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showing an insuperable dislike to school life, he was educated at home by a tutor via
the resources of his father's extensive library. By the age of fourteen he was fluent in
French, Greek, Italian and Latin. He became a great admirer of the Romantic poets,
especially Shelley.
Following the precedent of Shelley, Browning became an atheist and
vegetarian, both of which he gave up later. At the age of sixteen, he studied Greek at
University College London but left after his first year. His parents' staunch
evangelical faith prevented his studying at either Oxford University or Cambridge
University, both then open only to members of the Church of England. He had
inherited substantial musical ability through his mother, and composed arrangements
of various songs. He refused a formal career and ignored his parents' remonstrations,
dedicating himself to poetry. He stayed at home until the age of 34, financially
dependent on his family until his marriage. His father sponsored the publication of his
son's poems.
In March 1833, Pauline, A Fragment of a Confession was published
anonymously by Saunders and Otley at the expense of the author, the costs of printing
having been borne by an aunt, Mrs Silverthorne. It is a long poem composed in
homage to Shelley and somewhat in his style. Originally Browning considered
Pauline as the first of a series written by different aspects of himself, but he soon
abandoned this idea. The press noticed the publication. W.J. Fox writing in the The
Monthly Repository of April 1833 discerned merit in the work. Allan Cunningham
praised it in the The Athenaeum. Some years later, probably in 1850, Rosetti came
across it in the reading room of the British Museum and wrote to Browning, then in
Florence to ask if he was the author. John Stuart Mill, however, wrote that the author
suffered from an "intense and morbid self-consciousness". Later, Browning was rather
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embarrassed by the work, and only included it in his collected poems of 1868 after
making substantial changes and adding a preface in which he asked for indulgence for
a boyish work.
In 1834 he accompanied the Chevalier George de Benkhausen, the Russian
consul-general, on a brief visit to St Petersburg and began Paracelsus, which was
published in 1835. The subject of the 16th century savant and alchemist was probably
suggested to him by the Comte Amde de Ripart-Monclar, to whom it was dedicated.
The publication had some commercial and critical success, being noticed by
Wordsworth, Dickens, Landor, J.S. Mill and others, including Tennyson (already
famous). It is a monodrama without action, dealing with the problems confronting an
intellectual trying to find his role in society. It gained him access to the London
literary world.
As a result of his new contacts he met Macready, who invited him to write a
play. Strafford was performed five times. Browning then wrote two other plays, one
of which was not performed, while the other failed, Browning having fallen out with
Macready.
In 1838 he visited Italy, looking for background for Sordello, a long poem in
blank verse,presented as the imaginary biography of the Mantuan bard spoken of by
Dante in the Divine Comedy, canto 6 of Purgattory, set against a background of hate
and conflict during the Guelph-Ghibelline wars. This was published in 1840 and met
with widespread derision, gaining him the reputation of wanton carelessness and
obscurity. Tennyson commented that he only understood the first and last lines and
Carlyle claimed that his wife had read the poem through and could not tell whether
Sordello was a man, a city or a book.
work; it has been praised as a tour de force of dramatic poetry. Published separately in
four volumes from November 1868 through to February 1869, the poem was a
success both commercially and critically, and finally brought Browning the renown he
had sought for nearly forty years. The Robert Browning Society was formed in 1881
and his work was recognised as belonging within the British literary canon.
In the remaining years of his life Browning travelled extensively. After a series
of long poems published in the early 1870s, of which Balaustion's Adventure and Red
Cotton Night-Cap Country were the best-received. The volume Pacchiarotto, and
How He Worked in Distemper included an attack against Browning's critics,
especially Alfred Austin, later to become Poet Laureate. According to some reports
Browning became romantically involved with Louisa, Lady Ashburton, but he refused
her proposal of marriage, and did not re-marry. In 1878, he revisited Italy for the first
time in the seventeen years since Elizabeth's death, and returned there on several
further occasions. In 1887, Browning produced the major work of his later years,
Parleyings with Certain People of Importance In Their Day. It finally presented the
poet speaking in his own voice, engaging in a series of dialogues with long-forgotten
figures of literary, artistic, and philosophic history. The Victorian public was baffled
by this, and Browning returned to the brief, concise lyric for his last volume,
Asolando (1889), published on the day of his death.
Browning died at his son's home Ca' Rezzonico in Venice on 12 December
1889. He was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey; his grave now lies
immediately adjacent to that of Alfred Tennyson.
Browning was awarded many distinctions. He was made LL.D. of Edinburgh, a life
Governor of London University, and had the offer of the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow.
But he turned down anything that involved public speaking.
Browning is often known by some of his short poems, such as Porphyria's
Lover, My Last Duchess,Rabbi Ben Ezra, How they brought the good News to Aix,
Evelyn Hope, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, A Grammarian's Funeral, A Death in the
Desert. Initially, Browning was not regarded as a great poet, since his subjects were
often recondite and lay beyond the ken and sympathy of the great bulk of readers; and
owing, partly to the subtle links connecting the ideas and partly to his often extremely
condensed and rugged expression, the treatment of theme was often difficult and
obscure.
Brownings fame today rests mainly on his dramatic monologues, in which the
words not only convey setting and action but also reveal the speakers character.
Unlike a soliloquy, the meaning in a Browning dramatic monologue is not what the
speaker directly reveals but what he inadvertently "gives away" about himself in the
process of rationalizing past actions, or "special-pleading" his case to a silent auditor
in the poem. Rather than thinking out loud, the character composes a self-defence
which the reader, as "juror," is challenged to see through. Browning chooses some of
the most debased, extreme and even criminally psychotic characters, no doubt for the
challenge of building a sympathetic case for a character who does not deserve one and
to cause the reader to squirm at the temptation to acquit a character who may be a
homicidal psychopath. One of his more sensational dramatic monologues is
Porphyria's Lover.
Yet it is by carefully reading the far more sophisticated and cultivated rhetoric
of the aristocratic and civilized Duke of My Last Duchess, perhaps the most
frequently cited example of the poet's dramatic monologue form, that the attentive
reader discovers the most horrific example of a mind totally mad despite its eloquence
in expressing itself. The duchess, we learn, was murdered not because of infidelity,
not because of a lack of gratitude for her position, and not, finally, because of the
simple pleasures she took in common everyday occurrences. She is reduced to an
objet d'art in the Duke's collection of paintings and statues because the Duke equates
his instructing her to behave like a duchess with "stooping," an action of which his
megalomaniac pride is incapable. In other monologues, such as Fra Lippo Lippi,
Browning takes an ostensibly unsavory or immoral character and challenges us to
discover the goodness, or life-affirming qualities, that often put the speaker's
contemporaneous judges to shame. In The Ring and the Book Browning writes an
epic-length poem in which he justifies the ways of God to humanity through twelve
extended blank verse monologues spoken by the principals in a trial about a murder.
These monologues greatly influenced many later poets, including T. S. Eliot and Ezra
Pound, high modernists, the latter singling out in his Cantos Browning's convoluted
psychological poem Sordello about a frustrated 13-century troubadour, as the poem he
must work to distance himself from. These concerns reflected Victorian society in the
late 19th century.
But he remains too much the prophet-poet for the conceits, puns, and verbal
play of the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century. His is a modern sensibility,
all too aware of the arguments against the vulnerable position of one of his simple
characters, who recites: "God's in His Heaven; All's right with the world." Browning
endorses such a position because he sees an immanent deity that, far from remaining
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Stephen King's The Dark Tower was chiefly inspired by the poem "Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning, whose full text was included
in the final volume's appendix.
A memorial plaque on the site of his London home, Warwick Crescent, was
unveiled on 11 December 1993. Browning Close in Royston, Hertfordshire, is named
after Robert Browning.
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Chapter II
The Poems of Robert Browning
Browing has always been noted for his mastery of dramatic monologue.
Robert Browning was long unsuccesful as a poet and financially dependent upon his
family until he was well into adulthood. In his best works people from the past reveal
their thoughts and lives as if speaking or thinking aloud.
"Be sure I looked up her eyes
--Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise
--Made my heart swell, and still it grew
--While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
--Perfectly pure and good; I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
--In one long yellow string I wound
--Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
--I am quite sure she felt no pain."
(Porphyria's Lover of the line 31 to 14)
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prudery arose as an attempt to rein in something that was seen as out- of-control, an
attempt to bring things back to the way they once were. Thus everything came under
moral scrutiny, even art and literature. Many of Brownings poems, which often
feature painters and other artists, try to work out the proper relationship between art
and morality: Should art have a moral message? Can art be immoral? Are aesthetics
and ethics inherently contradictory aims? These are all questions with which
Brownings poetry struggles. The new findings of science, most notably evolution,
posed further challenges to traditional religious ideas, suggesting that empiricism
the careful recording of observable detailscould serve as a more relevant basis for
human endeavor, whether intellectual or artistic.
In exploring these issues of art and modernity, Browning uses the dramatic
monologue. A dramatic monologue, to paraphrase M.H. Abrams, is a poem with a
speaker who is clearly separate from the poet, who speaks to an implied audience that,
while silent, remains clearly present in the scene. (This implied audience distinguishes
the dramatic monologue from the soliloquya form also used by Browningin
which the speaker does not address any specific listener, rather musing aloud to him
or herself).
The purpose of the monologue (and the soliloquy) is not so much to make a
statement about its declared subject matter, but to develop the character of the
speaker. For Browning, the genre provides a sort of play-space and an alternative
persona with which he can explore sometimes controversial ideas. He often further
distances himself by employing historical characters, particularly from the Italian
Renaissance.
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During the Renaissance in Italy art assumed a new humanism and began to
separate from religion; concentrations of social power reached an extreme. Thus this
temporal setting gives Browning a good analogue for exploring issues of art and
morality and for looking at the ways in which social power could be used (and
misused: the Victorian period saw many moral pundits assume positions of social
importance). Additionally, the monologue form allows Browning to explore forms of
consciousness and self-representation. This aspect of the monologue underwent
further development in the hands of some of Brownings successors, among them
Alfred Tennyson and T.S. Eliot.
Browning devotes much attention not only to creating a strong sense of
character, but also to developing a high level of historic specificity and general detail.
These concerns reflected Victorian societys new emphasis on empiricism, and
pointed the way towards the kind of intellectual verse that was to be written by the
poets of high Modernism, like Eliot and Ezra Pound. In its scholarly detail and its
connection to the past Brownings work also implicitly considers the relationship of
modern poets to a greater literary tradition. At least two of Brownings finest dramatic
monologues take their inspiration from moments in Shakespeares plays, and other
poems consider the matter of ones posterity and potential immortality as an artist.
Since society had been changing so rapidly, Browning and his contemporaries
could not be certain that the works of canonical artists like Shakespeare and
Michelangelo would continue to have relevance in the emerging new world. Thus
these writers worried over their own legacy as well. However, Brownings poetry has
lastedperhaps precisely because of its very topical nature: its active engagement
with the debates of its times, and the intelligent strategies with which it handles such
era-specific material.
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Chapter III
A Short Summary of the Poems of Robert Browning
"My Last Duchess" is narrated by the duke of Ferrara to the envoy of his new
intended bride. The duke shows the envoy a painting of his former wife, whom he had
killed for having been so flirtatious."Porphyria's Lover" is narrated by a man who has
murdered his lover Porphyria in order to capture a moment in which they were both
happy in love.
"Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" is a resentful narration by a monk who
watches his professed enemy Brother Lawrence as the latter plants flowers. "HomeThoughts, From Abroad" is a British expatriate's nostalgic thoughts of England, and
how it must be beautiful in the newly-arrived spring. "Love Among the Ruins" is a
contemplation of how a pastoral landscape, where the narrator's beloved is currently
waiting for him, was once the setting of a great empire that has since fallen.
"Meeting at Night" is an intense description of a man's intense travel over land
and sea to rendezvous with his beloved. "My Star" is a lover's contemplation of how
he loves a particular star even though others do not see in it the beauty he does.
"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church" is a rambling dramatic
monologue in which a dying bishop speaks to young men he calls his "sons," asking
them to build him a great tomb so that he can shame his rival who is buried nearby.
"Prospice" is a contemplation of impending death, in which the narrator
bravely anticipates the journey to and through death so that he can be reunited with
his beloved. "Fra Lippo Lippi" is the narration of a Renaissance painter and monk
whose talent is admired by the Church, but whose interest in naturalism in painting
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the world as it really looks is repudiated by the Church in favor of more moral,
religious subjects. Lippo has been apprehended by some authority figures while
prowling the red light district of Vienna, and defends both his behavior and his artistic
aesthetic in the monologue.
"Two in the Campagna" is a contemplation of how a man cannot fully unite
with his beloved because time constantly changes his feelings. As he contemplates the
fall of Rome and how their bodies keep their souls from joining together, he finds the
strength to persevere.
"A Toccata of Galuppi's" is spoken to Renaissance composer Galuppi, and the
narrator considers how Galuppi's music once brought pleasure to Venetians who later
died as everyone does. Considering the disconnect between pleasant art and
impending death brings melancholy to the speaker.
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is a deeply symbolist poem that
follows a traveling knight in search of a Dark Tower that he knows will bring
disappointment and probably death, but who persists nevertheless. In his search for
the Dark Tower, Roland travels through a deserted landscape, a terrible setting almost
as bad as Roland's own memories.
"Memorabilia" recounts a meeting between the narrator and another man who
had once met the Romantic poet Shelley. The narrator is much excited about hearing
the story, and reflects on how small moments can stay with us forever.
"Andrea del Sarto" is narrated by a Renaissance painter renowned for creating
"faultless" paintings, but who laments the lack of "soul" in his work. He blames his
wife Lucrezia for not inspiring him to the soulful works of the other Renaissance
greats, but ultimately changes his tone to accept his faults as his own doing.
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grammarian has died, and his body is being carried to a worthy resting place as his
memory is celebrated by the speaker.
"Death in the Desert" is a recounting of the last days of St. John, who wrote
the Fourth Gospel, and who has been accused of inventing details about Christ's life.
John admits to having lied in order to relate the more important truth: people should
accept faith based on the wonders of life rather than on rational observation.
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Conclusion
Though one of several Victorian poets whose legacy has endured long past his
age, Robert Browning is arguably the hardest of his contemporaries to classify. His
work equally reflects his remarkable intellectualism, his interest in grotesqueness and
his refusal to espouse any consistent worldview. These disparate elements make it
difficult to categorize his oeuvre under any simple classification.
Browning did not find much popular success until later in his life, largely
because the public either found his work obscure and difficult, or because they
considered imperfect some of the very qualities that are now lauded. Examples of
these elements were irregular rhyme schemes, contradictory characters, or
imprecision about character motives. Perhaps this lack of success has proven a boon
to Browning's legacy, however, since it allowed him to continue to follow his own
eccentricities without the pressure of having to subscribe to popular taste, thereby
creating work now appreciated for its uniqueness.
Browning is perhaps most famous for his use of the dramatic monologue, a
poem written from the point of view of someone who has dramatic imperative to
argue for him or herself. This form fits Browning's interests perfectly, since it allows
him to empathize with perspectives he likely did not hold himself, thereby
considering myriad human perspectives and to investigate the remarkable human
facility for rationalizing our behavior and beliefs.
Much of his poetry, however, has a deliberately philosophical edge. Again,
Browning believed that humans are constantly changing, their attitudes subject to
shifts day-by-day or hour-by-hour. However, by using the dramatic monologue, he
was able to explore a philosophy in the moment, and some of his work, like "Death in
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the Desert" or "Rabbi Ben Ezra," is as much defined by their statement of belief as by
any dramatic situation. Even some of the more dramatic poems are difficult to engage
if the reader is not ready to engage in questions of existence, time, memory, or love.
Despite his pronounced interest in psychology, Browning's early influence
came from the Romantic poets, particularly Shelley. Reflecting this interest in human
emotions as the path to transcendence, Browning's collections continued to feature
shorter meditations on love and individuality. While these poems tend to be easier to
categorize than the more sophisticated monologues and philosophical poems, they too
reflect his belief that a human is always "becoming," always changing.
Overall, what one can take from Browning's work is that the poet himself
lived according to one of his more prevalent themes: the quest. A mercurial and
intellectually adventurous man who sought to document his ever-changing attitudes
and beliefs into art, Robert Browning saw the human struggle as a noble quest
towards an impossible goal of perfection, and luckily thought to immortalize that
struggle as best he could.
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References
Browning, Robert. Selected Poems. Ed. Daniel Karlin. London: Penguin, 2004.
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/browning/analysis.html
http://www.gradesaver.com/robert-browning-poems/study-guide/short-summary/
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/hcorson/bl-hcorson-intro-poems.htm
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