SOURCE: "The Problem of Identity and the Grounds for Judgment in The Ring and the Book" in Victorian Poetry, Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer, 1987, pp. 143-57.

In the following essay, Potkay suggests that contrary to the contentions of most modern critics, The Ring and the Book does not identify any character in the poem as the moral center or authority. Rather, the poem offers a "decentered struggle of interpretations, " with the character of Guido taking on a decentering role which questions the very notion of identity.

Criticism of The Ring and The Book, with few exceptions, unites in assigning an infallible center of authority to the poem. Critics have attempted to transcend Browning's "text"—in which different interpretations of the Roman murder story converge and contend—in favor of an authoritatively unified "Book," obliquely promised by Browning in his title, but brought to light only through the auspices of humanist...