The Presence of the Arab Voice in "An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish the Arab Physician"(1855)

Abstract

Robert Browning's poems focus on the unusual and the extraordinary, probing the less obvious areas of human experience. However, his discourse policy always serves the Truth. In "An Epistle", the poet uses the voice of the Arab physician Karshish to express his own fears, doubts, and concerns regarding the intellectual and spiritual system he finds himself in. He carefully uses an encoding system to convert a message into a discourse, then transform it into an epistle, which borrows the register of the theological documents and scientific elements that unfold in the process of the act of reading the poem. England, in this transmission is de-familiarized into Palestine and Faith is presented in terms of an esoteric brand of medical science, practiced by leeches with uncountable wonders. Browning's choice of the Arab voice is: culturally, spiritually, and morally indicative.