Transcript Slide 1
Robert Browning 1812-1889
By: Monica Slack 2005
Biographical Information
Browning was born on May 7, 1812 in Camberwell, South London to R. Browning, Esquire, a bank clerk, and Sarah Anna Wiedemann.
He is the oldest of three children. His two sisters are Clara and Sarianna. On May 9, Napoleon left Paris to invade Russia with the 600,000 man Grande Armée. Meanwhile, England worked to help the Spaniards oust his brother, Joseph, from power. England was also in the midst of violent labor unrest when America cut off cotton commerce due to French coercion.
Biography Continued
Browning’s mother raised her children as a devoted wife and mother. Good manners and filial respect were always expected. She communicated religious conviction to her children as she was a faithful Congregationalist. Browning later described himself as an atheist, however. Robert is described as being both curious and imaginatively dramatic.
Attended the school of Reverend Thomas Ready at Peckham (until the age of 14) and later the University of London in 1828 at the age of 18. However, most of his education was informal. Browning was tutored for four years in foreign languages, boxing, music, and horsemanship. He tried at a very young age to get published, but to no avail. His first poems eventually fell into the hands of Rev. William Johnson Fox. He had them published in manuscript form, but the audience was few and all Browning gained was generous criticism. His first publication was anonymous and entitled “ Pauline” in 1833. It was coldly received, however, and Robert was extremely disappointed in its reviews. (Age 21) This poem was modeled after the style of Shelley, one of Browning’s most important influences. The first poem to which Browning attached his name was “Paracelsus” in 1835. Strafford was produced in 1837 and Browning was working on Sordello work because of his Italian travels. in 1838, but interrupted his First collection of dramatic monologues is entitled Dramatic Lyrics and it appeared in 1842. His writings are known for calling on readers to ponder his meanings more than other poets’ did.
Biography Continued
Browning met Elizabeth Barrett in 1845. She was six years older at the time, a semi-invalid, and guarded by her domineering father. The two eloped to Italy where Elizabeth began to enjoy better health and a fuller life. Robert seemed to thrive during his years of marriage as he found romantic expression in his love affair with Elizabeth. The two lived in Florence until Elizabeth’s death in 1861. Robert then returned to London where he lived another 28 years. Dramatis Personae (1864) – volume containing some of his finest monologues.
Published his greatest single poem, The Ring and the Book in 1868. This poem is much like a Victorian novel.
Biographical Information
Browning learned to actively enjoy his social life during his later years in London. Browning’s poetry became especially baffling in the 1880s.
The Browning Society (1881) became the first of its type to honor a living writer/poet. His works became widely admired, especially in America where people poured over his puzzling poetry. This type of attention was somewhat embarrassing for Robert as he had not previously been exposed to this type of fame. He was awarded honorary degrees by Oxford University in 1882 and the University of Edinburgh in 1884.
Browning traveled back to Italy to visit his son Pen when his health began to rapidly fail. His last book of poems, published on December 12, 1889. This also happens to be the date of his death. He was 77 years old. Browning is buried in the Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey next to Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Asolando , was
Style and Influences
The dramatic monologue, a style used often by Browning, separates the speaker from the poet so that the reader must work through the words of the speaker to discover the poet’s meaning. Many of Browning’s poems make it exceedingly difficult to discern the relationship of the poet and his speaker. Browning experimented with language and syntax while employing grotesque rhymes and unique diction. This style was not always praised as some critics deemed him a “clumsy barbarian.” His poetry is often seen as too difficult to relate to the age in which it was written.
His opinions on issues such as Darwinism and natural religions are shielded by his use of speakers and settings from earlier periods. Few writers seem to be as aware of the existence of evil as Browning. He spent a great deal of time analyzing the world’s imperfections and bringing to light the evils of human nature. Browning is described as being more colloquial and discordant than the most representative Victorian poets such as Tennyson.
Style and Influences
Employed elevated tones through the use of a discordant style and unanticipated juxtapositions that startle and puzzle readers. Carlyle, a contemporary and good friend of Browning’s, urged him to give up verse in favor of prose. Browning was interested in exposing the deviousness and complexity of the human mind. Energy is the most characteristic aspect of Browning’s work as his primary inspiration came from Renaissance Italy. “Rough syntax, contractions, and the rejection of the vague imagery of romantic poetry in favor of more exact and blunt forms of expression.” Uncommon rhymes as well as metrical and stanzaic flexibility. Works reflect interest in science, art, history, and music.
“Prophetic eclecticism, linguistic originality, and stylistic ingenuity.”
Peers’ Opinions
Ezra Pound and Robert Lowell have recognized that more than any other nineteenth-century poet, Robert Browning blazed the trail that became the “main road” for twentieth century poetry. Randall Jarrell said, “the dramatic monologue, which once had depended for its effect upon being a departure from the norm of poetry, now became in one form or another the norm.” His style was not always praised, but those who did admire him thought his “incongruities of language [to be] a humorous and appropriate counterpart to an imperfect world.” In 1890, Ernest Dowson said Browning’s “masterpieces in verse” demonstrate “subtlety” and “tact of omission.” My Last Duchess is “pure Henry James.” Critics and contemporaries alike have praised Browning for producing works of great variety and abundance in terms of subject matter, time, place, and character. His works greatly influenced early twentieth century poets in both England and America.
Critics and peers have now begun to focus more on Browning’s genuine originality as an artist rather than the psychological aspects of his poems.
The Laboratory
“The Laboratory” by Robert Browning
Tone: The poet’s choice of words creates a dark tone of death and dying. The poem is about preparing some type of death tool in a laboratory that will be fed to a woman in order to kill her. “Grind away, moisten, and mash up thy paste,/ Pound at thy powder, - I am not in haste!” These words, along with the exclamation, create a sinister tone of evil. Diction: The choice of words is relatively simple with the exception of a few words that might confuse certain readers. These words are defined below. Syntax: Many of the lines end with commas, dashes, question marks, exclamation marks, colons, semicolons, or periods. The shortest sentence is one line, while the longest is five lines. Most of the sentences are long with many breaks in them that cause the reader to pause. Theme: The darkness and morbidity of planning the death of a woman through the use of laboratory tools and chemicals. Rhyme: Browning uses end rhyme in AABB form. Imagery: The reader can create a picture of the subject’s actions in his/her mind. Notice the use of colors in the poem as well.
“May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely”(2).
“The Laboratory” Possibly unknown words defined: Phial: a vial Lozenge: A small, medicated candy intended to be dissolved slowly in the mouth to lubricate and soothe irritated tissues in the throat.
Smithy: a blacksmith’s shop; a forge Filigree: Delicate and intricate ornamental work made from gold, silver, or other fine twisted wire.
Criticism of “The Laboratory”
“ And ‘The Laboratory’ is hideous as you meant to make it: - only I object a little to your tendency…which is almost a habit, and is very observable in this poem I think, … of making lines difficult for the reader to read …see the opening lines of this poem. Not that music is required everywhere, nor in them certainly, but that the uncertainty of rhythm throws the reader’s mind off the rail…and interrupts his progress with you and your influence with him. Where we have not direct pleasure from rhythm, and where no peculiar impression is to be produced by the changes in it, we should be encouraged by the poet to forget it altogether; should we not? I am quite wrong perhaps – but you see how I do not conceal my wrongnesses where they mix themselves up with my sincere impressions. And how could it be that no one within my hearing ever spoke of these poems?”. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Lost Leader
“The Lost Leader” by Robert Browning
Dear Mr. Grosart, I have been asked the question you now address me with, and as duly answered it, I can’t remember how many times; there is no sort of objection to one more assurance or rather confession, on my part, that I did in my hasty youth presume to use the great and venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter’s model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account; had I intended more, above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about ‘handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.’ These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet, whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to deplore. But just as in the tapestry on my wall I can recognize figures which have struck out a fancy, on occasion, that though truly enough thus derived, yet would be preposterous as a copy, so, though I dare no deny the original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it considered as the ‘very effigies’ of such a moral and intellectual superiority. Faithfully yours, Robert Browning
“The Lost Leader” by Robert Browning
Tone: Browning’s words put forth an attitude of frustration and distaste for the changes he has observed in Wordsworth. The poem mocks Wordsworth’s politics and his acceptance of a government job. Many, like Browning, saw him as somewhat of a traitor who deserted his peers for “just a handful of silver”(1). Anger seems to surface when Browning writes, “Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul/ more”(21). Diction: Browning’s word choice is relatively simple with the exception of a few words that the reader might need defined. These are listed below.
Syntax: Many of the lines, or phrases, end with commas, semicolons, colons, or dashes. Sentences are completed with periods or exclamation marks. The shortest sentence is one line, while the longest is fifteen lines. Most of the sentences are very long with many breaks. Theme: The distaste and frustration felt by Browning in response to political changes made by William Wordsworth. Possibly unknown words defined: Bereft: To leave desolate or alone, especially by death; to take (something valuable or necessary), typically by force.
Lyre: A stringed instrument of the harp family having two curved arms connected at the upper end by a crossbar, used to accompany a singer or recited poetry, especially in ancient Greece.
Quiescence: Being quiet, still, or at rest; inactive.
Criticism of “The Lost Leader”
“There are some expressions…to which one might object, but the whole poem exhibits a strength, solidity, and sobriety uncommon in contemporary writing. There is no affectation of thought in it; there is none of the pretension which usually mars such poems. The feeling is true, and is manly in its sorrow; and if poets ever listened to the advice so liberally offered them by critics, we would counsel Robert Browning to spare us his caprices, and give us more such writing. He is still young, but he is old enough to have outlived the tendency which urges inexperienced poets into a fantastic and unreal region, simply because they have not sufficiently penetrated into the world of reality. For as Jean Paul, in his Vorschule der Esthetik, admirably says, ‘the novelty of their feelings makes them suppose that the objects which excite them are also novel; and they believe that through the former they produce the latter. Hence they plunge either into the unknown and unnamed, in foreign lands and times; or, still more willingly, occupy themselves with the lyrical: for, in the Lyric, there is no other nature to be represented than that which the Lyrist brings with him.’ This period Browning has outlived; and from him now, if ever, we ought to expect works that are the transcript of real experience…He would be better worth hearing in prose than in verse, because ,as Gothe said of the rhymers of his day, it is a pity to hear men attempt to sing what they can only speak…”. ~ George Henry Lewes
Works Cited
Browning, Elizabeth B. 21 July 1845. Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Mullane, Gail A. Schulte, and Robert T. Wilson. Vol. 19. Gale Research Inc., 1988. 77. Lewes, George H. Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Mullane, Gail A. Schulte, and Robert T. Wilson. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1988. 77 78. Loucks, James F., ed. Robert Browning's Poetry. London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1979. Moore, Glendell, and Helga Sandburg. Robert Browning. 3 Mar. 2005