POETRY-III

Teacher: Abid Feroz

Department of English Language and
Literature

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 ROBERT BROWNING(1812-1889):
• Robert Browning was born on 7th May, 1812(in Camberwell, a suburb of
London) and died in 1889. He was an English poet, dramatist and
lyricist. He is widely recognized as a master of dramatic monologue and
psychological portraiture.
• He and a younger sister (Sarianna Browning) were the children of
Robert Browning and Sarah Anna Browning(daughter of a German ship
owner). He was the son of a clerk in the Bank of England. His mother
was a religious minded woman. Robert was highly influenced by his
mother’s love for music(an excellent pianist), artistic values and his
father’s scholarly interests.
• Browning met Elizabeth Barrett(poet)in 1845. They started
corresponding and gradually discovered their love for each other.
Elizabeth Barrett gave wings to his poetic imagination. The couple finally
tied the knot in 1846. Initially, they kept their marriage a secret because
Barrett’s father disliked Browning(disinherited by her father). Later they
went to Italy(Florence) where they spent fifteen years until Elizabeth’s
death in 1861. Their only child, the painter, Robert Barrett Browning2
• Browning’s knowledge and love for music remained with him
throughout his life. He was passionate about poetry and was
also a talented musician and composed several songs.
However, he did not pursue his career in music. He was also a
good rider and dancer. Since he belonged to a highly literate
family, he was taught at home during his early years. His
father’s huge collection(some 6000 books) exposed him to
various ideas in different languages. At fourteen, he had
learned Latin, Greek, Italian and French. When he was
seventeen, he went for a term to a Greek class at University
College. The use of his father’s admirable library was
probably the most important factor in his early education.
• He took great interest in reading the great Elizabethans.
When he was just fourteen, his mother had brought him from
London the works of Shelley and John Keats.
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• Browning was destined for the medical profession. He
had a passion for the stage and wanted to become an
actor but finally decided on following his long cherished
idea of becoming a poet.
• He is one of the finest love poets of English Literature. He
is not concerned with the divine love or love for the
country. He deals with only the love between men and
women. Stopford Brooke says, “The love poems of
Browning do not mean those poems which deal with
absolute love or the love of the ideas as truth and
beauty or love of mankind or country; but it means the
isolating passion of one sex for the other, chiefly in
youth, whether moral or immoral.” His love poems give
expression to all the forms of physical love.
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• His love poetry is highly realistic in nature. He has
expressed the realistic idea that a man loves a woman not
for her spiritual qualities but for her physical charm only.
Chesterton says, “Browning’s love poetry is the finest in
the world because it does not talk about raptures(ecstasy)
and ideals and the gates of heaven.”
• We find all different shades of love in his poetry. He deals
with successful as well as the unsuccessful love. Of the
poems whose subject is physical love, about two third
represent the feelings of men and one third, the feelings of
women.
• Before he was twelve he had written a small volume of
verse. The most striking fact in his youth is the way in which
at the age of just seventeen or eighteen, he made up his
mind that he would make poetry his career. 5
• Robert Browning also wrote eight plays during his lifetime.
• He made a three months’ journey to Russia in 1834. His
first experience of Italy came in 1838, and the spell of
Venice then felt-never left him. Indeed, much of his best
work was done under Italian skies.
• His mother died in 1849. Mrs. Browning, whose health
began to fail in 1860, died the following year in 1861. He
returned to London with his son and devoted himself to the
boy’s education.
• In 1889, he caught cold and bronchitis. He passed away on
December 12, 1889 in Venice(1247 km/135 min flight time
to England). He was buried in the Poets’ Corner,
Westminster Abbey.

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 Important Works:
• Pauline: It was the first published poem by Robert Browning. It
was written in 1832 and published in 1833. The poem is the
confession of an unnamed poet to his lover. Pauline’s lover says,
“I saw God everywhere- I felt His presence.”
• Paracelsus: It was published in 1835. Paracelsus is a long poem
that is written in five parts. The 16th-century physician,
Paracelsus and his life present the central theme of the poem in
the form of a long dialogue that he is having with some other
characters in the poem. The poem develops the character of
Paracelsus as a young man filled with ambition and
determination. Browning discusses his character flaws and his
pursuit of attaining ultimate intellectual mastery in the poem.
Paracelsus declares his faith in God by saying, “Thus He dwells
in all…From life’s minute beginnings, at last to man.”
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• Strafford(1837): It is a tragedy. It portrays the downfall and
execution of Lord Strafford, the advisor to Charles-I shortly
before the English Civil War. Its stage failure of running only
for a few nights is ascribed to the jealousy of the actors.
• Sordello (1840): It is a poem in 6000 lines which is
considered as the most obscure among his works. Browning
describes Sordello's childhood and youth as an orphaned
page at the lonely castle. He spent nearly all his time
wandering about the pine forest and marsh, and had little
human company other than the elderly servants; what he
knew about the world he knew by hearsay.

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• Men and Women(1855): Browning's ‘Men and Women’, is
a collection of fifty-one poems, all of which are monologues
spoken by different characters, some identified and some
not. Being a wonderful gallery of soul pictures, artists,
musicians, philosophers and lovers unconsciously unveil
their characters in a picturesque manner. ‘Andrea Del Sarto’
is the opening poem of this collection.
• The Ring and The Book(1868-69): It consisted of four
volumes, containing over 21000 lines. The book tells the
story of a murder trial in Rome(1698) whereby an
impoverished nobleman, Count Guido, is found guilty of the
murders of his young wife, Pompilia and her parents,
having suspected his wife was having an affair with a young
clergyman.
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 Robert Browning’s Dramatic Monologue:
• Dramatic Monologue is a kind of lyric poem
wherein a long speech by a single character is
addressed to the other character/characters in
order to convince the listener/listeners about
something. Monologue provides us a peep into the
psyche of the character.
• Features of Dramatic Monologue:
(a). A single person who is patently not the poet,
utters the speech that makes up the whole of the
poem, in a specific situation at a critical moment.

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(b). This person addresses and interacts with
one or more other people, but we know of the
auditors’ presence, and what they say and do,
only from clues in the discourse of the single
speaker.
(c). The main principle controlling the poet’s
choice and formulation of what the lyric
speaker says is to reveal to the reader, in a way
that enhances his interest, the speaker’s
temperament and character.

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 ANDREA DEL SARTO:
• The poem was published in 1855 in the volume of poems
‘Men and Women’ by Browning.
• Andrea Del Sarto(Andrea d’ Agnolo) was a Florentine
artist(Italian Renaissance painter-Fresco painter) of the
early 16th century. Andrea was born in 1486, in the province
of Florence and died in 1530.
• According to tradition, Browning wrote ‘Andrea Del Sarto’
as a response to his friend John Kenyon’s request for a copy
of Andrea Del Sarto’s self-portrait with his wife Lucrezia.
Leery(mistrustful) of copy costs in Florence, Browning sent
his own ‘Andrea Del Sarto’ instead, and the poem can be
viewed as an elaboration of the painting.
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• Also in the background of the poem is Browning’s
debt to George Vasari’s book, ‘Lives of the Most
Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects’, a
series of artist biographies which also includes a
sketch of Andrea’s personal and artistic career. From
George Vasari(one of Andrea’s pupils/16th century
Italian painter, architect and writer), Browning
derived the idea of Andrea’s reputation for technical
perfection reflected in the poem’s alternative title,
‘The Faultless Painter.’

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• Andrea Del Sarto was a painter who loved Lucrezia del
Fede in his youth. He married her in 1517 or 1518 when
she was widowed(Recanati/hat maker) and brought him
some valuable property.
• One evening in the year 1525, Andrea tells his wife-Let us
not quarrel any more.
• It is a poem of 267 lines in BLANK VERSE which means
poetry written in unrhymed but metered lines, almost
always iambic pentameter.
• An iamb is a metrical unit that combines an unstressed
syllable and a stressed syllable(emphasized one).
• Iambic pentameter is a rhythm structure that combines the
unstressed and stressed syllables in groups of five.
‘You turn your face, but does it bring your heart.’
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