dialogism, dramatic monologue, Robert Browning

Generally known for his rich dramatic monologues, as one of the Victorian age’s most prominent poets and playwrights, Robert Browning’s (1812-1889) “The Last Ride Together” from his volume “Men & Women” (1855) offers a particular mixture of Modern, Victorian, Romantic and Classical dimensions that has rarely been approached in their rights as such. The poem itself represents perhaps, as British poet and critic Arthur Symons once said; “the noblest and most truly unique’ of “all love poems” (Seymons”1906, 125) for its particular insight into the specific, moment by moment, tribulations of both; the interior sensations of longing and love, and the anterior practical responsibilities towards social reality at large. Critics, such as Goldfarb (1965,255), insist on an interpretation of this poem as basically sexual! Others, have swept it under the all-covering umbrella of “dramatic monologue” of which Browning is most famous (Curry:1908), (Phelps: 1915), (Drew:1970) (Martens:2011). Many more critics have commented on this poem’s moral structure or message (Chapman:1969, 187), (Jones: 11891,14) or attempted to categorize it under some rather narrow generic dichotomies of male and female expressionism (Nettleship; 1868, 16,17). This article will approach “The Last Ride Together” slightly differently. Depending more on analysis of textual structure, rather than simply form, or style, it attempts to reveal the kind of aesthetic and cultural philosophy underlying variable choices of vocabulary and phraseology, while defining the sort of world-view it advocates. Understanding the Classical, Romantic, Victorian and, more significantly, Modern dimensions in this particular poem – as well as the ways in which they are woven together in a unique aesthetic and cultural fabric - may help widen the horizon of understanding of Browning’s poetics at large. This mosaic of aesthetic effects and shades, spanning over most known eras of cultural history, seems to offer a truly universalize-able work of art for contemplation and further appreciation.

Aim: Our aim is to offer and illustrates a novel meta-methodology to enhance the rigour of method selection and understanding of results in pluralist qualitative research (PQR).
Method: To do so, we make innovative use of Braun and Clarke’s (2006) articulation of four discrete dimensions characterising different forms of thematic analysis. We provide secondary analyses of an interview from the Social Media, Men who have Sex with Men and Sexual Health project using critical discursive psychology, dialogical analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis, and psychosocial narrative analysis.
Results: All four methods identified aspects of three central foci: Compartmentalisation, Detachment, and Jouissance.
Conclusion: We discuss how our proposed meta-methodology provides a rationale for the selection of methods in a PQR, offer evidence that it can anticipate the relative similarity in focus of the methods employed, and argue that our meta-methodology reveals the possibility of identifying an ‘axial’ or ‘hub’ method’ of a PQR which might be particularly fruitful in exploring commonalities and differences in results. Finally, we examine the synergies and challenges of combining pairs of the methods we used.