Introducing Robert Browning

This is going to be fairly short, since I shared a ton about Robert Browning in the post about his wife a couple weeks ago.

Robert Browning
(1812-1889)

Robert Browning was born into a well-to-do British family in 1812.  His father was a clerk for the Bank of England and a devoted reader -- he had about 6,000 books in his personal collection.  Robert's mother was a talented musician.  Both parents encouraged their two children to read and study the arts.

Robert began writing poetry at a very early age and finished his first whole book of poetry at age twelve.  No one would print it, so he destroyed it and began again.  He became enamored with the Romantic poets, such as William Wordsworth, and his first published poem was written as an homage to Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.  That appeared in 1834, and he had some small success with poems and a few plays over the next ten years.  During this time, he continued to live at home once he had finished his boarding school education.

In 1845, he began corresponding with fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett, and they married in 1846.  The Brownings moved to Italy, where they lived mainly on the money Elizabeth had inherited from her grandmother.  Their only child, Robert Barrett "Pen" Browning, was born there.  

After Elizabeth died in 1861, Robert and Pen moved back to England.  Robert's younger sister moved in with them to keep house.  Robert was an outspoken abolitionist and was vocal in his support of the United States during their Civil War.  He also spoke and wrote against anti-Semitism and cruelty to animals.

Robert was raised a Protestant, but embraced atheism as a young man.  After marrying Elizabeth, who was a devout Christian, he appears to have returned to the faith, though he remained a critic of people who believed God existed simply because they were supposed to.

When he returned to England and settled in London, Robert's poetry career began to really take off.  Up until that time, his wife had been far more famous and celebrated than he was (in fact, she was a serious contender for being named Britain's next Poet Laureate for a while).  But in 1868, he published a book-length poem in blank verse, The Ring and the Book, which took him five years to write and polish, and it brought he immense attention and acclaim.  He spent the rest of his life traveling and writing poetry, and never remarried.  He died in his son Pen's home in Venice in 1889.

Most of Robert Browning's poems are "dramatic monologues," which means they're words spoken by some fictitious character to someone else.  During the poem, the speaker's attitudes and beliefs and personality are slowly revealed by what they say.  We'll be studying one of his most famous dramatic monologues this week.

I'll end this with something kind of random and cool: 

This is a cast of Elizabeth and Robert's hands made by the artist Harriet Goodhue Hosmer in 1853.  She later made several bronze and plaster sculptures from the original cast.  I find it really sweet and lovely, and it makes them feel very human and real, somehow.  To me, anyway! 

"Perplexed Music"

Try reading this one out loud -- it is easier to understand that way, I think.

"Perplexed Music"

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Experience, like a pale musician, holds 

A dulcimer of patience in his hand; 

Whence harmonies we cannot understand 

Of God's will in his worlds, the strain unfolds 

In sad, perplexed minors. Deathly colds 

Fall on us while we hear, and countermand 

Our sanguine heart back from the fancy-land, 

With nightingales in visionary wolds. 

We murmur, "Where is any certain tune, 

Or measured music, in such notes as these?" 

But angels, leaning from the golden seat, 

Are not so minded! Their fine ear hath won 

The issue of completed cadences; 

And smiling down the stars, they whisper, "Sweet."

Discussion Questions:

Analyze this poem!  Pay attention to word choices and imagery as well as what you think the overall message/point/theme is.

"Past and Future"

Okay, time for something different.  Enough love poems for one week!  This is from her 1844 collection Poems (so it's from before she met Robert Browning).

"Past and Future"

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My future will not copy fair my past 

On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done, 

Supernal Will ! I would not fain be one 

Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast 

Upon the fulness of the heart, at last 

Saith no grace after meat. My wine hath run 

Indeed out of my cup, and there is none 

To gather up the bread of my repast 

Scattered and trampled ! Yet I find some good 

In earth's green herbs, and streams that bubble up 

Clear from the darkling ground, — content until 

I sit with angels before better food. 

Dear Christ ! when thy new vintage fills my cup, 

This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill.

Discussion Questions:

1.  What is this poem about, do you think?

"Sonnet 38"

Here's another from Sonnets from the Portuguese.  

"Sonnet 38"

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed 

The fingers of this hand wherewith I write, 

And ever since it grew more clean and white,... 

Slow to world-greetings...quick with its “Oh, list,” 

When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst 

I could not wear here plainer to my sight, 

Than that first kiss. The second passed in height 

The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, 

Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed! 

That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown, 

With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. 

The third, upon my lips, was folded down 

In perfect, purple state! since when, indeed, 

I have been proud and said, “My Love, my own.”

Discussion Questions:

1.  Does this fit your ideas of what romantic poetry is or should be?  How or how not?

2.  Why might a kiss on the hand or the forehead be particularly memorable, maybe even more memorable than a kiss on the lips?

"Sonnet 43"

Let's just go ahead and read the most famous EBB poem right away.  This is from Sonnets from the Portuguese.

"Sonnet 43"

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 

For the ends of being and ideal grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day’s 

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for right; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death.

Discussion Questions:

1.  What might be some reasons this is such a famous poem?

2.  Knowing what you do about EBB from yesterday's introduction post, what parts of this poem seem obviously autobiographical to you?

Introducing Elizabeth Barrett Browning

(If you saw this post in your inbox twice, that's because I accidentally published it Sunday afternoon instead of scheduling to post it on Monday.  So I unpublished it, and here it is again.  Not sure if that will make it show up in your email twice or what.  Sorry about that!)

Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are one of my favorite literary couples :-D  This week, we'll talk about Elizabeth and her poetry, and then we'll focus on Robert next week.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in pastoral England to a wealthy family.  She enjoyed a happy and carefree childhood with reading books and playing with her eleven siblings.  She wrote her first poem when she was four years old; by the time she was ten, she was reading Shakespeare.  Her idyllically bookish childhood changed dramatically when she fell ill at the age of 15, possibly due to an injury to her spine.  She became a semi-invalid and suffered from neck and spine pain for the rest of her life.

In the 1830s, Elizabeth's father moved the family to London.  Her health was still not good, but she began having some of her poetry published in London periodicals.  She released her first book, The Seraphim and Other Poems, in 1838.  Reviews in both England and America were overwhelmingly positive, and her name became known among literary critics and readers alike.

In 1840, Elizabeth's favorite brother Edward, who was her best friend and favorite companion, drowned.  Elizabeth had been shy before, but she seems to have developed crippling social anxiety after Edward died.  She refused to make new friends and was afraid of meeting new people.  For several years, she barely ever left her room.  But she kept writing poetry and released her second collection, Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (her full maiden name was actually Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett, but she liked to go by EBB).  It was a success too, and her name and work became even more well-known in literary society, even though she wasn't physically or emotionally able to mingle with those people.  In fact, Poems made her quite famous!

Elizabeth would have been considered well on her way to being a "spinster" or "old maid" by then because most women married in their early twenties and were considered "too old" to be eligible for marriage by the time they were thirty.  She seems to have resigned herself to living the rest of her life as a reclusive, unmarried invalid.  

During this time, Elizabeth did gradually make a few friends.  One was a famous writer named Mary Russell Mitford, and the other was John Kenyon, who was friends with many poets even though he wasn't a great writer himself.  Kenyon was a distant cousin of hers, and he helped her poetry become well-known among his friends even though Elizabeth herself couldn't mingle with society much.

In 1845, Poems was picked up, read, and loved by a young poet named Robert Browning.  Elizabeth was familiar with his poetry, and even mentioned him by name in one poem ("Lady Geraldine's Courtship") in her collection.  (I find this interesting: she only wrote that poem because Poems was to be printed in two volumes, and her publisher wanted the two volumes to be the same size, but she didn't have quite enough poems to make it work.  So she almost didn't mention Robert Browning in those poems at all!)  

Robert Browning became an instant fan of Elizabeth's.  In fact, he wrote her a fan letter that began, "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett," and ended with, “I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart—and I love you too.”  :-o

Well, Elizabeth wrote back.  Robert wrote her again.  A flurry of letters passed between them (and the mail in Victorian England was very efficient, so they didn't have to wait days or weeks to get letters the way you might imagine).  Robert Browning was six years younger than Elizabeth Barrett, healthy and energetic and not-yet-famous.  Within months, John Kenyon arranged for them to meet in person... but secretly!  Elizabeth's father was kind of creepily controlling and tried to make all of his children rely on him for financial and emotional support all their lives.  Elizabeth was sure her father wouldn't like her having a suitor, and might even forbid her to see Robert again.  The two had fallen in love via their letters, and meeting in person cemented their devotion to each other.  

During this secret courtship, Elizabeth composed some of her most famous poems.  She would later publish many of them in the collection Sonnets from the Portuguese, which is one of the most enduringly popular collections of poetry of all time.  They are love poems filled with longing, hope, fear, and wonder.  She was an invalid spinster, and he was a healthy and promising younger man -- they didn't seem like a good match to the outside world, and she knew it.

Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning got married in secret on September 12, 1846.  Elizabeth continued living at home with her father for the following week, while Robert made arrangements for their honeymoon trip to Europe.  Then, Elizabeth simply left home.  The Brownings traveled in Europe for a time before settling down in Florence.  They would consider Florence their home for the rest of Elizabeth's life.  Elizabeth's father disinherited her when he learned of her marriage, and they never reconciled.

In Florence, Elizabeth and Robert both continued to write poetry.  Their only child, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning (called "Pen"), was born there in 1849.  That same year, Elizabeth finally published Sonnets from the Portuguese.  She selected that title partly so it would seem like she might have simply translated the poems from another language, as a sort of way to distance herself from the intensely personal nature of most of the poems.  But it was also a joke between herself and her husband -- one of Elizabeth's poems from Poems, "Catarina to Camoens," is about a woman named Catarina who makes a deathbed declaration of love for a Portuguese poet named Camoens.  Ever since Robert Browning first read that poem of hers, before he even met her, he had thought of Elizabeth as the real Catarina, so he called her "the Portuguese" as a nickname.

Elizabeth's other major work is a long narrative poem in blank verse, Aurora Leigh, which she released in 1857.  She was intensely interested in social issues such as slavery, human rights, women's rights, and political freedom.  Italian politics became a kind of obsession for her while living in Florence, and she wrote many poems about it.

Although her health improved greatly after she married Robert and moved away from her father's repressive home, Elizabeth was never truly strong.  In 1861, when she was only fifty-five years old, she grew continually weaker and died in June following a severe cold.  She died in her husband's arms, and he said that she died smiling and happy.  Robert and Pen moved back to London after her death.  The literary community as a whole mourned her loss, and various literary journals and critics called her the greatest woman poet in the history of English literature!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry was popular with readers and critics alike while she lived.  It was influential among her fellow poets, too -- for instance, her poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" was so inspiring to Edgar Allan Poe that he borrowed its meter and rhythm for his poem "The Raven."  In a newspaper review, Poe said that "Her sense of Art is pure in itself," and he even dedicated his poetry collection The Raven and Other Poems to her.  Her poetry also heavily influenced and inspired Emily Dickinson.  We'll study poems by both of them in the coming months.