Robert Browning His biography and Legacy

Robert Browning His biography and Legacy

“God is the perfect poet, Who in his person acts his own creations.”

                        ~Robert Browning
 

This blog is part of assignment of Paper 104: Literature of the Victorians 

Unit 4: Tennyson and Browning 

Table of content:

Abstract 
Introduction 
Keywords 
Biographical Information 
Relationship with Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
Legacy of Robert Browning 
Conclusion 

Personal information: 

Name : Vala Nikita 

Batch : M.A Sem -1 (2024-2026) 

Enrollment Number : 5108240038

E-mail Address : nikitavala2811@gmail.com 

Roll no. 18 

Assignment Details :

Topic : Robert Browning His biography and Legacy  

Paper and subject code : Paper 104: Literature of the Victorians 

Submitted to : Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardy, Department of English, MKBU , Bhavnagar 

Date of submission : November 20, 2024 

• Abstract:

Robert Browning (1812-1889) was a pivotal Victorian poet, best known for his innovation of the dramatic monologue and his exploration of the complexities of human psychology. Born in London, Browning developed a passion for literature from an early age. Despite his early works receiving little attention, he gained recognition with collections like "Dramatic Lyrics" and his magnum opus, "The Ring and the Book." Browning’s personal life, including his influential marriage to fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, significantly impacted his literary career. His legacy is defined by his deep psychological insight, exploration of morality, faith, and the human condition, and his influence on later poets and the development of modernist literature. Browning’s portrayal of flawed and multifaceted characters, along with his ability to blend narrative and lyricism, secured his place as a key figure in English poetry, impacting both the Victorian era and beyond.

• Introduction: 

The Elizabethan Era, lasting from 1558 to 1603 during Queen Elizabeth I's rule, is a pivotal period in English history, renowned for its remarkable cultural and artistic achievements. Among its most significant contributions was the evolution of English drama, which reached new heights in creativity, expression, and popularity. This era witnessed the transformation of theatre into a prominent and sophisticated art form that captivated audiences from all social classes, making it a defining aspect of the English Renaissance.

The Elizabethan stage became a platform for exploring human nature, society, and politics, using compelling narratives and complex characters. Playwrights like William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson pushed the boundaries of storytelling, experimenting with new genres such as tragedy, comedy, and history plays. These dramas often addressed timeless themes—love, power, ambition, and the supernatural—drawing from both classical influences and contemporary issues of the time.

Theatre during the Elizabethan Era was more than just entertainment; it was a cultural phenomenon that reflected the spirit of an age characterized by exploration, intellectual curiosity, and a blossoming national identity. The plays and playwrights of this era laid the groundwork for modern literature and theatre, making the Elizabethan stage a lasting legacy that continues to influence and inspire audiences centuries later.

• Keywords:

Robert Browning ,Victorian Poetry, Dramatic Monologue ,Psychology, Human Nature,Moral Complexity,Elizabeth Barrett Browning,Narrative Poetry,Faith and Doubt,Renaissance,Irony,Character Study,Victorian Society,Modernist Influence,Psychological Insight, Conversational Language , Narrative Technique, 19th Century English Literature,Literary Legacy

• Biographical Information

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812 in Camberwell, London. His father was a bank clerk for the Bank of England and his mother was a religious woman with great love for music. Browning’s father kept a large library where Browning spent a lot of his time. Although he went off to study at a boarding school close to Cambridge, and was a student for a short while at the University of London, Browning preferred educating himself in his home library. He loved to read and was tutored in everything from foreign languages to boxing.

Browning’s first published poem was Pauline, printed in 1833 when he was twenty-one. He had modeled the poem after the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, a hero of his. Pauline was a very confessional poem, with Browning exposing his true feelings through the narrator. When John Stuart Mill reviewed Pauline, he noted that the young Browning was suffering from an “intense and morbid self-consciousness.” Browning was very embarrassed by that statement and attempted to never self-disclose himself in his works ever again.

He began writing plays for the London stage. The first play he ever wrote was titled Strafford which was shown for four days. He ended up not being too successful in the theater business, but theater did lead him to discover something else he was good at : writing dramatic monologues. He composed a book made up of the many dramatic monologues he began to write and called it Dramatic Lyrics. It was published in 1842.

Browning met his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1845. They later eloped to Italy. Browning’s book of poems, Men and Women, is about the time he spent in Italy with his love. When Elizabeth died in 1861, Browning moved back to London with his son. There he published another book of dramatic monologues called Dramatis Personae in 1864. Four years later, he published his longest poem, The Ring and the Book, inspired by a true murder story. He died in 1889 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He was remembered by his close friends as an eccentric man that was interested in many subjects. Thomas Hardy went so far as to deem him “the literary puzzle of the nineteenth century.”

• Relationship with Elizabeth Barrett Browning

In 1845, Robert Browning wrote a letter to Miss Elizabeth Barrett, admiring her writing. From that point on, Robert and Elizabeth exchanged approximately 600 letters. They met in person later that year and fell in love. It seemed like an unlikely match at first since Elizabeth was six years older than Robert, was a semi-invalid, and was ordered by her father never to be married. In 1846, however, they eloped and were married at St. Marylebone Parish Church. They then moved to Italy together to try and help a lung condition that Elizabeth suffered from. In 1849, in Florence, Italy, Elizabeth gave birth to their son Robert Weidermann Barrett Browning.

Legacy of Robert Browning: 

Few poets have suffered more than Browning from hostile incomprehension or misplaced admiration, both arising very often from a failure to recognize the predominantly dramatic nature of his work. The bulk of his writing before 1846 was for the theatre; thereafter his major poems showed his increasing mastery of the dramatic monologue. This consists essentially of a narrative spoken by a single character and amplified by his comments on his story and the circumstances in which he is speaking. From his own knowledge of the historical or other events described, or else by inference from the poem itself, the reader is eventually enabled to assess the intelligence and honesty of the narrator and the value of the views he expresses. This type of dramatic monologue, since it depends on the unconscious provision by the speaker of the evidence by which the reader is to judge him, is eminently suitable for the ironist. Browning’s fondness for this form has, however, encouraged the two most common misconceptions of the nature of his poetry—that it is deliberately obscure and that its basic “message” is a facile optimism. Neither of these criticisms is groundless; both are incomplete.

Browning is not always difficult. In many poems, especially short lyrics, he achieves effects of obvious felicity. Nevertheless, his superficial difficulties, which prevent an easy understanding of the sense of a passage, are evident enough: his attempts to convey the broken and irregular rhythms of speech make it almost impossible to read the verse quickly; his elliptical syntax sometimes disconcerts and confuses the reader but can be mastered with little effort; certain poems, such as Sordello or “Old Pictures in Florence,” require a considerable acquaintance with their subjects in order to be understood; and his fondness for putting his monologues into the mouths of charlatans and sophists, such as Mr. Sludge or Napoleon III, obliges the reader to follow a chain of subtle or paradoxical arguments. All these characteristics stand in the way of easy reading.

But even when individual problems of style and technique have been resolved, the poems’ interest is seldom exhausted. First, Browning often chooses an unexpected point of view, especially in his monologues, thus forcing the reader to accept an unfamiliar perspective. Second, he is capable of startling changes of focus within a poem. For example, he chooses subjects in themselves insignificant, as in “Fra Lippo Lippi” and “Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha,” and treats through them the eternal themes of poetry. This transition from particular observation to transcendental truth presents much the same challenge to the reader as do the metaphysical poets of the 17th century and much the same excitement. Third, because Browning seldom presents a speaker without irony, there is a constant demand on the reader to appreciate exactly the direction of satiric force in the poem. Even in a melodious poem such as “A Toccata of Galuppi’s,” the valid position must be distinguished from the false at every turn of the argument, while in the major casuistic monologues, such as “Bishop Blougram’s Apology,” the shifts of sympathy are subtler still.

It has also been objected that Browning uses his poetry as a vehicle for his philosophy, which is not of itself profound or interesting, being limited to an easy optimism. But Browning’s dramatic monologues must, as he himself insisted, be recognized as the utterances of fictitious persons drawing their strength from their appropriateness in characterizing the speaker, and not as expressions of Browning’s own sentiments. Thus his great gallery of imagined characters is to be regarded as an exhaustive catalog of human motives, not as a series of self-portraits. Nevertheless, certain fundamental assumptions are made so regularly that they may be taken to represent Browning’s personal beliefs, such as his Christian faith. In matters of human conduct his sympathies are with those who show loving hearts, honest natures, and warmth of feeling; certainly these qualities are never satirized. He is in general on the side of those who commit themselves wholeheartedly to an ideal, even if they fail. By itself this might suggest rather a naive system of values, yet he also, sometimes even in the same poem, shows his understanding of those who have been forced to lower their standards and accept a compromise. Thus, although Browning is far from taking a cynical or pessimistic view of man’s nature or destiny, his hopes for the world are not simple and unreasoning.

In The Ring and the Book Browning displays all his distinctive qualities. He allows a dramatic monologue to each character he portrays—to the man on trial for murder, to his young wife, whom he has mortally wounded, to her protector, to various Roman citizens, to the opposing lawyers, and to the pope, who ultimately decides the accused’s fate. Each monologue deals with substantially the same occurrences, but each, of course, describes and interprets them differently. By permitting the true facts to emerge gradually by inference from these conflicting accounts, Browning reveals with increasing subtlety the true natures of his characters. As each great monologue illuminates the moral being of the speaker, it becomes clear that nothing less than the whole ethical basis of human actions is in question. For over 20,000 lines Browning explores his theme, employing an unfaltering blank verse, rising often to passages of moving poetry, realizing in extraordinary detail the life of 17th-century Rome, and creating a series of characters as diverse and fully realized as those in any novel.

During Browning’s lifetime, critical recognition came rapidly after 1864; and, although his books never sold as well as his wife’s or Tennyson’s, he thereafter acquired a considerable and enthusiastic public. In the 20th century his reputation, along with those of the other great Victorians, declined, and his work did not enjoy a wide reading public, perhaps in part because of increasing skepticism of the values implied in his poetry. He has, however, influenced many modern poets, such as Robert Frost and Ezra Pound, partly through his development of the dramatic monologue, with its emphasis on the psychology of the individual and his stream of consciousness, but even more through his success in writing about the variety of modern life in language that owed nothing to convention. As long as technical accomplishment, richness of texture, sustained imaginative power, and a warm interest in humanity are counted virtues, Browning will be numbered among the great English poets.

Conclusion:

Robert Browning's legacy as a key figure in Victorian literature is marked by his pioneering use of dramatic monologue and his profound exploration of human psychology and moral ambiguity. Through his unique style, he crafted poems that remain engaging and thought-provoking, blending intricate language with deep insight into character and motive. Browning's works challenge readers to look beyond appearances, questioning the nature of truth, morality, and love. Today, he is celebrated as a master of psychological realism and dramatic poetry, whose influence extends beyond his era, shaping the course of modern literature and poetry.

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Images: 3 

References:

Robert Browning | British Literature Wiki. sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/robert-browning.