Browning societies sprang up on both sides of Though not a national poet like Tennyson, Browning became the unwitting,Īnd at heart unwilling, father of such a cult in his lifetime as neverīored another English poet. Of his last poems, the Epilogue to Asolando. Twenty-seven years in which his wife was a memory shine cloudless in one Ever since his suppressed Pauline he had been averse toĪutobiographical revelations in his poetry but the courage andĬharacteristic balance and faith which sustained him through the Poems in the volume, Dramatis Personae of 1864, as Abt Vogler and Rabbiīen Ezra. Intimations it gave him, one may guess from his Prospice and such other In profound grief he left hisīeloved Italy as a home forever. When his wife died Browning was forty-nine. Her off, pet spaniel and all, in triumph to Italy.
Inspired her with the purpose of recovery, married her secretly, and bore Part real and how, like a miracle, the hearty, sanguine young Robert,įirst attracted by her poetry, had sought her out loved her at once, West Indies, slowly forcing his daughter into invalidism, part imaginary, Everyone knows the romantic story of theĭreary household in that "long, unlovely" Wimpole Street, the narrowįather ruling his large household with a hand that had ruled slaves in the If any one event marked a change in his work, it was his famous marriage Work accordingly defies sharp classification. "phases" of development, but is much the same Browning to the end. Life-long optimism, and was so constant that he exhibits no marked His poetry, as it had saved Fielding and Scott. A certain cheerful buoyancy about him, aīalance between his abundant physical and spiritual health saved him and Somehow young Browning suffered little of the misery of body and soul so
Vision of the perfect beyond the imperfect. The poetry of Shelley, especially m its idealism and its straining for a But the dominant infuence early and late was Late in life, in his Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in theirĭay, he recalls men whose books and ideas and music had held a leading
To poetry, and resolved "to look and learn / Mankind, its cares, hopes, Novitiate as a poet for, like the greatest, he early knew himself elect Pauline, his first published poem, he wroteĪt twenty-one, and afterwards rejected. Tennyson was the people's poet, Browning the poet of esoterics,īrowning was, he himself confesses, a "supremely passionate, unluckily Their lives the reputation of these fellow-poets was about equal butĭivergent. Tennyson had no admirer more generous than Robert Browning. Įnglish poet and dramatist, whose most ambitious work was The Ring and theīook (1868-69): a verse narrative in ten parts based on a real murder You get the picture.) Someone remind me not to post at 6am again. (I'm just waiting for the flood ofĮmails telling me I know even less about art than I do about poetry, but 'Song' was an etching, 'Home Thoughts' is a watercolour at once vivid and They lend the poem a 'natural' air that fits in well with the imagery. I like the somewhat irregular rhyme scheme and metre too. The feel of the English countryide perfectly, and has some wonderfully The one above is a nice example - it captures Noted mostly for his longer pieces, Browning has written a number of short 'great', but it's often beautiful, and never less than enjoyable. Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!Ībout time we had some Browning, methinks :) I wouldn't call his poetry The buttercups, the little children's dower Lest you should think he never could recaptureĪnd though the fields look rough with hoary dew, That's the wise thrush he sings each song twice over, Leans to the field and scatters on the cloverīlossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge. Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge While the chaffinch sings on the orchard boughĪnd the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf ( Poem #65) Home Thoughts From Abroad Oh, to be in England