Comparing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with a range of Browning poetry, this essay will discuss and compare the devices used to present these, as well as the generated effect and the portrayal of the message that love and hate lead to each other. Whilst Shakespeare uses symbolism to present these themes, Browning uses other devices such as personification and metaphor, and this is a key point of discussion.

One such example of Shakespeare’s use of language to represent love and hate as two extremes of passion, leading to each other, in Julius Caesar is through Brutus’ interactions with Cassius. During a confrontation between Cassius and Brutus in the third scene of act four, following tensions caused by Mark Antony’s stirring of the Romans following Caesar’s assassinations at the hands of a conspiracy lead by Brutus and Cassius, this portrayal is shown through metaphor in Brutus’ speech. ‘I’ll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, when you are waspish,’ taunts Brutus, using the term waspish to reference – what he perceives to be – Cassius’ spitefulness. This links in with an instance in the first scene of the final act of the play, in which Antony and Octavius meet face-to-face with Cassius and Brutus. Here, Brutus warns Antony to ‘very wisely threat before you sting,’ and, although this is a reference to Cassius’ earlier taunt that Antony had left the Hybla bees honeyless, the connotations of this are very tightly bound with Brutus’ waspish comment. The common denominator is the sting; a representation of blind rage and hatred. In the play, the idea of a sting becomes a symbol of this hatred. This, however, is only a potential reading, as these uses of figurative language could be interpreted as entirely separate. With this interpretation, the idea of a bee only being able to sting once before its demise would be the main point of reference and for the other part, the term ‘waspish’ was used to highlight connotations of ineffectuality. A counter-argument to this would be that, although these are entirely valid readings, it is the idea of the sting which is key, as these are surface-meanings. The difference between the idea of the bee and wasp can be explained by the differing relationships between the recipient of the comments; whereas Brutus was on the side of Cassius, when he spoke to Antony the idea of death was literal, as they were preparing for battle.

On the other hand, an example of how love is presented through Brutus’ interactions with Cassius is again through the use of symbolism, in the third scene of the final act, when Brutus is shown the body of Cassius. ‘The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!’ This is Brutus’ proclamation as he is shown the body, and his final goodbye. Whilst on the surface, this is the key line, the following line contains an important piece of symbolism. In contrast to the earlier discussed idea of a sting, this presents an image of love to the audience. ‘It is impossible that ever Rome should breed thy fellow,’ continues Brutus. Similar to the term ‘waspish’, the term ‘breed’ holds connotations linking to animals, but in this instance they are decidedly opposite to those discussed above. In this instance, these links are to birth and the love shared between two people. This also links in with the idea that love and hate lead to each other, which implies that they are in fact linked, as two extremes of passion. Additional symbolism is also used earlier in the play, during Brutus’ soliloquy, as he attempts to justify of participating in the conspiracy against Caesar (2:1). ‘And therefore think him as the serpent’s egg and kill him in the shell.’ Through the use of this metaphor, Shakespeare manipulates the audiences’ opinion of Caesar’s character, and creates a more sincere connection with Brutus, as it is a soliloquy. This would have resonated particularly strongly with Shakespeare’s audience, because the image of a serpent was used as a representation of evil and a depiction of Satan in seventeenth century art.

Turning to Browning’s The Laboratory-Ancien Régime, there is a similar depiction of love and hate, as the poet shows that love leads to hate. ‘He is with her, and they know that I know,’ starts the speaker in the second stanza, showing a deep-seated jealousy towards the relationship between another man and a woman. From this, it can be inferred that there was an unrequited love between the speaker and one of the other parties, presumably the man, because later it is implied that the speaker is named Pauline. This jealousy appears to grow as the speaker continues and, moving into the third stanza, a sense of hatred become more pronounced. ‘Grind away, moisten and mash-up thy paste, pound at thy powder,’ the verbs ‘grind’, ‘mash’ and ‘pound’ all hold connotations of violence, which is the first sign of destructive intentions within the poem. Through this, Browning hopes to evoke a feeling of unease within his readers, in order to set up the reveal that the speaker intends on poisoning the woman, Elise, as well as herself. ‘Soon, at the King’s, a mere lozenge to give, and Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!’ The King, in this case, could well be a reference to God. If indeed it is, this would show that the speaker sees nothing wrong with her actions, which in turn implies that either they are mentally unstable, or that they have been driven to these lengths by such a strong hatred, or in fact that the latter lead to the former. The prominence of the female character in this poem is in direct contrast to the women in Julius Caesar, who occupy very minor roles. This could well be due to the beginning of the up-rising of women in the nineteenth century, which later lead to the Suffragette movement, whereas in Shakespeare’s time, the oppression of women faced a much lesser resistance, with acts such as witch trials having been carried out at the time. Whether this signifies Browning’ support of the rise of women, or whether he sought to appeal to male readers who would have seen the speaker as a portrayal of mental weakness is unclear. The two different interpretations could affect whether the reader sees Browning’s portrayal of love and hate as leading to each other, or whether the hatred comes from a mental instability.

Switching to Browning’s Porphyria’s Lover, a potentially alternative depiction of love and hate can be seen. The speaker explains to the reader the reasons for what will take place further into the poem; the killing of his lover, Porphyria. ‘She too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour, to set its struggling passion free from pride, and vainer ties dissever,’ the speaker says, explaining his anger at the fact that Porphyria would not give herself to him and sever herself from vainer ties. Whether these ties are her family, a husband or something else is not explained, although it makes little difference. The factor of importance is that there is an obstacle between their love and this has driven the speaker to a condition of rage and hatred. This is similar to the unrequited love in The Laboratory, which would imply that Browning’s message about love and hate is that they lead to each other, but also would disprove any inferences that Browning was showing a hatred coming from mental instability, as discussed previously. Furthermore, the final line links to Brutus’ act two, scene one soliloquy, in which he attempts to justify his participating in the conspiracy. ‘And yet God has not said a word!’ Here, the speaker justifies his actions, exclaiming that God had not reprimanded his actions and thus he had done no wrong. If ‘God’ here is a symbol, as the serpent represents Caesar, is open to interpretation.

This idea of a lack of action from God ties in with another Browning poem – Soliloquy of The Spanish Cloister. In this, the text is the inner-monologue of a jealous monk, showing his hatred towards a Brother Lawrence. ‘If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God’s blood, would not mine kill you!’ This intense hatred could potentially come from life as a monk; devoting oneself to God, renouncing earthly pleasures, and with nothing to show for it. Perhaps this shows Browning’s ideas on theism, but in the text it is interpreted by the speaker as neglect from his God. If indeed this did show Browning’s thoughts on theism, it would imply that he was an atheist and therefore that, in Porphyria’s Lover, the line ‘And yet God has not said a word!’, actually shows Browning expressing to his audience that reliance on a God is dangerous, when basing one’s morality on their beliefs. This could be seen as a form of unrequited love, which could show further Browning’s message that love leads to hate. Moreover, this is shown in the poem by the speaker’s hypocrisy, as he accuses Brother Lawrence of being lustful. It is the speaker, in fact, who owns a ‘scrofulous French novel’ and therefore exhibits one of the ‘twenty-nine distinct damnations’. Outlined in Galations, theses sins would send a perpetrator to hell. Driven by rage, the speaker attempts to trick Brother Lawrence into committing one of these sins, but forgets that God supposedly is omniscient. This forgetting shows that has fallen from loving his God to hating those who are still close to God.

Both writers use pathetic fallacy as a symbol of events to come – specifically, acts of hate. This use of foreshadowing is used to emphasise the idea that love and hate can lead to one another, through showing that hateful acts will be committed whilst it is most likely that acts of love are what’s taking place at the time when pathetic fallacy is used. An example of this is in Julius Caesar, in act 2 scene 2. Here, Calpurnia attempts to convince Caesar to avoid the Capitol as a storm rages. It is the conventions of a tragedy that mean that so close to avoiding death, Caesar’s hubris allows Decius Brutus to exploit him. ‘If Caesar hide himself,  shall they not whisper, ‘lo, Caesar is afraid’?’. It is through this line that Caesar is exploited and through his hamartia, his hubris, reaches his downfall. The use of pathetic fallacy in this scene contributes to the conflict between Calpurnia’s love for Caesar and the conspirators’ hate, which, following the genre’s conventions,  will always triumph. Linking to Browning’s Porphyria’s Lover,  the writer shows this technique through personification of a storm. ‘It tore the elm-tops down for spite, and did its worst to vex the lake.’ Through the terms ‘vex’ and ‘spite’, connoting hatred and enragement, Browning foreshadows the death of Porphyria. These connotations allow Browning to show that love will turn to hate in the poem, moving from ‘and made the cheerless grate blaze up’ to ‘and strangled her.’

In conclusion, both authors present love and hate in a very similar way, but through differing language devices. Whilst pathetic fallacy is a constant, due to the similarity of genres, Shakespeare tends to use symbols and the conventions of the tragedy genre to show the link between these emotions, as opposed to Browning’s exploitation of connotations to show his readers the themes of his work. This could largely be due to the difference in the periods in which they were written;  in the seventeenth century animals were used as symbols in art and Shakespeare uses this to manipulate his audience, whereas Browning’s readers would not relate to these symbols.