Robert Browning’s life
spanned most of the 19th century, his intellect bestrode it,
and he helped to define it. But why read Browning today?
What does this 19th-century poet have to say to us who live
in the 21st? And what is the fascination with him that
has kept not one but two Browning societies alive in this country for
generations (the Boston Browning Society was founded in 1885)?
In reply, we might look at …
What fascinated him …
The conflicts of human nature: head/heart,
soul/intellect, reason/faith, good/evil,
religion/science.
The tensions that arise in relationships
between men and women.
The balance between imagination and
intellect, which are never fully resolved.
“Action in character, rather than characters in
action,” peerlessly realized in
his famous dramatic monologues.
Who he was …
A writer so far ahead of his time that he was
called the father of modern poetry by
Thomas Hardy, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound.
A poet so timeless as to be called the greatest
English writer since Shakespeare.
A man of uncommon brilliance, who nevertheless
instructs us to put “soul above and
beyond intellect.”
A spiritual poet, whose work is difficult to engage
and understand without
acknowledging his spiritual underpinnings.
The male half of the greatest literary love story
of the 19th century.
The writer who elevated the dramatic monologue to
its highest level.
A poet of the ambiguous, subjective, and
relativistic. What is unsaid is often as important as what is expressed. The reader is usually left to draw
her/his own conclusions.
A poet who challenges us intellectually and
morally.
What he wrote about …
Human nature in all sorts and conditions of people:
politicians and popes, saints and
scoundrels, men and women.
The never-ending conflict between good and evil.
The Renaissance, especially as a window onto all
the paradoxes of the human condition.
Morality, which Browning recognizes as a
relativistic and slippery slope.
The endless search for the truth, never attained,
but only approached.
How he said it …
Dramatic monologues – a single speech of any
length, directed to a silent listener whose
presence and response is clear to the reader. Actors
still use them to audition.
Love poems – from analyses of relationships to
passionate, soaring lyrics.
Narrative poetry – dramatically conceived with a
strong theatrical flavor.
The use of narrators or speakers. We seldom
hear the poet’s own voice. This frees him
to examine different points of view in the same poem.
What his admirers say about him …
The most accomplished, saturated, sane, sound man
of the London world. Henry James
I cannot read Browning without coming upon those
passages that are distinctly sublime
and those characters that may be called perfect.
American poet Edwin Markham
[Browning’s poetry] was not to soothe, but to
arouse; not to minister to our delight, but to enlarge and intensify our
life. C.T. Winchester, a Society founding member
No other
Victorian poet has had such a pervasive influence on the succeeding
century as
Browning. Michael Meredith, Eton College
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
She was nearing 40, a sickly recluse and England’s
most famous woman poet, when Robert Browning wrote his first,
impassioned letter to her on January 10, 1845. She kept him away
until May, when he arrived for his first visit. They met in
secret, for her tyrannical father had forbidden all his 11 children to
marry! They were wed secretly 16 months later, and escaped to
Italy, where they lived out 15 years of a storybook marriage in their
home in Florence. She died in her beloved Robert’s arms, of
chronic lung disease, on June 29, 1861.
Elizabeth is best known for her Sonnets from the
Portugese, the 44 love poems she secretly wrote about her growing
love for Robert during their courtship; she kept them from him until
three years after their marriage. Sonnet 43 begins with perhaps
the most famous line in all poetry: “How do I love thee? Let
me count the ways.” She also was a poet of strong social
conscience, speaking out in her verse against slavery, child labor, and
the treatment of women. She infuriated the male Victorian
establishment by such things as championing the right of a woman to have
a career and a marriage.
She and Robert both were remarkable intellects,
with a lifelong intellectual curiosity. Despite her illness, she
kept fully abreast of world affairs until she died, even commenting on
the American Civil War just days before. She was championed in
America by Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote the introduction to the first
American edition of her poetry. Her work has received long-overdue
attention thanks in large part to the growth of women’s studies
programs; her verse novel, Aurora Leigh, is an impassioned
feminist work, criticized by indignant men (and women!) of her day.
She and Robert had one child, Robert (nicknamed
“Pen”), born to her at age 43 after several miscarriages. He was
an artist, and he died in his 63rd year. The Browning’s
Florentine home, Casa Guidi, has been restored, and is open to
the public.
