An Italian Person of Quality Indeed!

Robert Browning’s “Up at a Villa-Down in the City” is a dramatic monologue, a fact unnoted by criticism. Browning employs irony throughout that undercuts the stated views of the speaker, who is not a person of quality, as the subtitle has announced. The speaker reveals himself to be a man of little experience in art and literature, of meager taste, poor judgement, and in general dull and inflexible. Browning cleverly sets up the clues whereby the reader can distinguish between what the speaker intends and what the reader understands. The speaker’s repudiation of the countryside actually makes clear the virtues of country life, and his praise of city life makes it clear what is undesirable in it. Browning accomplishes this manipulation through imagery, ambiguity in language, and by reference to outside facts.