The Bishop Orders His Tomb

Reminiscing his life as he lies on his deathbed surrounded by his ‘nephews’, the Bishop gives his specific instructions of how his tomb should be built when he dies. Continually emphasising his wish to surpass Gandalf, the Bishop appears to swing between the contradictions of trust he has in his ‘nephews’ and his specific desires for his tomb.


Attitudes towards death and the afterlife
The Bishop’s orders for his tomb contradict his faith in his religion after death. Revealing his designs, the Bishop displays he has been preparing his tomb for a long period of his life, especially with the hiding of the ‘lapis lazuli’ in which he requests a treasure hunt for the ‘nephews’ to seek. His contradiction of his own religious beliefs arises because, as a Catholic, his focus would be naturally assumed to lie in spending the last of his mortal life gaining entry to his eternal life in Heaven: rather than spending his years obsessing with aesthetes to immortalise himself in the art of his tomb.


Attitudes towards others
Throughout the poem, the Bishop’s faith in his ‘nephews’ swings between a state of trust and paranoia. On the one hand he trusts his ‘nephew’s’ compassion, and believes they will build his tomb exactly as he wishes with a “slab of basalt”, “nine columns” and Tully’s “Choice Latin”. On the other hand, he gives himself the doubt that his ‘nephews’ want him gone, that they will not bother with his last wishes, even celebrate his passing, and Gandalf will get the better hand in the very end. Either way, in the Bishop’s situation, he relies on his ‘nephews’ to do his biddings after his death. The attitudes that remain constant throughout the poem are the Bishop’s bitter emotions towards Gandalf and his “fair” woman: both of whom have already passed away.


Immortalisation through art
Like Robert Browning’s other poems such as My Last Duchess and Fra Lippo Lippi, the Bishop’s designs for his tomb creates a permanent hold on this world so that he may, in a sense, live forever in memory. However, his contradictions to his own religion and belief reflect his loosening grip on reality and the world as his decaying speech unravels his mental stability. Now, he wants Ulpian instead of Tully, “antique black” rather than basalt and, at the very end of the poem, he backtracks to his “fair” woman in line 5.

Key ideas
Browning seems to explore two main ideas from this poem: death and art. He portrays the steady downfall of a man as his days near death, where he has lost his power and stability to paranoia and confusion. He is no longer able to distinguish religious references and cannot settle his orders clearly, and so highlights that everyone is equal in death. The other is art: the permanence that may remain in the world even after death to symbolise the presence of a person once alive. The Bishop uses the last of his power and influence over his ‘nephews’ to carry out his one last wish, which most dominantly appears to be remembered for eternity.

Emma