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Robert Browning [1812-1889] ENG
Ranked #23 in the top 380 poets
Votes 66%: 1566 up, 803 down

Difficult. Mastery of the dramatic monologue. Irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, and challenging vocabulary and syntax. Involuntary unfolding of one of the largest, most enigmatic, and most multipersoned literary and human selves. Criticized as irrational. 

Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot "all learned from Browning's exploration of the possibilities of dramatic poetry and of colloquial idiom".

Robert Browning  was the older of the two children of Robert and Sarah Anna Wiedeman Browning. From his reasonably affluent parents Browning learned to love the arts--books, paintings, music, and theatre. His father, a clerk in the Bank of England, was an unusually well-read man who owned a personal library of 6000 books. His mother was a devoutly religious woman and an accomplished pianist. Robert Browning attended a private grammar school and then enjoyed the luxury of tutors in his home. By the age of fourteen he had learned Latin, Greek, French, and Italian. After fourteen, he received no formal education but was a prolific reader in his father`s library. This included reading all fifty volumes of a set of reference books!

Browning often chose to read books that were not well known to others. This resulted in his having a vast knowledge of literature rarely familiar to other people. Thus his poems frequently included allusions his readers did not recognize. His early poems included so many of these obscure references that they earned him a reputation for being difficult to read and almost impossible to understand. Ultimately Browning realized that much of what he knew was not known by his readers, and he was able to moderate the difficulty of his poetry.

Browning enjoyed foreign traveled, which included trips to St. Petersburg, Russia, and Italy. During his second visit to Italy in 1844, he read a poem by Elizabeth Barrett, the best-known female poet in England, and one whose works he greatly admired. This particular poem commended his poetry!

Browning responded with a letter expressing his admiration. This eventually led to a personal meeting of the two poets in May 1845. During the next fifteen months they exchanged poems and hundreds of letters (573 of hers remain) and enjoyed ninety-one meetings in her father`s home. The first time they were together outside his home, they married. This was on September 12, 1846, at St. Marylebone Parish Church in London, England. He was 34 and she was 40.

The couple`s unusual courtship, consisting entirely of letters and visits Browning made to Barrett in her father`s home, was a result of two unusual circumstances. First, Barrett`s father, Edward Moulton-Barrett, was an extremely dominating and excessively possessive individual. He had forbidden his children to marry. Second, Elizabeth Barrett was a semi-invalid recluse who had spent years living almost entirely in her bedroom, pursuing her studies, writing poetry, and seeing only one or two people other than her immediate family.

During the fifteen years Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning lived in Florence, Italy, their home, Casa Guidi, was a literary and cultural center.  Both the Brownings pursued their writing careers as well as their personal interests; often their poems reflected their interests. Mrs. Browning`s passions were social reform and current Italian politics. Her works reflected her interest in child labor, the rights of women, the oppression of the lower classes, the American slave trade, and Italian independence. Robert Browning`s interests focused on the fine arts, including literature, sculpture, paintings, and music, as well as on the history of Italy and her people.

During Elizabeth Browning`s lifetime, Robert Browning`s poetry was a mere shadow of hers. She remained throughout her life one of the most popular and the most highly esteemed English poets. She had begun writing as a child; her first published poem was printed when she was 13. Her work began to attract public attention by the time she was twenty.

The best known begins, "How do I loved thee? Let me count the ways." These beautiful poems were written for Robert Browning only. However, when he read them, he insisted upon their publication, which occurred in 1850.

After Mrs. Browning’s death, Robert and Pen Browning moved to England. Browning`s poetic career flourished; he is now one of the most highly regarded English writers. He died in Venice, Italy, on December 12, 1889, and was buried in Poet`s Corner of Westminster Abbey in London, England.

Victorian, Humour, History

YearsCountryPoetInteraction
1572-1631
ENG
John Donne
→ influenced Robert Browning
1792-1822
ENG
Percy Bysshe Shelley
→ influenced Robert Browning
1819-1891
USA
James Russell Lowell
→ friend of Robert Browning
1830-1886
USA
Emily Dickinson
→ praised Robert Browning
1835-1913
ENG
Alfred Austin
→ attacked Robert Browning
1844-1889
ENG
Gerard Manley Hopkins
→ (too difficult) disliked Robert Browning
1854-1900
IRL
Oscar Wilde
→ praised Robert Browning
1874-1958
CAN
Robert W Service
→ read Robert Browning
1885-1972
USA
Ezra Pound
→ praised Robert Browning
1899-1986
ARG
Jorge Luis Borges
→ praised Robert Browning
1806-1861
ENG
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
← married to Robert Browning
1837-1909
ENG
Algernon Charles Swinburne
← influenced by Robert Browning
1840-1928
ENG
Thomas Hardy
← influenced by Robert Browning
1861-1907
ENG
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
← friend of Robert Browning
1865-1936
ENG
Rudyard Kipling
← influenced by Robert Browning
1885-1972
USA
Ezra Pound
← influenced by Robert Browning
1888-1965
USA/ENG
Thomas Stearns Eliot
← influenced by Robert Browning
1904-1967
IRL
Patrick Kavanagh
← influenced by Robert Browning
1911-1979
USA
Elizabeth Bishop
← influenced by Robert Browning


WorkLangRating
A Pretty Woman
eng
47
Porphyria`s Lover
eng
38
A Woman`s Last Word
eng
29
My Last Duchess
eng
21
Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came
eng
17
Any Wife To Any Husband
eng
11
The Laboratory-Ancien Régime
eng
9
Life In A Love
eng
8
Meeting At Night
eng
8
Pippa`s Song
eng
6
How They Brought The Good News From Ghent To Aix
eng
5
Rhyme for a Child Viewing a Naked Venus in a Painting of `The Judgement of Paris`
eng
4
A Grammarian`s
eng
3
After
eng
3
Home-Thought
eng
3
My Star
eng
3
O` Lyric Love
eng
3
A Light Woman
eng
2
Bishop Blougram`s Apology
eng
2
In A Year
eng
2
Introduction
eng
2
Never the Time and the Place
eng
2
Now!
eng
2
One Way Of Love
eng
2
Paracelsus: Part I: Paracelsus Aspires
eng
2
The Italian In England
eng
2
A Lovers` Quarrel
eng
1
An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Kar
eng
1
Andrea del Sarto
eng
1
By The Fire-Side
eng
1
Caliban upon Setebos or, Natural Theology in the Island
eng
1
De Gustibus---
eng
1
Incident Of The French Camp
eng
1
Paracelsus: Part V: Paracelsus Attains
eng
1
Saul
eng
1
Song
eng
1
Summum Bonum
eng
1
The Boy And the Angel
eng
1
The Last Ride Together
eng
1
The Lost Leader
eng
1
The Pied Piper Of Hamelin
eng
1
Two In The Campagna
eng
1
Why I Am a Liberal
eng
1
Women And Roses
eng
1
A Cavalier Song
eng
0
A Face
eng
0
A Serenade At The Villa
eng
0
A Tale
eng
0
A Toccata Of Galuppi`s
eng
0
A Wall
eng
0
Abt Vogler
eng
0
Aix In Provence
eng
0
Among The Rocks
eng
0
Another Way Of Love
eng
0
Apparent Failure
eng
0
Apparitions
eng
0
Before
eng
0
Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed`s Church, Rome, The
eng
0
Cavalier Tunes: Boot and Saddle
eng
0
Cavalier Tunes: Give a Rouse
eng
0
Christmas-Eve
eng
0
Cleon
eng
0
Confessions
eng
0
Count Gismond--Aix in Provence
eng
0
Cristina
eng
0
Earth`s Immortalities
eng
0
Easter-Day
eng
0
Epilogue To Asolando
eng
0
Evelyn Hope
eng
0
Fears And Scruples
eng
0
Fra Lippo Lippi
eng
0
Garden Francies
eng
0
Heap Cassia, Sandal-Buds and Stripes
eng
0
Herve Riel
eng
0
Holy-Cross Day
eng
0
Home Thoughts, from the Sea
eng
0
In A Gondola
eng
0
In Three Days
eng
0
Instans Tyrannus
eng
0
Love Among The Ruins
eng
0
Love In A Life
eng
0
Man I Am and Man Would Be, Love
eng
0
Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha
eng
0
Memorabilia
eng
0
Mesmerism
eng
0
Misconceptions
eng
0
Nationality In Drinks
eng
0
Natural Magic
eng
0
Old Pictures In Florence
eng
0
One Word More
eng
0
Over the Sea our Galleys Went
eng
0
Pan and Luna
eng
0
Paracelsus: Part II: Paracelsus Attains
eng
0
Paracelsus: Part III: Paracelsus
eng
0
Paracelsus: Part IV: Paracelsus Aspires
eng
0
Parting At Morning
eng
0
Pauline, A Fragment of a Question
eng
0
Pheidippides
eng
0
Pippa Passes: Part I: Morning
eng
0
Pippa Passes: Part II: Noon
eng
0
Pippa Passes: Part III: Evening
eng
0
Pippa Passes: Part IV: Night
eng
0
Popularity
eng
0
Prospice
eng
0
Protus
eng
0
Rabbi Ben Ezra
eng
0
Respectability
eng
0
Soliloquy Of The Spanish Cloister
eng
0
Songs From Pippa Passes
eng
0
Sordello: Book the Fifth
eng
0
Sordello: Book the First
eng
0
Sordello: Book the Fourth
eng
0
Sordello: Book the Second
eng
0
Sordello: Book the Sixth
eng
0
Sordello: Book the Third
eng
0
Strength
eng
0
The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxed`s Church
eng
0
The Confessional
eng
0
The Englishman In Italy
eng
0
The Flight Of The Duchess
eng
0
The Glove
eng
0
The Guardian-Angel
eng
0
The Heretic`s Tragedy
eng
0
The Lost Mistress
eng
0
The Patriot
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter I - The Ring And The Book
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter II - Half-Rome
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter III - The Other Half-Rome
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter IV - Tertium Quid
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter IX - Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter V - Count Guido Franceschini
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter VI - Giuseppe Caponsacchi
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter VII - Pompilia
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter VIII - Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter X - The Pope
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter XI - Guido
eng
0
The Ring And The Book - Chapter XII - The Book And The Ring
eng
0
The Statue and the Bust
eng
0
The Twins
eng
0
Through The Metidja To Abd-El-Kadr
eng
0
Time`s Revenges
eng
0
To Edward Fitzgerald
eng
0
Tray
eng
0
Up at a Villa--Down in the City
eng
0
Verse-Making Was Least of My Virtues
eng
0
Waring
eng
0
Youth and Art
eng
0
You`ll Love Me Yet
eng
0

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