Robert Browning: How to Know Him

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Title: Robert Browning: How To Know Him
Author: William Lyon Phelps
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9067]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on September 2, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT BROWNING: HOW TO KNOW HIM ***
Produced by C. Aldarondo, T. Vergon, R. Prince and the Distributed Proofreaders
[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING]
ROBERT BROWNING: HOW TO KNOW HIM
By WILLIAM LYON PHELPS, M.A., PH.D. Lampton Professor of English
Literature at Yale
WITH PORTRAIT
TO JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY WITH SINCERE AFFECTION AND RESPECT
PREFACE
In this volume I have attempted to give an account of Browning's life and an estimation of his character: to set forth, with sufficient illustration from his poems, his theory of poetry, his aim and method: to make clear some of the leading ideas in his work: to show his fondness for paradox: to exhibit the nature and basis of his optimism. I have given in complete form over fifty of his poems, each one preceded by my interpretation of its meaning and?significance.
W. L. P.
[Illistration: Seven Gables, Lake Huron]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE MAN
II BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY
III LYRICS
IV DRAMATIC LYRICS
V DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES
VI POEMS OF PARADOX
VII BROWNING'S OPTIMISM
INDEX
LIST OF POEMS
ABT VOGLER
ANDREA DEL SARTO
APPARENT FAILURE
BAD DREAMS
BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB, THE
CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS
CAVALIER TUNES
"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"
CONFESSIONS
COUNT GISMOND
CRISTINA
EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO
EPILOGUE TO FEFINE AT THE FAIR
EPISTLE (AN) CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH
EVELYN HOPE
EYES CALM BESIDE THEE
FACE, A
GLOVE, THE
GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL, A
GUARDIAN-ANGEL, THE
HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD
HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA
HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY
"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX"
JAMES LEE'S WIFE (two stanzas from)
JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION
LABORATORY, THE
LAST RIDE TOGETHER, THE
LOST LEADER, THE
LOST MISTRESS, THE
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
MEETING AT NIGHT
MY LAST DUCHESS
MY STAR
NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE
ONE WAY OF LOVE
ONE WORD MORE
OVER THE SEA OUR GALLEYS WENT
PARTING AT MORNING
PORPHYRIA'S LOVER
PROLOGUE TO ASOLANDO
PROLOGUE TO JOCOSERIA
PROLOGUE TO LA SAISIAZ
PROLOGUE TO PACCHIAROTTO
PROLOGUE TO THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC
PROSPICE
RABBI BEN EZRA
REPHAN
RESPECTABILITY
SAUL
SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS
SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER
SONG FROM A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON
SONGS FROM PARACELSUS
SONGS FROM PIPPA PASSES
STATUE (THE) AND THE BUST
SUMMUM BONUM
"TRANSCENDENTALISM"
UP AT A VILLA--DOWN IN THE CITY
WHICH?
BROWNING
I
THE MAN
If we enter this world from some other state of existence, it seems certain that in the obscure pre-natal country, the power of free choice--so stormily debated by philosophers and theologians here--does not exist. Millions of earth's infants are handicapped at the start by having parents who lack health, money, brains, and character; and in many cases the environment is no better than the ancestry. "God plants us where we grow," said Pompilia, and we can not save the rose by placing it on the tree-top. Robert Browning, who was perhaps the happiest man in the nineteenth century, was particularly fortunate in his advent. Of the entire population of the planet in the year of grace 1812, he could hardly have selected a better father and mother than were chosen for him; and the place of his birth was just what it should have been, the biggest town on earth. All his life long he was emphatically a city man, dwelling in London, Florence, Paris, and Venice, never remaining long in rural surroundings.
Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Southampton Street, Camberwell, London, a suburb on the southern side of the river. One hundred years later, as I traversed the length of this street, it looked squalid in the rain, and is indeed sufficiently unlovely. But in 1812 it was a good residential locality, and not far away were fresh woods and pastures.... The good health of Browning's father may be inferred from the fact that he lived to be eighty-four, "without a day's illness;" he was a practical, successful business man, an official in the Bank of England. His love of literature and the arts is proved by the fact that he practised them constantly for the pure joy of the working; he wrote reams