ROBERT BROWNING. 501. Originality. Robert Browning was strikingly original in his poetry and paid the penalty of originality. He developed a new vein in English literature; he set himself to explore the mysterious workings of the soul. He descended to greater depths than our poetical literature had before reached. Finding the conventional style of poetry unsuited to his purpose, he invented new forms. He devised the dramatic monologue, in which various states of the soul, in relation to outward circumstances, are powerfully portrayed. But this departure from conventional form did not at once find popular favor. Indeed, the public seemed for a time to resent this innovation; and so, like many other great original characters, he was slow in gaining recognition. Almost a half century of abundant labors elapsed before he reached what not a few regard as a foremost place among English poets. 66 502. Parentage.- Robert Browning was born at Camberwell, a suburb of London, May 7, 1812. His father was a man of vigorous constitution and scholarly taste; and for rare books he had, it is said, "the scent of a hound and the snap of a bulldog." With a passion for reading, he was strangely indifferent to what are known as creature comforts"; and his daughter declared that the announcement "There will be no dinner today," would only have elicited the placid reply, "All right, my. dear, it is of no consequence." Browning's mother was described by Carlyle as "the true type of a Scottish gentlewoman"; and another said that she had no need to go to heaven, because she made it wherever she was. But she transmitted to her son a nervous constitution which, however helpful to his poetic sensibilities, added to his physical discomfort in the latter years of his life. 503. Period of Unrest.- His youthful period was one of 66 singular unrest. For a time he passed under the influence of Shelley and imbibed some of the radical tenets of Queen Mab." Instead of attending one of the great public schools, he studied at home under private instructors. He acquired a good knowledge of French, and enriched his store of information by copious miscellaneous reading. For a short time he attended London University, but omitted logic and mathematics from his course of study. He gave himself seriously to the study of music, in which, as is apparent from his works, he made unusual attainments. In his eighteenth year he determined to adopt poetry as his vocation, a choice which was willingly acquiesced in by his father. As a preliminary step to this calling, he read and digested the whole of Johnson's "Dictionary"—a fact that in a measure explains his almost unequalled mastery of the resources of our language. 504. "Pauline."- In 1833 Browning published his first poem "Pauline." Though in after years he spoke of it slightingly, it was a remarkable production for a young man who had not yet attained his majority. To a few discerning readers, among them John Stuart Mill, it gave promise of great things. Both in its melody and imagery it contains a perceptible echo of Shelley; but at the same time it reveals not a few of the author's distinguishing characteristics. The poem at first appeared anonymously; and it is a remarkable tribute to its excellence that D. G. Rossetti, meeting with it the first time in the British Museum, made a full copy of it. The poem is largely autobiographical and contains many fine passages. 66 505. "Paracelsus."— In 1835 he published his poem “Paracelsus," which shows a marked advance in maturity of thought and style as compared with "Pauline." It is a free, imaginative treatment of the historic Paracelsus, who flourished as a famous alchemist and physician at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Somewhat like Goethe's Faust," the poem presents to us the eager aspirations, the daring efforts, and the ultimate failure of a soul in the pursuit of superhuman knowledge. In the preface to the first edition, the author states the fundamental principle of his dramatic pieces. “Instead of having recourse," he says, "to an external machinery of incidents to create and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I have ventured to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress, and have suffered the agency by which it is influenced and determined, to be generally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout, if not altogether excluded." This principle is so pervasive in Browning's poetry that it should be clearly understood. 66 66 506. Sordello."— In 1840 appeared Sordello," a poem of six thousand lines, on which the poet had been working for several years. It illustrates his fondness for mediæval themes; and though he made elaborate researches to furnish him a background, the principal interest of the poem is in the development of soul life. It presents Browning's peculiarities - his psychological analysis, his rapid movement of thought, and his sudden transitions in their most exaggerated form. It is obscure to an unsual degree and never can be popular beyond a very narrow circle. It has been variously judged by distinguished critics. Stedman pronounces it "a fault throughout an unattractive prodigy," while Gosse professes to be able to find a thousand reasons why 'Sordello' ought to be one of the most readable of books." The great majority of readers will agree with Stedman, and regret that the author's attempt to rewrite it in a more intelligible manner was a failure. 507. "Bells and Pomegranates."- With "Sordello" the poet completed the first stage of his development. Up to this time his work had been a reflection of his own experience. In some measure "Paracelsus" and "Sordello" stood for Browning. But with the "Bells and Pomegranates series, which appeared between 1841 and 1846, he entered into a broader sympathy with human life. He outgrew the trammels of self. "Bells and Pomegranates," a title signifying an alternation of poetry with thought, contains some of his choicest productions. The first of the series is the beautiful drama of "Pippa Passes," which consists of four scenes, with prologue, interludes, and epilogue. Its heroine is "a little black-eyed, pretty, singing Felippa, gay silk-winding girl," whose artless singing on a holi day marks a turning-point in the troubled lives of those whom she fondly imagines to be Asolo's four happiest ones." 508. 'My Last Duchess."- There is no other poem in all Browning's works that better illustrates his dramatic monologue than "My Last Duchess." For this reason, as well as for its artistic excellence, it deserves special attention. The speaker is a nobleman of aristocratic pride and high culture, but at the same time of a cold and selfish nature. He was a ⚫connoisseur in art. He had married a young and beautiful lady, whose love and cheerfulness filled the palace with sunshine: 66 She had A heart-how shall I say? - too easily made glad, She looked on, and her looks went everywhere." The proud and unfeeling duke looked on this sweet lightheartedness as unbecoming her station; and, accordingly, he commanded her to assume an artificial and haughty dignity. The result was, that joy, and hope, and love, were crushed out of her life, and she died of a broken heart: "Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave command; As if alive." The duke had entered into negotiations for the daughter of a count and has received the latter's agent to settle the details of dowry. While showing him through the palace, the duke stops before the picture of his last wife, and here the poem begins: "That's my last duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive." The poem is a tragedy in sixty lines; but in place of external actions, we have a revelation of character and states of the soul. 509. Fundamental Ideas. Some of Browning's fundamental ideas are found in Bells and Pomegranates." He looked upon human life as a struggle, in which the soul is to climb upwards, through successive attainments, toward divine perfection. In his drama "Luria," he says: "How inexhaustibly the spirit grows! One object, she seemed erewhile born to reach So like a wall at the earth's edge it stood, - Among the other pieces of the "Bells and Pomegranates series which deserve mention, are "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," written to amuse the little son of the actor Macready, and "Saul," which ranks high among Browning's poems. 510. Marriage.- In 1846 Browning married Miss Elizabeth Barrett, to whom he had been drawn by her poetic gifts. She was an invalid and his senior by six years. Owing to anticipated opposition on both sides, the marriage was secret; and shortly after the ceremony the happy couple started to Italy, where, with short intervals, they lived till the death of Mrs. Browning in 1861. There was deep intellectual and spiritual sympathy between them; and with self-sacrifice on his part, and resignation on hers, the union, in spite of her continued invalid condition, was one of rare beauty and happiness. 66 5II. Men and Women.' In 1855 appeared "Men and Women in two volumes, a work that, upon the whole, represents the highest achievement of Browning's genius. "Evelyn Hope," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "By the Fireside," "Strange Medical Experiences of Karshish," "The Last Ride Together," "Bishop Blougram's Apology," "Andrea del Sarto," "Old Pictures in Florence," "In a Balcony," "Cleon," and others are notable poems. In their variety and depth they reveal the many-sidedness of the poet's gifts. In several of these poems |