
Lines 49-52
One likes to show the truth for the truth;
That the woman was light is very true:
But suppose she says,—Never mind that youth!
What wrong have I done to you? -
Lines 53-56
Well, any how, here the story stays,
So far at least as I understand;
And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays,
Here's a subject made to your hand!
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“A Light Woman” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Metaphor
The poem's many metaphors (and similes) make its story more dramatic, and they also reflect the true nature (in the speaker's mind, at least) of the poem's characters.
In the second stanza, for instance, the speaker uses metaphors to portray his friend's beloved as malicious and lecherous. First, he says, "she crossed his path with her hunting-noose / And over him drew her net." This metaphor treats the woman like a hunter, and the speaker's friend as her prey. The speaker doesn't think they just met and were attracted to one another, but that this woman set out to ensnare him.
The speaker builds on this metaphor in the next stanza, saying that he doesn't want to see his friend added "To her nine-and-ninety other spoils." "Spoils" refers to ill-gotten gains—things stolen, plundered, etc. Now, the woman becomes like a pirate or mercenary, the speaker's friend no more than a trophy to add to her shelf.
In the speaker's mind, this woman is deceiving his friend, making him believe she's more interested in him than she really is. In lines 15-16, he explains that
An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!This metaphor again characterizes the woman as a hunter. The speaker thinks she'd rather chase after something as clever and powerful as herself—something as strong and fierce as an eagle—rather than scoop up an innocent little "wren." The speaker goes on to explain that he's "The eagle" because he's famous, while his friend "with his maiden face" (or youthful, beautiful features) is the wren.
After the speaker seduces his friend's mistress, his friend "eyes [the speaker] as the basilisk." A basilisk is a fearsome mythological creature whose gaze turns anyone who locks eyes with it to stone. A basilisk is also typically represented as a snake-like reptile, which hammers home the speaker's duplicity (snakes are common symbols of treachery and sneakiness): he has betrayed his friend. In doing so, he has metaphorically transformed his friend's "day to night." and "Eclips[ed] his sun's disk." That is, he's cast a dark, gloomy shadow over his friend's world, robbing him of the warmth and happiness represented by sunshine. The metaphor further subtly suggests that the speaker did this by making himself seem like the more attractive mate, dimming his friend's glow.
In lines 33-36, the speaker uses a simile that then expands into an extended metaphor:
[...] she lies in my hand as tame
As a pear late basking over a wall;
Just a touch to try and off it came;
'Tis mine,—can I let it fall?The woman is like a happy pear soaking up the sun, ripe and dangling "over a wall." In short, she's tempting the speaker, who easily plucks her away from his friend. The ease with which this figurative pear falls off the branch ("Just a touch to try and off it came) implies that the woman was all too willing to go with the speaker—or, maybe, any man who came by.
The speaker is trying to make himself look better by insisting that the woman didn't need much convincing. He claims the pear is now his, suggesting that the woman has fallen in love with him. If he turns her away, it's like letting the pear "fall" to the ground, wasted.
The speaker builds on this metaphor in the following stanza, turning it into an extended metaphor:
With no mind to eat it, that's the worst!
Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?The speaker presents himself as a martyr here: he insists that he doesn't like pears (meaning, in terms of the metaphor, he has no interest in this woman), yet now she's in his "hand." He has no desire to stay with her, but he knows that if he doesn't—if he were to, say, toss her "in the road" like a piece of old fruit—it would only make the "case" against him seem even worse.
He then insults the woman further still, adding that this metaphorical pear was "quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst / When [he] gave its stalk a twist." This suggests the woman was involved with lots of other men before he interfered with things. The image of him "twist[ing]" the "stalk" evokes his cruelty meddling in things that are of no concern to him.
There is one more metaphor in lines 47-48, as the speaker implores the reader to "think of [his] friend" before judging him too harshly, arguing that his friend "played" with "burning coals" his mistook for "bits of stone." That is, he's again arguing that his friend had no idea what he was getting into and that he was only looking out for him so he wouldn't get hurt.
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
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Alliteration
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Parallelism
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Repetition
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Rhetorical Question
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Irony
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"A Light Woman" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Mistress
- Wanton
- Toils
- Spoils
- Whim
- Wren
- Earnest
- Noble
- Maiden
- Shaling
- Basilisk
- Eclipsing
- Basking
- 'Twas quenching
- Quenching
- Light
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In this context, mistress just means lover or beloved.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “A Light Woman”
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Form
"A Light Woman" is made up of 56 lines divided into fourteen quatrains (four-line stanzas). Each short stanza is marked by a numeral, making it feel distinct, like a little vignette. The poem also uses accentual meter and a simple ABAB rhyme scheme, which together fill the poem with noticeable but never rigid music
"A Light Woman" is also a dramatic monologue, a form for which Browning was famous: it features a speaker who is obviously not the poet, directly addressing an unseen party and inadvertently revealing their true (typically unsavory) character though their speech.
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Meter
"A Light Woman" uses what's known as accentual meter: its lines contain a certain number of stressed syllables, but those stressed syllables don't always fall in any particular order. The first three lines of each stanza generally contain four stressed beats, while the fourth line of each stanza contains only three. Here's the first stanza to illustrate this meter in action:
So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?—
My friend, or the mistress of my friend,
With her wanton eyes, or me?Here, the first three lines have four stressed beats and the final line has three.
This accentual meter fills the poem with loose, subtle music. The language feels controlled but not rigid, and it's far less loose than free verse. The poem's flexible music, in turn, perhaps reflects the speaker's own rather wishy-washy morals.
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Rhyme Scheme
"A Light Woman" uses a straightforward ABAB rhyme scheme. In other words, the first and third lines of each stanza rhyme, as so the second and fourth. This is a common rhyme scheme for quatrains, and here it lends the poem a predictable, almost sing-song rhythm that helps drive the narrative: the reader gets swept up in the music as much as the story itself.
Almost all of the rhymes are exact ("end" and "friend," "three" and "me," etc), making the poem's music ring out all the more clearly. The consistency of the rhyme scheme means that even though the poem is written using a loose, accentual meter, it still sounds structured and controlled, befitting the speaker's attempts to convince an audience that he's not a villain.
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“A Light Woman” Speaker
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The speaker of "A Light Woman" is a man who fears his friend is falling victim to the enticing traps laid by a "wanton" (or lustful and promiscuous) woman. Hoping to prove this woman doesn't really love his friend before his friend gets in too deep, the speaker seduces her himself. He claims that it's easy to do so: she's ready and willing, as easily taken as a ripe "pear" hanging from a branch. The speaker also insists that she's drawn to his manliness, going so far as to declare that he's a fierce "eagle" while his friend is a meager "wren" (a small song-bird).
Of course, readers don't have to take the speaker at his word. The poem never gives voice to his friend's perspective, nor that of the woman he seduced. It often sounds as though the speaker is trying to make himself look good in order to garner his listener's sympathy—portraying himself as a loyal friend whose selflessness (he doesn't even like pears, he insists!) has gotten him in hot water. It's possible he was more insistent in his pursuit of this woman than he wants to admit and that he was motivated by more than a desire to protect his friend; perhaps he also wanted to prove that he was the more desirable man of the two.
Once the speaker realizes that his actions have done nothing but hurt his friend, he does admit that he's "no hero." But he never reveals or confronts his real reasons for acting as he did, and the poem closes with him feeling remorseful while not showing any signs of truly changing. In the end, it's up to the reader to decide what to make of this man. Maybe he really does feel bad for betraying his friend and hurting this woman; maybe he just feels bad for getting caught; or maybe he's too caught up in his own self-delusions to fully accept the reality of what he did.
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“A Light Woman” Setting
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"A Light Woman" takes place in the middle of a conversation between the speaker and a listener. The speaker begins the poem, "So far as our story approaches the end," implying that he's been telling this tale for some time and is now hoping to get the listener's opinion on things as he wraps the story up. In the poem's final lines, the speaker declares that he's a character fit for a Robert Browning play, implying that the listener is none other than the poet himself (or simply that the speaker is aware of who Browning is). Beyond that, the poem doesn't take place in any particular, physical setting.
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Literary and Historical Context of “A Light Woman”
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Literary Context
"A Light Woman" was published in English poet Robert Browning's (1812-1889) 1855 collection, Men and Women. The book is made up of 51 dramatic lyrics, most of them told from a fictional character's point of view.
Browning was most famous in his time for not sounding much like a poet. His Victorian contemporaries were confused by his most distinctive works: dramatic monologues in which Browning inhabited a character like an actor playing a part. Even Oscar Wilde, a big Browning fan, famously said that "[George] Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning." The Victorian literary world was much more at ease with the melancholy lyricism of Tennyson or the elegance of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Browning's wife, and a much more famous poet) than with the novelistic storytelling of Browning's work.
But it's on his vibrant dramatic monologues that Browning's enduring reputation rests. His most famous poems form a veritable rogues' gallery, with narrators from a corrupt bishop to a murderous Italian duke to an equally murderous lover. By allowing these hideous men to speak for themselves, Browning explored the darkest corners of human nature—and took a particular interest in the ways that people justify their terrible deeds.
Villains, Browning's monologues suggest, don't tend to think that they're villains. Though the speaker of "A Light Woman" hasn't murdered anyone, he's a perfect example of someone who's unwilling to take an honest look at himself, instead vying for the reader's "pity." No wonder he says his story is "a subject made to [Browning's] hand"!
Historical Context
Browning wrote during Britain's Victorian era, the period from 1837 to 1901 during which Queen Victoria ruled England. Throughout this period, a sentimental and oppressive ideal of womanhood dominated British culture. Particularly in middle- and upper-class households, women were expected to be "angels in the house," as one popular Victorian saying has it—dedicated to the comfort of their husbands and sons, constrained to domestic duties, while men worked in public life and in business. Women were also expected to adhere to a strict code of sexual morals: a woman must be chaste, pliant, and submissive, and any deviation could mean social exile.
This context might help explain how the speaker of "A Light Woman" arguably deludes himself that he's trying to help his friend by preventing him from getting too attached to a "light," or promiscuous, woman. Though the speaker says she's been with "ninety-and-nine" other men, the truth is that a woman in Victorian society could get a reputation for simply flirting (or seeming to flirt) with one man outside of marriage. As such, it's possible that the speaker was much more ardent in his pursuit of this woman than he lets on; it's unlikely she'd risk social exile "for a whim."
Browning, for his part, wrote psychologically subtle dramatic monologues in which men oppress women in the guise of "loving" them (see: "A Face") or in which women reveal the ways in which they have to placate men in order to have any peace ("A Woman's Last Word"). "A Light Woman" likewise exposes the double standard against which Victorian women and men were held: a woman with sexual desires was considered "wanton," but the male speaker's exploits hurt only his friendship—not his reputation.
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More “A Light Woman” Resources
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External Resources
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A Biography of Robert Browning — Learn about the poet's life and work at the Poetry Foundation.
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A Reading of the Poem — Listen to the poem as read by actor Jeremy Irons.
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The Legacy of Robert Browning — Read an essay celebrating the bicentenary of Browning's birth.
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Men and Women: Project Gutenberg E-Book — Read an in-depth introduction to Browning's Men and Women, in which "A Light Woman" was published, and peruse the other poems that originally appeared alongside this one.
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Robert Browning and Feminism — An essay exploring the ways in which some of Browning's most famous poems highlight the patriarchal double standards of Victorian society.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Browning
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