Bloom’s Classic Critical Views r o b e rt b r ow n i n g Bloom’s Classic Critical Views Alfred, Lord Tennyson Benjamin Franklin The Brontës Charles Dickens Edgar Allan Poe Geoffrey Chaucer George Eliot George Gordon, Lord Byron Henry David Thoreau Herman Melville Jane Austen John Donne and the Metaphysical Poets John Milton Jonathan Swift Mark Twain Mary Shelley Nathaniel Hawthorne Oscar Wilde Percy Shelley Ralph Waldo Emerson Robert Browning Samuel Taylor Coleridge Stephen Crane Walt Whitman William Blake William Shakespeare William Wordsworth Bloom’s Classic Critical Views r o b e rt b r ow n i n g Edited and with an Introduction by Harold Bloom Sterling Professor of the Humanities Yale University Bloom’s Classic Critical Views: Robert Browning Copyright © 2009 Infobase Publishing Introduction © 2009 by Harold Bloom All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher For more information contact: Bloom’s Literary Criticism An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Robert Browning / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom ; volume editor, Paul Fox p cm — (Bloom’s classic critical views) Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-60413-429-2 (hardcover) Browning, Robert, 1812–1889—Criticism and interpretation I Bloom, Harold II Fox, Paul, Ph D III Title IV Series PR4238.R585 2009 821’.8—dc22 2009001602 Bloom’s Literary Criticism books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755 You can find Bloom’s Literary Criticism on the World Wide Web at http://www.chelseahouse.com Contributing editor: Paul Fox Series design by Erika K Arroyo Cover design by Takeshi Takahashi Printed in the United States of America IBT EJB 10 This book is printed on acid-free paper All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid Contents QQQ Series Introduction ix Introduction by Harold Bloom xi Biography xiii Personal William Charles Macready (1835) George Stillman Hillard (1853) Nathaniel Hawthorne (1856) Benjamin Jowett (1865) Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1885) Thomas Adolphus Trollope (1888) George William Curtis “Editor’s Easy Chair” (1890) James Fotheringham (1898) Frederic Harrison “Personal Reminiscences” (1901) William James Stillman (1901) 7 10 10 11 12 14 15 General Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1844) Walter Savage Landor “To Robert Browning” (1845) Margaret Fuller “Browning’s Poems” (1846) George Eliot (1856) John Ruskin (1856) James Thomson “The Poems of William Blake” (1864) Edward FitzGerald (1869) Edward Clarence Stedman (1875) Algernon Charles Swinburne (1875) Harriet Martineau (1877) Justin McCarthy (1879–80) Unsigned (1886) 17 20 20 21 22 24 25 26 27 31 33 34 37 vi Contents Edward Dowden (1887) Edgar Fawcett (1888) William John Alexander (1889) Andrew Lang “Introductory: Of Modern English Poetry” (1889) John T Nettleship “Robert Browning” (1889) Algernon Charles Swinburne “A Sequence of Sonnets on the Death of Robert Browning: I” (1890) Aubrey De Vere “Robert Browning” (1890) Annie E Ireland “Browning’s Types of Womanhood” (1890) John Addington Symonds “A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry” (1890) Barrett Wendell (1891) Oscar Wilde (1891) Arthur Christopher Benson “The Poetry of Edmund Gosse” (1894) George Saintsbury (1896) Augustine Birrell “Robert Browning” (1897) Thomas Wentworth Higginson “The Biography of Browning’s Fame” (1897) Francis Thompson “Academy Portraits: XXVI Robert Browning” (1897) Arthur Waugh (1899) 39 41 43 Works 67 Paracelsus W.J Fox (1835) Leigh Hunt (1835) John Forster “Evidences of a New Genius for Dramatic Poetry” (1836) R.H Horne “Robert Browning and J.W Marston” (1844) Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1844) Harriet Waters Preston “Robert and Elizabeth Browning” (1899) 69 69 69 Strafford William Charles Macready (1837) Herman Merivale “Browning’s Strafford; A Tragedy” (1837) Charlotte Porter “Dramatic Motive in Browning’s Strafford” (1893) 44 46 48 49 50 51 51 52 55 56 60 61 62 64 70 71 73 73 74 74 75 76 vii Contents Sordello Richard Hengist Horne “Robert Browning’s Poems” (1842) Edward Dowden “Mr Browning’s Sordello” (1867) 78 78 80 Pippa Passes Unsigned (1841) 86 86 A Blot in the ’Scutcheon Charles Dickens (1842) Unsigned (1843) John Forster (1843) Helena Faucit Martin “On Some of Shakespeare’s Female Characters: III Desdemona” (1881) Thomas R Lounsbury “A Philistine View” (1899) 90 90 91 93 Men and Women Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1855) John Greenleaf Whittier (1855) Margaret Oliphant “Modern Light Literature—Poetry” (1856) Andrew Lang “Adventures among Books” (1891) 96 96 97 The Ring and the Book Richelieu (1868) Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1868) John Morley “On The Ring and the Book” (1869) Robert Buchanan (1869) Gerard Manley Hopkins (1881) Alexandra Orr (1885) William Dean Howells “Certain Preferences and Experiences” (1895) The Inn Album Henry James “Browning’s Inn Album” (1876) A.C Bradley “Mr Browning’s Inn Album” (1876) George Henry Lewes (1847) Thomas Powell (1849) Walter Bagehot “Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning; or, Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry” (1864) Alfred Austin “The Poetry of the Period” (1869) Richard Henry Stoddard (1871) 94 95 97 98 98 98 103 104 105 107 108 109 110 110 112 113 116 120 127 143 viii Contents Arthur Galton “Mr Browning” (1885) Andrew Lang “Esoteric Browningism” (1888) Unsigned (1890) Unsigned (1890) Henry James “Browning in Westminster Abbey” (1890) George Edward Woodberry “On Browning’s Death” (1890) George Santayana “The Poetry of Barbarism: III Robert Browning” (1900) G.K Chesterton (1903) 144 149 151 155 156 161 Chronology 206 Index 208 172 188 Series Introduction QQQ Bloom’s Classic Critical Views is a new series presenting a selection of the most important older literary criticism on the greatest authors commonly read in high school and college classes today Unlike the Bloom’s Modern Critical Views series, which for more than 20 years has provided the best contemporary criticism on great authors, Bloom’s Classic Critical Views attempts to present the authors in the context of their time and to provide criticism that has proved over the years to be the most valuable to readers and writers Selections range from contemporary reviews in popular magazines, which demonstrate how a work was received in its own era, to profound essays by some of the strongest critics in the British and American tradition, including Henry James, G.K Chesterton, Matthew Arnold, and many more Some of the critical essays and extracts presented here have appeared previously in other titles edited by Harold Bloom, such as the New Moulton’s Library of Literary Criticism Other selections appear here for the first time in any book by this publisher All were selected under Harold Bloom’s guidance In addition, each volume in this series contains a series of essays by a contemporary expert, who comments on the most important critical selections, putting them in context and suggesting how they might be used by a student writer to influence his or her own writing This series is intended above all for students, to help them think more deeply and write more powerfully about great writers and their works ix Works 199 ever wrote There is nothing that the man loved more, nothing that deserves more emphatically to be called a speciality of Browning, than the utterance of large and noble truths by the lips of mean and grotesque human beings In his poetry praise and wisdom were perfected not only out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, but out of the mouths of swindlers and snobs Now what, as a matter of fact, is the outline and development of the poem of Sludge? The climax of the poem, considered as a work of art, is so fine that it is quite extraordinary that any one should have missed the point of it, since it is the whole point of the monologue Sludge the Medium has been caught out in a piece of unquestionable trickery, a piece of trickery for which there is no conceivable explanation or palliation which will leave his moral character intact He is therefore seized with a sudden resolution, partly angry, partly frightened, and partly humorous, to become absolutely frank, and to tell the whole truth about himself for the first time not only to his dupe, but to himself He excuses himself for the earlier stages of the trickster’s life by a survey of the border-land between truth and fiction, not by any means a piece of sophistry or cynicism, but a perfectly fair statement of an ethical difficulty which does exist There are some people who think that it must be immoral to admit that there are any doubtful cases of morality, as if a man should refrain from discussing the precise boundary at the upper end of the Isthmus of Panama, for fear the inquiry should shake his belief in the existence of North America People of this kind quite consistently think Sludge to be merely a scoundrel talking nonsense It may be remembered that they thought the same thing of Newman It is actually supposed, apparently in the current use of words, that casuistry is the name of a crime; it does not appear to occur to people that casuistry is a science, and about as much a crime as botany This tendency to casuistry in Browning’s monologues has done much towards establishing for him that reputation for pure intellectualism which has done him so much harm But casuistry in this sense is not a cold and analytical thing, but a very warm and sympathetic thing To know what combinations of excuse might justify a man in manslaughter or bigamy, is not to have a callous indifference to virtue; it is rather to have so ardent an admiration for virtue as to seek it in the remotest desert and the darkest incognito This is emphatically the case with the question of truth and falsehood raised in Sludge the Medium To say that it is sometimes difficult to tell at what point the romancer turns into the liar is not to state a cynicism, but a perfectly honest piece of human observation To think that such a view involves the negation of honesty is like thinking that red is green, because the two fade into each other in the colours of the rainbow It is really difficult 200 Robert Browning to decide when we come to the extreme edge of veracity, when and when not it is permissible to create an illusion A standing example, for instance, is the case of the fairy-tales We think a father entirely pure and benevolent when he tells his children that a beanstalk grew up into heaven, and a pumpkin turned into a coach We should consider that he lapsed from purity and benevolence if he told his children that in walking home that evening he had seen a beanstalk grow halfway up the church, or a pumpkin grow as large as a wheelbarrow Again, few people would object to that general privilege whereby it is permitted to a person in narrating even a true anecdote to work up the climax by any exaggerative touches which really tend to bring it out The reason of this is that the telling of the anecdote has become, like the telling of the fairy-tale, almost a distinct artistic creation; to offer to tell a story is in ordinary society like offering to recite or play the violin No one denies that a fixed and genuine moral rule could be drawn up for these cases, but no one surely need be ashamed to admit that such a rule is not entirely easy to draw up And when a man like Sludge traces much of his moral downfall to the indistinctness of the boundary and the possibility of beginning with a natural extravagance and ending with a gross abuse, it certainly is not possible to deny his right to be heard We must recur, however, to the question of the main development of the Sludge self-analysis He begins, as we have said, by urging a general excuse by the fact that in the heat of social life, in the course of telling tales in the intoxicating presence of sympathisers and believers, he has slid into falsehood almost before he is aware of it So far as this goes, there is truth in his plea Sludge might indeed find himself unexpectedly justified if we had only an exact record of how true were the tales told about Conservatives in an exclusive circle of Radicals, or the stories told about Radicals in a circle of indignant Conservatives But after this general excuse, Sludge goes on to a perfectly cheerful and unfeeling admission of fraud: this principal feeling towards his victims is by his own confession a certain unfathomable contempt for people who are so easily taken in He professes to know how to lay the foundations for every species of personal acquaintanceship, and how to remedy the slight and trivial slips of making Plato write Greek in naughts and crosses As I fear, sir, he sometimes used to Before I found the useful book that knows It would be difficult to imagine any figure more indecently confessional, more entirely devoid of not only any of the restraints of conscience, but of any of the restraints even of a wholesome personal conceit, than Sludge the Works 201 Medium He confesses not only fraud, but things which are to the natural man more difficult to confess even than fraud—effeminacy, futility, physical cowardice And then, when the last of his loathsome secrets has been told, when he has nothing left either to gain or to conceal, then he rises up into a perfect bankrupt sublimity and makes the great avowal which is the whole pivot and meaning of the poem He says in effect: “Now that my interest in deceit is utterly gone, now that I have admitted, to my own final infamy, the frauds that I have practised, now that I stand before you in a patent and open villainy which has something of the disinterestedness and independence of the innocent, now I tell you with the full and impartial authority of a lost soul that I believe that there is something in spiritualism In the course of a thousand conspiracies, by the labour of a thousand lies, I have discovered that there is really something in this matter that neither I nor any other man understands I am a thief, an adventurer, a deceiver of mankind, but I am not a disbeliever in spiritualism I have seen too much for that.” This is the confession of faith of Mr Sludge the Medium It would be difficult to imagine a confession of faith framed and presented in a more impressive manner Sludge is a witness to his faith as the old martyrs were witnesses to their faith, but even more impressively They testified to their religion even after they had lost their liberty, and their eyesight, and their right hands Sludge testifies to his religion even after he has lost his dignity and his honour It may be repeated that it is truly extraordinary that any one should have failed to notice that this avowal on behalf of spiritualism is the pivot of the poem The avowal itself is not only expressed clearly, but prepared and delivered with admirable rhetorical force:— Now for it, then! Will you believe me, though? You’ve heard what I confess: I don’t unsay A single word: I cheated when I could, Rapped with my toe-joints, set sham hands at work, Wrote down names weak in sympathetic ink Rubbed odic lights with ends of phosphor-match, And all the rest; believe that: believe this, By the same token, though it seem to set The crooked straight again, unsay the said, Stick up what I’ve knocked down; I can’t help that, It’s truth! I somehow vomit truth to-day This trade of mine—I don’t know, can’t be sure But there was something in it, tricks and all! 202 Robert Browning It is strange to call a poem with so clear and fine a climax an attack on spiritualism To miss that climax is like missing the last sentence in a good anecdote, or putting the last act of Othello into the middle of the play Either the whole poem of Sludge the Medium means nothing at all, and is only a lampoon upon a cad, of which the matter is almost as contemptible as the subject, or it means this—that some real experiences of the unseen lie even at the heart of hypocrisy, and that even the spiritualist is at root spiritual One curious theory which is common to most Browning critics is that Sludge must be intended for a pure and conscious impostor, because after his confession, and on the personal withdrawal of Mr Horsfall, he bursts out into horrible curses against that gentleman and cynical boasts of his future triumphs in a similar line of business Surely this is to have a very feeble notion either of nature or art A man driven absolutely into a corner might humiliate himself, and gain a certain sensation almost of luxury in that humiliation, in pouring out all his imprisoned thoughts and obscure victories For let it never be forgotten that a hypocrite is a very unhappy man; he is a man who has devoted himself to a most delicate and arduous intellectual art in which he may achieve masterpieces which he must keep secret, fight thrilling battles, and win hair’s-breadth victories for which he cannot have a whisper of praise A really accomplished impostor is the most wretched of geniuses; he is a Napoleon on a desert island A man might surely, therefore, when he was certain that his credit was gone, take a certain pleasure in revealing the tricks of his unique trade, and gaining not indeed credit, but at least a kind of glory And in the course of this self-revelation he would come at last upon that part of himself which exists in every man—that part which does believe in, and value, and worship something This he would fling in his hearer’s face with even greater pride, and take a delight in giving a kind of testimony to his religion which no man had ever given before—the testimony of a martyr who could not hope to be a saint But surely all this sudden tempest of candour in the man would not mean that he would burst into tears and become an exemplary ratepayer, like a villain in the worst parts of Dickens The moment the danger was withdrawn, the sense of having given himself away, of having betrayed the secret of his infamous freemasonry, would add an indescribable violence and foulness to his reaction of rage A man in such a case would exactly as Sludge does He would declare his own shame, declare the truth of his creed, and then, when he realised what he had done, say something like this:— Works 203 R-r-r, you brute-beast and blackguard! Cowardly scamp! I only wish I dared burn down the house And spoil your sniggering! and so on, and so on He would react like this; it is one of the most artistic strokes in Browning But it does not prove that he was a hypocrite about spiritualism, or that he was speaking more truthfully in the second outburst than in the first Whence came this extraordinary theory that a man is always speaking most truly when he is speaking most coarsely? The truth about oneself is a very difficult thing to express, and coarse speaking will seldom it When we have grasped this point about Sludge the Medium, we have grasped the key to the whole series of Browning’s casuistical monologues— Bishop Blougram’s Apology, Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Fra Lippo Lippi, Fifine at the Fair, Aristophanes’ Apology, and several of the monologues in The Ring and the Book They are all, without exception, dominated by this one conception of a certain reality tangled almost inextricably with unrealities in a man’s mind, and the peculiar fascination which resides in the thought that the greatest lies about a man, and the greatest truths about him, may be found side by side in the same eloquent and sustained utterance For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke Or, to put the matter in another way, the general idea of these poems is, that a man cannot help telling some truth even when he sets out to tell lies If a man comes to tell us that he has discovered perpetual motion, or been swallowed by the sea-serpent, there will yet be some point in the story where he will tell us about himself almost all that we require to know If any one wishes to test the truth, or to see the best examples of this general idea in Browning’s monologues, he may be recommended to notice one peculiarity of these poems which is rather striking As a whole, these apologies are written in a particularly burly and even brutal English Browning’s love of what is called the ugly is nowhere else so fully and extravagantly indulged This, like a great many other things for which Browning as an artist is blamed, is perfectly appropriate to the theme A vain, ill-mannered, and untrustworthy egotist, defending his own sordid doings with his own cheap and weather-beaten philosophy, is very likely to express himself best in a language flexible and pungent, but indelicate and without dignity But the peculiarity of these loose and almost slangy soliloquies is 204 Robert Browning that every now and then in them there occur bursts of pure poetry which are like a burst of birds singing Browning does not hesitate to put some of the most perfect lines that he or anyone else have ever written in the English language into the mouths of such slaves as Sludge and Guido Franceschini Take, for the sake of example, Bishop Blougram’s Apology The poem is one of the most grotesque in the poet’s works It is intentionally redolent of the solemn materialism and patrician grossness of a grand dinner-party a deux It has many touches of an almost wild bathos, such as the young man who bears the impossible name of Gigadibs The Bishop, in pursuing his worldly argument for conformity, points out with truth that a condition of doubt is a condition that cuts both ways, and that if we cannot be sure of the religious theory of life, neither can we be sure of the material theory of life, and that in turn is capable of becoming an uncertainty continually shaken by a tormenting suggestion We cannot establish ourselves on rationalism, and make it bear fruit to us Faith itself is capable of becoming the darkest and most revolutionary of doubts Then comes the passage:— Just when we are safest, there’s a sunset-touch, A fancy from a flower-bell, some one’s death, A chorus ending from Euripides,— And that’s enough for fifty hopes and fears As old and new at once as Nature’s self, To rap and knock and enter in our soul, Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, Round the ancient idol, on his base again,— The grand Perhaps! Nobler diction and a nobler meaning could not have been put into the mouth of Pompilia, or Rabbi Ben Ezra It is in reality put into the mouth of a vulgar, fashionable priest, justifying his own cowardice over the comfortable wine and the cigars Along with this tendency to poetry among Browning’s knaves, must be reckoned another characteristic, their uniform tendency to theism These loose and mean characters speak of many things feverishly and vaguely; of one thing they always speak with confidence and composure, their relation to God It may seem strange at first sight that those who have outlived the indulgence, and not only of every law, but of every reasonable anarchy, should still rely so simply upon the indulgence of divine perfection Thus Sludge is certain that his life of lies and conjuring tricks has been conducted in a deep and subtle obedience to the message really conveyed by the conditions created by God Thus Bishop Blougram is certain that his life of Works 205 panic-stricken and tottering compromise has been really justified as the only method that could unite him with God Thus Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau is certain that every dodge in his thin string of political dodges has been the true means of realising what he believes to be the will of God Every one of these meagre swindlers, while admitting a failure in all things relative, claims an awful alliance with the Absolute To many it will at first sight appear a dangerous doctrine indeed But, in truth, it is a most solid and noble and salutary doctrine, far less dangerous than its opposite Every one on this earth should believe, amid whatever madness or moral failure, that his life and temperament have some object on the earth Every one on the earth should believe that he has something to give to the world which cannot otherwise be given Every one should, for the good of men and the saving of his own soul, believe that it is possible, even if we are the enemies of the human race, to be the friends of God The evil wrought by this mystical pride, great as it often is, is like a straw to the evil wrought by a materialistic self-abandonment The crimes of the devil who thinks himself of immeasurable value are as nothing to the crimes of the devil who thinks himself of no value With Browning’s knaves we have always this eternal interest, that they are real somewhere, and may at any moment begin to speak poetry We are talking to a peevish and garrulous sneak; we are watching the play of his paltry features, his evasive eyes, and babbling lips And suddenly the face begins to change and harden, the eyes glare like the eyes of a mask, the whole face of clay becomes a common mouthpiece, and the voice that comes forth is the voice of God, uttering His everlasting soliloquy —G.K Chesterton, Robert Browning, 1903, pp 177–202 Chronology QQQ 1812 Robert Browning born May in Camberwell, near London, to Robert Browning and Sarah Anna Wiedemann Browning 1820–26 Educated at a boarding school near his home 1826 Reads Shelley’s poetry avidly 1828 Studies at the new University of London but leaves the school after a short time there 1833 Anonymous publication of his Shelleyan poem Pauline 1834 Travels to Russia 1835 Paracelsus is published 1837 His play, Strafford, is produced 1838 First trip to Italy 1840 Sordello is published to poor critical reception 1841 Pippa Passes is published 1842 Dramatic Lyrics is published 1844 Second trip to Italy 1845 Dramatic Romances and Lyrics is published 1845–46 Romance and elopement with the well-known poet Elizabeth Barrett 1847 After living in various Italian locations, the Brownings settle permanently at Casa Guidi in Florence 1849 First collected edition of Browning’s work is published Birth of a son and the death of Browning’s mother 1855 Browning’s first masterpiece, Men and Women, is published 1861 Death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning on June 29 1862 Returns to live in London 1864 Publishes Dramatic Personae, his second masterwork, to considerable acclaim 206 Chronology 1866 1868–69 1879 1881 1888–89 1889 207 Death of Browning’s father Publication of The Ring and the Book, his third great achievement Dramatic Idyls is published Founding of the Browning Society in London Publication of the sixteen-volume Poetical Works On December 12, Asolando is published in London; that evening the poet dies at his son’s house in Venice He is buried on December 31 in Westminster Abbey Index QQQ death, 2, 151, 155, 156–161, 161– 172 education, marriage, 1, 119, 120 birds, Tennyson likened to, 103 Birrell, Augustine, 60–61 birth, Bishop Blougram’s Apology, 130, 139, 196, 197, 203, 204–205 “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St Praxed,” 84 A Blot in the ’Scutcheon, 90–96, 118 Bradley, A.C., 112–113 “Browning Craze,” 41–43, 45–46 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1, 20, 119, 120 Browning, Robert Wiedemann Barrett “Pen,” Browning Society, 53, 54, 56, 57–58, 151, 153, 155 Buchanan, Robert, 105–106 Bunyan, John, 98–99 Byron, Lord, 135, 151, 154 A Alexander, William John, 43–44 analyst, Browning as, 128, 131–133, 138 anatomist metaphor, 128, 132–133, 144, 145–146 “Andrea del Sarto,” 84, 139, 144 Aprile (Paracelsus), 85–86 Aristotle, 183 Arnold, Matthew, 39–41 art, Browning’s doctrines on, 84 See also grotesque art asceticism, 41 Asolando, 60 Austin, Alfred, 127–142, 144, 145 B Bacon, Francis, 142n3 Bagehot, Walter, 120–127 barbaric genius, 172–188, 189, 193– 194 Barrett, Elizabeth See Browning, Elizabeth Barrett beauty, contempt of, 29, 31, 35, 38 Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, 73 Bells and Pomegranates, 86, 87, 113, 115–116, 118 Benson, Arthur Christopher, 55–56 biography, 1–2 birth, C “Caliban upon Setebos,” 121, 122– 125, 130, 139 career overviews, 113–120 Carlisle, Lady, 75–76 chaotic quality of works, 78–80 character, 5–16 208 Index emotional nature, 13, 36 geniality, 5–6, 7–8, 9, 10, 12, 14–15, 34 intellect, 9, 10, 14, 15–16, 25–26, 32–33, 37, 39, 82, 122 lack of eccentricity/affectation, 12, 14, 15 moral judgment, 14, 30 optimism, 13, 167, 189, 191–193, 195, 197 personal energy, 6, 7–8, 9, 12, 40, 51 personification of poetic type, 12–14 Powell on, 117, 119–120 character of humanity, convictions on, 80, 82–83, 106 character portrayal See also psychological perspective analytical approach to, 128, 131– 133, 138 dissection in, 145, 148 enduring vividness of, 45, 46, 47, 53, 55 as “possibilities,” 143 as soul studies, xii, 23, 24, 59 speak in own voices, 151, 153–154 Chaucer, comparison to, 21 Chesterton, G.K., 72, 99, 188–205 children, 1, 119 Christianity, 126, 166, 183, 184–185, 190–191 complete works published, 151–154 contemporary relevance, 64–65 contempt of beauty, 29, 31, 35, 38 craftsmanship, 37 See also structural defects criticism of work enduring power of works, 48, 61–62, 64–65 trends in, 19, 57–58, 68 Crucifixion, 191 Curtis, George William, 11–12 209 D De Vere, Aubrey, 49 death, 2, 151, 155, 156–161, 161–172 “A Death in the Desert,” 139 Decadent movement, 163 del Sarto, Andrea, 84 detachment, lack of, 173, 177–178 Dickens, Charles, 90–91 Dissertations and Discussions (Mill), 138 Donne, John, 63 Dowden, Edward, 39–41, 80–86, 87 drama, preconceived opinions of, Strafford and, 76–77 dramatic insight, 30, 37–38, 47, 55, 59 Dramatic Lyrics, 143, 144 dramatist, Browning as, 131–132, 142n4, 162–163, 167–168 Dryden, John, 163, 172 Duffy, Charles Gavan, 196 E Easter Day, 85 Easter Dream, 83 eccentricity, lack of, 12, 14, 15 education, Eliot, George, 22–24 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 51–52 emotional nature, 13, 36 Endymion (Keats), 79 F fairy tales, 200 Faust, 72 Fawcett, Edgar, 41–43 fearlessness, 51 female characters portrayal of, 50, 122 speech more insoluble than that of men, 112 spiritual grace and purity of, 116, 119 Festus (Bailey), 136, 138–139, 141n2 Fitzgerald, Edward, 26–27 210 Index Florence, Italy, social scene in, 10–11 form, neglect of See structural defects Forster, John, 1, 70–71, 93–94 Fotheringham, James, 5, 12–14 Fox, W.J., 69 “Fra Lippo Lippi,” 139 Fuller, Margaret, 21–22 G Galton, Arthur, 144–149 geniality, 5–6, 7–8, 9, 10, 12, 14–15, 34 God aspiration to, 82–85 imperfection of, 189, 191 grotesque art, 120–127, 163, 171 H “half-words,” 128, 131, 134–135 Harrison, Frederic, 14–15 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 8–9 hieroglyphics in The Inn Album, 110, 111 Sordello as, 78–80 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 61–62 Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 107 Horne, Richard Hengist, 71–73, 78–80 Howells, William Dean, 109–110 humanity’s situation, reflection of, 80, 82–83, 106 Hunt, Leigh, 69–70 I immortality, 190–191 imperfection, 83–85, 189, 190–191 inarticulateness, 54–55 incompleteness, 190–191 indefinite life, 173, 182–183 individual, love of, 189, 195–196 The Inn Album, 110–113 form neglected in, 111, 112–113 found barely comprehensible, 112 found to be unpoetic, 110–112 undignified subject of, 112–113 intellect and challenge to reader, 25–26, 32–33 character, 9, 10, 14, 15–16, 25–26, 32–33, 122 Shakespeare comparison, 37, 39 in writing Sordello, 82 interment ceremony, 156–161 Ireland, Annie E., 50 Italy, 1, 10–11 J James, Henry, 110–112, 156–161 John the Baptist, 99 Jonson, Ben, 163, 172 Jowett, Benjamin, Julian and Maddalo (Shelley), 79 K Keats, John, 79 Kipling, Rudyard, 64–65 L Landor, Walter Savage, 20–21, 54 Lang, Andrew, 44–46, 98, 149– 150 language “half-words,” 128, 131, 134–135 as metrical prose, 127, 129–130 roughness of, 63 rugged and uncouth, 144, 146 in Strafford, 75–76 succinctness of, 24–25, 52, 81 legacy, xi, 149–150, 161–172 Lewes, George Henry, 113–116 Life in a Love, 85 Lounsbury, Thomas R., 95–96 love, depiction of, 85, 173, 178–180, 181–182 Love in a Life, 85 lyric poems, xii, 59–60, 162–163, 168–169 M Macready, William Charles A Blot in the ’Scutcheon, 94–95 Index on Browning’s character, Strafford, 1, 7, 74–75, 117 man, imperfection of, 189, 190–191 marriage, 1, 119, 120 Martin, Helena Faucit, 92, 94–95 Martineau, Harriet, 33–34 McCarthy, Justin, 34–36 medieval subjects, 125 memorial, 64, 65, 156–161 Men and Women, 96–98 Meredith, George, 55 Merivale, Herman, 75–76 metrical prose, 127, 129–130 Mill, John Stuart, 138 Milton, John, 135 monologues, xii, 203–205 moral judgment, 14, 30 Morley, John, 104–105 Mr Sludge the Medium, 198–203 music, as art, 84 musical poets, 135–136 musicality, 35, 152 “My Last Duchess,” 144 mysticism, 156 N nature, 83–84, 195 Nettleship, John T., 46–47 “The Northern Farmer,” 139 O obscurity of writing Alexander on, 43, 44 Eliot on, 23 Fitzgerald on, 26–27 Fuller on, 21–22 Lang on, 45–46 Martineau on, 34 McCarthy on, 35–36 Pippa Passes, 87–88 simile and, 118–119 Sordello, 34, 35–36, 81, 115 Swinburne on, 32–33 Wendell on, 51–52 “Old Pictures in Florence,” 190 Oliphant, Margaret, 97–98 211 optimism, 13, 167, 189, 191–193, 195, 197 originality, 23, 24, 27, 29, 43, 44, 104– 105, 113, 114 ornate art, 121 Orr, Alexandra, 108 P painting, as art, 84 Paracelsus as best work, 113, 114, 116, 117 critical reviews of, 69–74 flaws in, 114–115 historical fidelity of, 165 intelligence displayed, 162, 164 Martineau on, 34 as prose turned into artificial verse, 130 Sordello as companion to, 80, 82, 85 Pauline, 116, 117, 162, 164 personal energy, 6, 7–8, 9, 12, 40, 51 personality See character philosophical analyst, 127, 128, 129– 130, 133–134 The Pilgrim’s Progress (Bunyan), 98–99 Pippa Passes art and, 84 critical reviews of, 86–90 lyrical gifts displayed, 162–163, 168 lyricism of, 60 public opinion and, 116, 118 poetic intention, 37–38, 44 poetic theme, 162 poetic type, personification of, 12–14 poetry aim of, 121, 126 primitive emotion and, 194–195 qualities of, 145, 147–148 Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, 64, 65, 156–161 Pompilia (The Ring and the Book), 105, 109–110 popularity, 57, 64, 116, 118, 143 in future, xi, 149–150, 161–172 212 Index Porter, Charlotte, 75, 76–77 Powell, Thomas, 116–120 Preston, Harriet Waters, 73–74 Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, 203, 205 Promethean character, in Paracelsus, 71, 72 Prometheus Unbound, 79 prophet, Browning as, 99–103 prose writer, Browning as, 53, 55, 127–142 psychological perspective See also character portrayal Austin on, 128, 132 in The Inn Album, 112–113 McCarthy on, 35–36 in Strafford, 75 Wilde on, 53, 54, 55 public opinion, 57, 64, 116, 118, 143 See also popularity pure art, 121 R reader, challenge to, 22, 23, 24–26, 32–33, 36, 55–56, 81, 124 realism, 126, 155, 156, 162, 165, 170 religion, 170, 173, 176, 181, 183–185, 191–192 Renaissance, 173, 180–181 Richelieu, 98–103 The Ring and the Book, 98–110 found to be unpoetic, 107 as Howell’s literary passion, 109– 110 observation of character in, 144, 146 opening of, 103–104 originality of, 104–105 praised as greatest work of time, 105–106 prophetic Browning, 99–103 record of murder found, 108 romanticism, 156 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 96, 103–104 ruggedness versus roughness in poetry, 63 Ruskin, John, 24–25 S Saintsbury, George, 53, 56–60 Santayana, George, 172–188, 193–194 “Saul,” 191 self-expression, works as, 44 Shakespeare character portrayal of, 143, 145, 148 comparison to, xi–xii, 20–21, 37, 39, 53, 55, 63, 64, 65, 106 female characters, 119 as musical poet, 135 as synthesist, 128, 133 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 79 simile, 118–119 Sordello Browning on, 86n1 called monstrosity, 164 critical reviews of, 78–86 heading illustrates Browning’s conception of his estate, 128, 130– 132 obscurity of, 34, 45–46, 81, 115 poetic theme, 162 Powell on, 118 souls as subject matter, 132, 138, 154–155, 162, 165, 170 Spenser, Edmund, 135 spiritualism, 187–188, 201–202 spirituality, 82–86, 99–103, 106, 107, 161, 165–167, 173 See also souls as subject matter Stedman, Edward Clarence, 27–31 Stillman Hillard, George, 7–8 Stillman, William James, 15–16 Stoddard, Richard Henry, 143–144, 145 Strafford, 7, 74–77, 115, 117–118 structural defects, 27–28, 30–31, 35– 36, 62–64, 111, 112–113, 147, 185 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 31–33, 48 Symonds, John Addington, 51 synthesist Browning as, 131–132 Shakespeare as, 128, 133 Index T Tennyson, Lord Alfred Browning’s position relative to, 127 comparison to, 26, 27, 36, 40, 42, 43, 46, 103, 114 contemporary relevance of, 64–65 dedication to Tiresias and Other Poems, 10 human as a type as subject, 162 as musical poet, 135 wanting in loftiness of thought, 128, 140–141, 142n4 Terence, 151 Thompson, Francis, 62–64 Thomson, James, 25–26 Tiresias and Other Poems (Tennyson), 10 travels, 1, 10–11 Trollope, Thomas Adolphus, 10–11 V Vanity Fair, 98–99 vitality of writing, 61 Volger, Abt, 84 volume of work, 58–59 213 W Wagner, Richard, 28, 31 Waugh, Arthur, 64–65, 157 Wendell, Barrett, 51–52 Westminster Abbey, 64, 65, 156– 161 Whitman, Walt, 172, 180, 186 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 97 wild beast, Browning likened to, 103 Wilde, Oscar, 52–55 women See female characters Woodberry, George Edward, 161– 172, 173 works See also names of specific works chaotic quality of, 78–80 chronological list of, 1–2, 206– 207 criticism of See criticism of work enduring power of, 48 enduring power of , 61–62, 64–65 quantity of, 58–59 relevance to contemporary times, 64–65 ... Nettleship Robert Browning (1889) Algernon Charles Swinburne “A Sequence of Sonnets on the Death of Robert Browning: I” (1890) Aubrey De Vere Robert Browning (1890) Annie E Ireland Browning s...Bloom’s Classic Critical Views r o b e rt b r ow n i n g Bloom’s Classic Critical Views Alfred, Lord Tennyson Benjamin Franklin The Brontës Charles... Introduction by Harold Bloom Sterling Professor of the Humanities Yale University Bloom’s Classic Critical Views: Robert Browning Copyright © 2009 Infobase Publishing Introduction © 2009 by Harold Bloom