Poems of Robert Browning

by Robert Browning, Donald Smalley (Introduction)

This version, intended for use by students, includes an introduction that attempts to trace Browning's working out of his special theory and practice by examining the poet's life as well as his work.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, 19th Century, Literature, Victorian, British Literature

543 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Robert Browning (1812-1889) was a British poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.

Browning began writing poetry at age 13. These poems were eventually collected, but were later destroyed by Browning himself. In 1833, Browning's "Pauline" was published and received a cool reception. Harold Bloom believes that John Stuart Mill's review of the poem pointed Browning in the direction of the dramatic monologue.

In 1845, Browning wrote a letter to the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, professing that he loved her poetry and her. In 1846, the couple eloped to Europe, eventually settling in Florence in 1847. They had a son Pen.

Upon Elizabeth Barrett Browning's death in 1861, Browning returned to London with his son. While in London, he published Dramatis Personae (1864) and The Ring and the Book (1869), both of which gained him critical priase and respect. His last book Asolando was published in 1889 when the poet was 77.

In 1889, Browning traveled to Italy to visit friends. He died in Venice on December 12 while visiting his sister.

Reviews

[Alok Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Norton's critical editions never fail to impress me! This one has good poems by Browning and also, perhaps, the most authentic text available in the market. I also like the notes and opinions at the end of the book which takes understanding poetry of Browning to a further level... I would advise this edition to any reader who is seeking Browning's collection.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read him in high school and in college, and while I read only a smattering of his work, two of his poems alone deserve a four star rating. "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess" are both chilling examples of men gone mad.

PL, a disturbing study in psychotic love and necrophilia, has a rhyme and meter that makes the topic all the more unnerving in its simplistic delivery. Browning is a genius in terms of how he unmasks his speaker's madness.

MLD, a stunning look at arrogance and power shifts, dissects a Duke who casually discusses the diappearance of his first wife with a friend as he strolls through his collection of art. The writing here is absolutely first rate, with lines such as "She had a heart – how shall I say? – too soon made glad..." and "I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together" making my head race with envy of his writing. The sharp reader will deduce that his jealousy of her philandering ways made him have her killed or locked up in a convent, but the way Browning leads you to this questionable conclusion is beautiful.

If you don't know poetry, at least put some Browning into your early attempts at true knowledge. He is, simply, that good.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elizabeth Barrett was an outstanding poet in her day. She was considered a superior poet to her husband until after her death when his fame grew. Now she is known for Sonnets from the Portuguese, love poems to her husband. As a young man he was influenced by the romantic poets Byron, Shelly and Keats and collected his first work at age 12. By the time he returned to England after his wife's death his popularity had grown considerably. He was amused by the formation of The Browning Society but eventually became flattered by it. He was in constant demand for parties and literary appearances. He was intending to move to Italy permanently when he died of pneumonia at his son's home in Venice.

[Jelena Nemet · Rating 5 out of 5]

How sad and bad and mad it was - but then, how it was sweet!

[Hira · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must confess that I am not much of a poetry person but after doing robert browning poetry for class, i fell in love with poetry all over again. I adore the way he uses dramatic monologue and objectively presents such diverse characters and personalities.

[Boadicea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughts From A Broad

Now I’ve been wanting to use that title for ages but only on this collection of poetry does it appear appropriate, for not only am I a bit reluctant to embark on most poetry collections but am not erudite or learned enough for most, and then again, this is one poem I do get:

“Thoughts From Abroad”

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've done it before and regretted it, but reading a huge collection of a single poet's work always seems an overkill to me. The individual poems lose their context and their setting, and one can easily grow tired of a similar style spanning a long career. This compilation of Browning's poetry is overlong and contains quite a few dreary poems that dillute the effect of some of his better work. When he's good Browning stirs up quite a storm, a malevolent but romantic atmosphere that mixes the mystic of English folklore and history with some of the misty grime of Victorian England to create something not unlike Edgar Allen Poe and a sense of social and historical setting that brings to mind many of the famous storytellers of the period; Doyle, Hardy, Dickens. While, truthfully, some of his very best are the less original early works, it is the later poems, long, dense, complicated narratives and structures, that bear his more distinct personal style and signature.

The opening cluster of poems are great fun to read and full of the atmosphere of ages; The Pier Piper of Hamelin and Porphyria's Lover two of the very best. The shorter poems are a world away from his later work - little lyrical drops such as Song from Pippa Passes demonstrate another side to his work that is quite satisfying. But it is the difficult historical portraits like Fra Lippo Lippi or Andrea del Sarto that drag the middle section down as they require much more foreknowledge and time investment that a big collection like this lends itself to. Others win you over with a strange sense of the mysterious and the otherworldly - 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came' and A Death in the Desert were my favourites. At times Browning echoes a dark romantism that traces its way from nineteenth century horror novels to Goth rock of the 80s.

Portraits like Mr Sludge 'The Medium' characterise his later work - overlong, hard to understand and laced with Dickensian black humour - but the final selection changes once again and Browning offers some of his most compact, accessible and deeply romantic pieces. Now or Never the Time and the Place could be the lyrics to a heartbreaking Cure song, Spring Song a jangly folk song by the Decemberists. (Wanting is - what?) is just a little piece of loveliness. Brownings influence, by this evidence, must have been widely felt. What a collection like this does is offer an overview and a chronology of his progress and development and one can see the way his style changed into something that was uniquely his own. Along the way there are some dull moments and definitely such a long compilation isn't the way to introduce oneself to such a great poet. 4

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favourite poets. Others dislike it, but 'Porphyria's lover' is a great poem. Not because of what happens in the poem, because of all the feminist theory that can be drawn from it, and above all the struggle of love that it represents.

[Clare Bear]

I love the poem Porphyria's Lover.

[Len · Rating 5 out of 5]

Different edition. But in 150 years this book will be as read, and as readable, as it is today.

[Daphne Harries · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed overall. i wish victorian editors were more proactive. particularly enjoy the sort of morally grey women he creates. some poems from a-level i am very fond of too. his metrical inversions are always so intentional, enriched meaning!

[Laginestra]

Questo perfetto sconosciuto entrò nella mia vita come un lampo durante le tediose lezioni di inglese al liceo. In My Last Duchess il mistero è dentro poche parole, come in quel as di There she stands/AS if alive, dopo gli ordini del Duca, I gave commands, che non accetta di chinare il capo, mai. Il quadro, che in un gioco di specchi è e non è la Duchessa, sta per la defunta come solo le immagini possono. Ma quadro e donna per il Duca sono identici, si riferisce alla futura moglie con un is my object, ed il cerchio del possesso si chiude.
Ed ora, che sconosciuto non è più, Browning torna spesso a farmi compagnia, con i suoi monologhi, drammatici e lucidi, come un grande moderno che della forma fa strumento di liberazione dell'inconscio.

[Xinle Hou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waiting is the most terrible thing in the whole world. It contains a paradox in its own existence: you have done nothing when waiting while it takes up your entire energy.

Hated when people share their results on grad cafe, and the only thing I can do is blindly waiting and reading Robert Browning. Dreary dreary I’m very! If anything ever puts me on wait once more, I will hate that person/place/program for my entire life.

[Libycoq · Rating 3 out of 5]

it has all your favorite short poems, of course, some useful footnotes and interesting criticism in the back. then, for the plays and long poems, it has excerpts.... is there anything more useless than an excerpt? browning's oeuvre should be as readily available as shakespeare's -- but all we get in print today are excerpts.

[Davis Stamford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been a longtime fan of Robert Browning, a man whose most important works were not realized until after his death, like Porphyria's Lover, an incredible poem.

[Saumya Kaushik... · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pauline: was formally a dramatic monologue but it 'embodied' many of the poet's 'adolescent passions and anxieties'. The poems reveal the impact of Shelly on young browning.

[David Navarro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic and well done poetry that is inspiring and sets an example of the best poetry of the times.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me, Robert Browning is that guy you don’t like, but you share the same friends, he goes to the same parties, he’s in your book group, and you go the bookstore and there he is. You obviously share a lot in common with him, but you just don’t get along.

I’ve sworn him off several times in disgust. I’ve literally thrown down his books in befuddlement.

As I noted in my review of one of his books, he is painful to read. I’m not sure it is possible to say so little in such a difficult manner. A critic (who I don’t recall) once said that there is nothing wrong with complex, complicated poetry if the sentiment underlying it is complex and complicated. Unfortunately for the readers of Browning, he makes simple propositions complicated.

I mean, I recognize the words (well, most of them) as English. The syntax, though, is so tortured and contorted as to be unrecognizable. The music, if there ever was any, is lost beneath a din of incomprehensibility. I defy anyone to try diagramming some of the sentences of this poetry.

What he’s writing about is not difficult. He’s not necessarily expressing complicated thoughts or metaphors or philosophies. It’s just written in a contorted, violently anti-English form that makes understanding almost impossible.

So I’ve sworn him off. Several times. Yet I keep coming back.

I guess it’s because we live in the same space. I’m curious what he’s done. I forget how painful reading him can be. And I keep coming back.

This is about as good a single volume of work you’ll find of Browning’s works. The poems and play excerpts are well annotated and the essays are somewhat helpful.

I’ve probably read all these poems at some point in my life. Here’s are my comments as I re-read them. (By the way, my favorite work of Browning’s is his “transcript” of Agamemnon.)

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came *** -- One thing I’ll say about Browning, some of his works have a quirkiness to them. This is certainly one of them. The dreamy quest is confusing, inspiring and dispiriting. When Browning gets out of his comfort zone – outside his rather confined views – strange things happen, and because its Browning they happen strangely.

[K.S. Trenten · Rating 3 out of 5]

This author made a lot of assumptions about not only Browning; but morals, people, nature, and art itself which he treated as fact, blending these assumptions with actual facts in a way I found arrogant and irresponsible. He also expressed enthusiasm and passion for Browning’s work with an exquisite eloquence, punctuated by the very samples of Browning that stirred his passion. It’s because of the latter I gave him three stars. Still reader discretion, caution, and cynicism is advised, should you decide to give into the author’s (and Browning’s) eloquence and read this.

[André · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked some of the poems, but that's about it. The synopsis on the back-cover should have been enough for me to understand I wouldn't enjoy it, since it says Browning's strand of poetry contrasts with that of Tennyson's which I very much enjoy. Most of it is narrative, not at all interesting narrative, and the language used doesn't have a very nice flow, sometimes no flow whatsoever. I felt I was reading prose throughout most of the book.

[Andrew Pitkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to pass over Robert Browning - he was good, but just not of interest. But he is a pivotal and somewhat-unacknowledged author who shepherded many elements that prefigured modernism.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

i've never been so horrified by a dramatic monologue (in the best possible way). my last duchess and porphyria's lover gave me nightmares (because they were executed so well).

[Gregory Ashe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of poetry--almost like reading fiction in the form of poetry. I also appreciated the insightful collection of essays about Browning at the back.

[Lisa Denton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Browning According to Brooke

This is a book by Stopford A. Brooke who gives us his interpretation of the poetry of Robert Browning. For what it's worth, it is one man's viewpoint.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time to re-read and re-assess

[Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Browning is certainly a man of intellect and genius. However, reading his poetry is difficult. Not simply from the obscurity of the subject manner, but his writing is dense and at times inarticulate.

The dramatic monologues are the best. The characterizations are really wonderful, and he creates diverse, complicated plots. Browning is a lover of Italy, the Renaissance, and the Greeks. It's hard to believe he was an Englishman, as his subject manner really takes the reader to another place.

He can be so challenging to read that it can be hard to appreciate his poetry. He doesn't really write beautiful, elegant phrases, yet there is a rhythm to his poetry that evinces the subject manner well. Most of the subject manner are of historical figures, real or imagined. Few romance or nature poems here, which I suppose sets Browning apart from typical poetry.

My favorites: My Last Duchess, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Bishop Blougram's Apology.

[Countess of Frogmere · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often envision Elizabeth Barrett Browning saying to her husband, "You know, Bob, I love your poetry, but all these dukes having their wives bumped off and spurned lovers strangling women with their own hair are creeping me out. And all those obscure literary allusions -- I mean really, give me something I can use." EBB was more popular than her husband during their lifetimes.

What I love about Robert Browning is his willingness to examine the more seemy side of life and to unapologetically portray villianous speakers. He's a standout among his fellow Victorians because of his beautiful mastery of the dramatic monologue.

Check out "My Last Duchess," "Porphyria's Lover," :Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," and "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxad's." Be sure to read them aloud -- they're meant to be heard.

[Annalise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Robert Browning was a prominent English poet and playwright who lived in the 19th century. His poetry is known for its complex psychological and philosophical themes, as well as its use of dramatic monologues and other innovative forms. Many of his poems, such as "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover," are dramatic monologues in which the speaker reveals their innermost thoughts and feelings. His poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is a powerful meditation on the human condition and the struggle to find meaning in a chaotic world. His long narrative poem, "The Ring and the Book," is a tour-de-force of poetic storytelling that explores themes of justice, truth, and the power of storytelling.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

One Way of Love

All June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?
The chance was they might take her eye.

II.

How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music's wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

III.

My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion---heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!
Lose who may---I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they!

[John Bils · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Browning’s Poetry contains a full range of Browning's poetic works from periods of his career demarcated in the collection with section headings: "The Experimental Phase (1833-1845)"; "The Major Phase (1855-1869)"; and "The Later Achievement (After 1870)." Editor John F. Loucks also excerpts one of Browning's prose works, "Introductory Essay," from an 1852 collection of private correspondence attributed to (at the time of its initial publication, anyway, though since then critics have deemed "that at least one of the letters [in the collection] was spurious" (Loucks pg. 445)) the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley.