Robert Browning

Robert Browning (May 7, 1812 – December 12, 1889) was an English poet and playwright.

Publication

In March 1833, Browning's ' was published anonymously by Saunders and Otley, in many ways a vanity publication financed by his family, and this marked the beginning of his career as a poet. A lengthy confessional poem, it was intended by its young author to be merely one of a series of works produced by various fictitious versions of himself (the poet, the composer, etc.), but Browning abandoned the larger project. He was much embarrassed by Pauline in later life, contributing a somewhat contrite preface to the 1868 edition of his Collected Poems asking for his readers' indulgence when reading what in his eyes was practically a piece of juvenilia, before undertaking extensive revisions to the poem in time for the 1888 edition, with the remark "twenty years' endurance of an eyesore seems long enough".

Related Topics:
March - 1833 - Anonymously - Saunders and Otley - Confession - Poem - 1868 - Collected Poems - Juvenilia - 1888

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In 1834 he paid his first visit to Italy, in which so much of his future life was to be passed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In 1835, Browning wrote the lengthy dramatic poem Paracelsus, essentially a series of monologues spoken by the Swiss doctor and alchemist Paracelsus and his friends. Published under Browning's own name, in an edition financed by his father, the poem was a small commercial and critical success and gained the notice of Carlyle, Wordsworth, and other men of letters, giving him a reputation as a poet of distinguished promise. Around this time the young poet was very much in demand in literary circles for his ready wit and flamboyant sense of style, and he embarked upon two ill-considered ventures: a series of plays for the theatre, all of which were dismally unsuccessful and none of which are much remembered today, and Sordello, a very lengthy poem in blank verse on the subject of an obscure feud in medieval northern Italy. Full of obscure references and verbose language, the poem became something of a scapegoat for critics' anti-Browning sentiments, and the young poet was made an object of derision and shunned by many of the literati. The effect on Browning's career was catastrophic, and he would not recover his good public standing — and the good sales that accompanied it — until the publication of The Ring and the Book nearly thirty years later.

Related Topics:
1835 - Paracelsus - Swiss - Doctor - Alchemist - Paracelsus - Carlyle - Wordsworth - Wit - Sordello - Blank verse - Medieval - North - Italy - The Ring and the Book

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Throughout the early 1840s he continued to publish volumes of plays and shorter poems, under the general series title Bells and Pomegranates. Although the plays, with the exception of Pippa Passes — in many ways more of a dramatic poem than an actual play — are almost entirely forgotten, the volumes of poetry (Dramatic Lyrics, first published in 1842, and 1845's Dramatic Romances and Lyrics) are often considered to be among the poet's best work, containing many of his most well-known poems. Though much admired now, the volumes were largely ignored at the time in the wake of the Sordello debacle.

Related Topics:
1840s - Play - Bells and Pomegranates - Pippa Passes - Dramatic Lyrics - 1842 - 1845 - Dramatic Romances and Lyrics

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~