Brownings Shorter Poems | Page 2

Oxford or
Cambridge, he used to say, "Italy was my University," And, indeed, his
many poems on Italian themes bear testimony to the profound influence
of Italy upon him. In his teens, he came under the influence of Pope
and Byron, and wrote verses after their styles. Then Shelley came by
accident in his way, and became to the boy the model of poetic
excellence.

In 1838 appeared his first published poem, Pauline. It bears the marks
of his peculiar genius; it has the germs of his merits and his defects.
Though not widely read, it received favorable notice from some of the
critics. In 1835 appeared Paracelsus, in 1837 Strafford_, in 1840
_Sordello. From this time on, for the fifty remaining years of his life,
his poetic activity hardly ceased, though his poetry was of uneven
excellence. The middle period of his work, beginning with Bells and
Pomegranates in 1842, and
ending with Balaustion's Adventure (a
transcript of Euripides' Alcestis) in 1871, was by far the richest in
poetic value.
In 1846 he married Elizabeth Barrett, the poet. They left England for
Italy, where, because of Mrs. Browning's feeble health, they continued
to reside until her death in 1861. The remainder of his life was divided
between England and Italy, with frequent visits to southern France. His
reputation as a poet had steadily grown. He was now one of the best
known men in England. His mental activity continued unabated to the
end. Within the last thirty years of his life he wrote _The Ring and the
Book_--his longest work, one of the longest and, intellectually, one of
the greatest, of English poems; translated the Agamemnon of Æschylus
and the Alcestis of Euripides;
published many shorter poems; kept up
the studies which had always been his labor and his pastime; and found
leisure also to know a wide circle of men and women. William Sharp
gives a pleasing picture of the last years of his life: "Everybody wished
him to come and dine; and he did his utmost to gratify Everybody. He
saw everything; read all the notable books; kept himself acquainted
with the leading contents of the journals and magazines; conducted a
large correspondence; read new French, German, and Italian books of
mark; read and translated Euripides and Æschylus: knew all the gossip
of the literary clubs, salons, and the studios; was a frequenter of
afternoon tea-parties; and then, over and above it, he was Browning:
the most profoundly subtle mind that has exercised itself in poetry
since Shakespeare."[1]
He died in Venice, on December 12, 1889, and was buried in the poet's
corner of Westminster Abbey.

[Footnote 1: Sharp's Life of Browning.]
BROWNING AS POET
The three generations of readers who have lived since Browning's first
publication have seen as many attitudes taken toward one of the ablest
poetic spirits of the century. To the first he appeared an enigma, a
writer hopelessly obscure, perhaps not even clear in his own mind, as to
the message he wished to deliver; to the second he appeared a prophet
and a philosopher, full of all wisdom and subtlety, too deep for
common mortals to fathom with line and plummet,--concealing below
green depths of ocean priceless gems of thought and feeling; to the
third, a poet full of inequalities in conception and expression, who has
done many good things well and has made many grave failures.
No poet in our generation has fared so ill at the hands of the critics.
Already the Browning library is large. Some of the criticism is good;
much of it, regarding the author as philosopher and symbolist, is totally
askew. Reams have been written in interpretation of Childe Roland, an
imaginative fantasy composed in one day. Abstruse ideas have been
wrested from the simple story of _My Last Duchess_. His poetry has
been the stamping-ground of theologians and the centre of prattling
literary circles. In this tortuous maze of futile criticism the one thing
lost sight of is the fact that a poet must be judged by the standards of art.
It must be confessed, however, that Browning is himself to blame for
much of the smoke of commentary that has gathered round him. He has
often chosen the oblique expression where the direct would serve better;
often interpolated his own musing subtleties between the reader and the
life he would present; often followed his theme into intricacies beyond
his own power to resolve into the simple forms of art. Thus it has come
about that misguided readers became enigma hunters, and the poet their
Sphinx.
The real question with Browning, as with any poet, is, What is his work
and worth as an artist? What of human life has he presented, and how
clear and true are his presentations? What passions, what struggles,
what ideals, what activities