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Kayla Jones
Dr. Livingston
ENGL 350
23 January 2016
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “A Musical Instrument”: A Literary Analysis
The Victorian-era poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, created numerous works of beauty
and value throughout her life. One of the simplest yet most intriguing of these poems was
released in 1860 with the title, “A Musical Instrument.” This poem addresses the dually
destructive and beautiful nature of art through the symbolism of the Greek god, Pan, the
personification of the river reed, and the exploration of the artist’s attitude and intent towards art.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning introduces the poem with Pan, a god of nature who takes the
dual shape of human and animal. His upper body (besides his ears) has human form; his ears and
lower body has the form of a goat. Additionally, despite his body’s earthly semblances, he
maintains the status of a god. This is the poem’s first example of duality: Pan is both man and
beast, both man and god, and both beast and god. Within this first stanza, Browning attributes the
most destruction to Pan’s beastly hoofs, which were “[s]plashing and paddling…./ And breaking
the golden lilies afloat / With the dragon-fly on the river” (4-6). However, the poet does not
specify how or which part of him was “spreading ruin and scattering ban,” which leaves readers
to conjecture that perhaps the beastly part of Pan was not solely responsible for the destruction
(3).
The second stanza contains evidence supporting this conjecture. Browning writes, “He
tore out a reed, the great god Pan, / From the deep cool bed of the river” (7-8). Although the
body part with which he tore out the reed remains unspecified, he most likely used his arm,
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which had human form. The other options, his mouth or teeth and his hoofs, can quickly be
disqualified: his mouth would have also had human form and would have been less effective, and
his hoofs would have had a difficult time pulling out the reed. Therefore, the poet shows readers
that Pan’s human and beast forms share a destructive nature. This eliminates possible meanings
attributed to the poem regarding the god’s (or in this case, the artist’s) one nature fighting against
the other during the creation process; instead, those natures actually harmonize. The poet also
notes that the initial boding of destruction causes disturbance amongst the creatures and plants
existing there: “The limpid water turbidly ran, / And the broken lilies a-dying lay, / And the
dragonfly had fled away, / Ere he brought it out of the river” (9-12).
By the third stanza, readers note that the poet has intentionally utilized repetition in a
chanting or sing-song way. This rhythmic pattern alludes to the poem’s title, “A Musical
Instrument.” Additionally, Browning has referred to the “great god” Pan four times thus far, and
it begins to sound more mocking and ironic rather than sacred (1, 7, 13, 15). Perhaps the poet
intends to satirize the fact that an artist’s god-like power depends on destruction in order to
create; it is not powerful enough to create on its own. Therefore, artists who take pride in their
abilities and creations still have to face their limitations—and thus they truly are not “great gods”
or god-like at all. This stanza also contains a powerful personification: the reed does not
passively receive Pan’s “hack[ing] and hew[ing],” but actively waits “patient[ly]” for it to end
(15-16). This personification of the reed hearkens back to the original story, in which the nymph
Syrinx turns into reeds in order to escape Pan, who then takes the reeds from the river and
creates a panpipe out of them (Damrosch and Dettmar 1174). This personification also allows for
broader poetic interpretation amongst readers, as it could be considered representative of an
individual, a relationship, or something else entirely. Nonetheless, the message remains that Pan,
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or the artist, destroys the beautiful in an attempt to create something else of beauty from what is
left.
The imagery and wording in the fourth stanza creates additional personification regarding
the reed. Browning comments on the reed’s diminished length following its removal from the
river and destruction by Pan, and she exclaims “How tall it stood in the river!” after mentioning
how Pan “cut it short,” as if using such language to refer to the reed’s pride or mental image
rather than its actual stature (19-20). Browning then draws a comparison between the reed’s pith
and a human heart before Pan “notched the poor dry empty thing / In holes, as he sat by the
river” (21-24). Once more, this personification presents a convincing case for readers’
interpretations that the reed may represent an individual or group who has to suffer the
destructive effects or nature of art before anyone else can experience its beauty.
Browning brings the readers’ attentions back to Pan in the fifth stanza. Rather than
portraying a benevolent and somber artist, the poet points out that Pan finds amusement in the
destruction of the reed and in re-rendering it to fit his purpose “to make sweet music” (25-28).
He shows no respect for what it had been and only uses what it is now to blow “in power by the
river” (30). The artist has taken part in the destructive and beautiful aspects of art, but not for the
sake of art or fellow creatures: he plays the panpipe to evidence its power, the power he alone
bestowed upon it.
The poem’s tone suddenly changes in the sixth stanza. Browning replaces the harsh
language with which she had addressed Pan in prior stanzas with what sound like accolades. His
panpipe, his art, brings life and beauty back to the place from which his destruction had
previously caused them to flee: “The sun on the hill forgot to die, / And the lilies revived, and the
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dragon-fly / Came back to dream on the river” (34-36). Noticing that the destruction has passed,
the creatures can now indulge in the beauty of the art.
Nonetheless, the seventh and final stanza brings a sober insight into the world of the artist
and his art. Despite the last stanza’s accolades, Pan is not fully god; he is still “half a beast.” He
creates beauty, but laughs at and depends on the destructive process of the creation (37-39).
Browning compares this to the “true gods” who “sigh for the cost and pain,— / For the reed
which grows nevermore again / As a reed with the reeds in the river” (40-42). Perhaps these true
gods are also artists, but with purer intent and more sober judgment regarding the consequences
and destructive aspects of art. On the other hand, perhaps these true gods do not have to depend
on destruction to create art, as a mortal artist would. Browning does not clarify. Regardless of the
true gods’ natures, Browning’s “A Musical Instrument” provides human beings with extensive
emotional insight into the dually destructive and beautiful aspects of creating art.
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Works Cited
Damrosch, David, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar, eds. The Longman Anthology of British Literature:
Volume 2B: The Victorian Age. 4th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2010. Print.