Robert Browning

« Rhythm I break, […] beats I vary » (315) s’écrie Robert Browning dans le poème « With Charles Avison » (Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their Day, 1887), consacré à ses rapports avec la musique. Loin d’exprimer une position iconoclaste, ces mots révèlent une poétique résolument nouvelle qui situe Browning dans le débat sur ce qu’il convient d’entendre par « rythme » . Le rythme pour Browning n’est pas binaire, flux et reflux, temps fort / temps faible – et c’est cette conception du rythme qu’il casse. Pour Browning, le rythme est l’étincelle qui jaillit de la friction entre la syntaxe, la rime, la forme et le mètre, mais aussi la mise en page. À la recherche d’une oralité propre à chacun des locuteurs de ses monologues dramatiques, Browning, en ciseleur du suprasegmental, élabore une technique ponctuationnelle originale qui le place dans le camp des partisans de la ponctuation expressive.

Victorian Literature. The second part of the second volume offers a selection of the writing of authors starting with Tennyson and Browning and finishing with the light verse of Lear and Carroll. English Literature – An Anthology for Students. Volume 2 - From the Romanticism to the Twentieth Century. Poznań: Dom Wydawniczy Rebis, 2011, pp. 536.

In his essay, The Language of Paradox, Cleanth Brooks argues that although we tend to see poetry more so as " the language of the soul " rather than " the language of sophistry, " the poet is inevitably forced to approach his truth, " …only in terms of paradox " (Brooks 3). This doesn't mean Brooks sees poetry as dealing exclusively in paradox or that poetry involving paradox eschews any sort of emotional outpouring. Rather, he sees paradox as revelatory, insofar as it exposes a new meaning hidden underneath the apparent tension stemming from its configuration. Brooks maintains that by delving into existing paradoxes within a poem, a reader may potentially discover the thrust behind a poem's fervency. Building on this notion, I will argue that not only is there an existing paradox in Browning's " My Last Duchess, " but that beneath the apparent discordance exists the very power by which the reader is affected. Before providing an example to substantiate his case, Brooks concedes that Wordsworth's poetry is known for its simplicity and for its candidness. Few would argue, after a first reading of Wordsworth's oeuvre, that his poetry deals in anything sophistical. Yet Brooks contends that underpinning the typical, simplistic Wordsworthian poem is, " a paradoxical situation " (Brooks 4). He gives us " Composed upon Westminster Bridge " as an example that, through its underlying paradox, we can understand its power and account for its success. On its surface, Worthsworth's poem seems devoid of any paradoxical language. We see the speaker construct a metaphor at the poem's beginning, noting how London's skyline, its,

The poem is narrated by Rabbi Ben Ezra, a real 12th-century scholar. The piece does not have a clearly identified audience or dramatic situation. The Rabbi begs his audience to "grow old along with [him]" (line 1). He stresses that age is where the best of life is realized, whereas "youth shows but half" (line 6). He acknowledges that youth lacks insight into life, since it is characteristically so concerned with living in the moment that it is unable to consider the deeper questions. Though youth will fade, what replaces it is the wisdom and insight of age, which recognizes that pain is a part of life, but which learns to appreciate joy more because of the pain. "Be our joys three parts pain!" (line 34). All the while, one should appreciate what comes, since all adds to our growth towards God, and embrace the "paradox" that life's failure brings success. He notes how, when we are young and our bodies are strong, we aspire to impossible greatness, and he explains that this type of action makes man into a "brute" (line 44). With age comes acceptance and love of the flesh, even though it pulls us "ever to the earth" (line 63), while some yearn to reach a higher plane. A wise, older man realizes that all things are gifts from God, and the flesh's limitations are to be appreciated even as we recognize them as limitations. His reason for begging patience is that our life on Earth is but one step of our soul's experience, and so our journey will continue. Whereas youth is inclined to "rage" (line 100), age is inclined to await death patiently. Both are acceptable and wonderful, and each compliments the other.

Resurrection is a recurring metaphor for poetry in Robert Browning's poems, plays and correspondence. Yet his attitude towards this trope is a conflicted one, as Browning often associates resurrection with an objectionable sacrilegious quest as well as with popular forms of Victorian magic, such as spiritualism and mesmerism, which he abhorred. In spite of this seeming rejection of magic, Browning's attitude towards magicians and magic language is also characterized by fascination and attraction, triggered by the occult books he read in his father's large and eccentric library. As a result, magicians and mystical theories often appear in his work, from his first published work, " Pauline " (1833), to his last publication, Asolando (1889). One example of the importance of magic to Browning's poetics of resurrection is the poem ''Transcendentalism' : A Poem in Twelve Books' (1855), in which Browning conjures up a dead magician so as to compare 'musty volumes' of ineffectual prose with resuscitative poetry inspired by Jacob Boehme's mystical notions of language. Indeed, Browning's dramatic monologues in Men and Women (1855) aim to emulate the resurrecting 'brace of rhymes' uttered by the mage in 'Transcendentalism' so as to galvanise his poetry and gain popular recognition after years of derision and indifference to his work.

"My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" regales readers with a speech by the Duke of Ferrara on his departed former wife, whose death he arranged, as he uncovers her portrait for the envoy of his new bride. I argue that Browning uses punctuation to indicate important aspects of the Duke of Ferrara’s dialogue in the form of asides, which reveal how strongly social constraints motivate his actions, despite his boasts of power. Even though the Duke is the one in charge, he is controlled by the standards which, as an aristocrat, he must uphold. These limitations are apparent in his speech patterns where he uses the specific placement of language to impart information without risking his reputation. By failing to uphold the expectations of her station, the Duchess compromises his status, an intolerable act he warns his future wife against through conversation with her family envoy.

"The Pied Piper of Hamelin" by Robert Browning is too often regarded as a fun tangent among the poet's body of poems, generally considered to be profound and searching. This articles is promoted by a wish to redress a somewhat dismissive attitude to Browning's most popular and influential work.

This essay is developed from a paper at the ‘Education, Beliefs and Cultures’ Conference at the University of Timisoara in Romania in 2015. It is important in addressing British perceptions of Romania in literary texts, together with an interrogation of the representation of the outsider in the Dracula and Pied Piper myths. It makes a valuable contribution by bringing these debates into the twenty first century. I demonstrate, for example, how the story of the Pied Piper is being redeployed in an analysis of European paranoia surrounding migrant workers and asylum seekers in the present. I also situate these texts within current debates about racial stereotyping in Victorian Gothic literature

The Victorian poet, Robert Browning was mostly regarded as a great poet of love and an innovator of the dramatic monologue. He was also equally popularly the best-known for his philosophy of optimism, and the philosophy of the Imperfect. But few have looked at Browning’s philosophy of pain, suffering, and evil revealed in his poetry. A humble attempt has been made in this article to explore the common subjects, themes and treatment of pain, suffering, and evil in the poetry of Robert Browning to which a precise and careful evaluative investigation have been assessed by a gone through his some poems abounded with multiple and manifold notions and speeches of speakers, lofty subject-matters, ejaculated diction, presentation, contemporary common psychoanalytical issues and cultural appearance, philosophy of the grand stories on the ground of common subjects and objects, selection of the private and common symbols, perfect imaginary, viewpoint and the perfect creation of characterizatio...

In literary works, it is observed that female bodies are endangered because of their male counterparts’ obsession with perfection. This is what we see in Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark” and Browning’s dramatic monologue “My Last Duchess”. Though both the literary works are from different genre, these works share a common theme where the female figures are the subjects of their husband’s obsession and embracing death as the consequence of obsession. Nathaniel Hawthorne is an American author of 19th century who has incorporated the theme of obsession in his short story “The Birthmark” and showed how Aylmer’s obsession with perfection in physical beauty ultimately causes Georgiana’s death. On the other hand, Browning is a Victorian poet who has demonstrated the endangerment of female figure and marital violence during Victorian era toward the Duchess due to the Duke’s obsession with reputation and possessiveness in “My Last Duchess”.
In my paper, I will discuss the theme of obsession and how female bodies are endangered due to their male counterparts’ obsession in Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” and Browning’s “My Last Duchess”. Additionally, I will have psychoanalytic and feminism study to discuss the psyche of Aylmer and the Duke as well as to understand the inferior position of Georgiana and the Duchess.

As it is common in Browning's monologues where the narrators are generally psychologically twisted individuals, Porphyria's Lover is perhaps the best suited poem which can be treated in the solution of psychoanalysis. The stark contrast in the setting inside the cottage with its counterpart outside reflects the duality of human mind in the first place.

Robert Browning's haunting monologue, Porhyria's Lover, forces the reader to delve into the psychotic mind of the speaker as a desperate attempt to reconcile the apparent madness of a brutal strangling. The text is wrought with sexual and moral ambiguities. Yet, its cryptic prose serves to strengthen the poem's horror-inducing grip. Understanding Browning's use of

The finest woks of Browning endeavor to explain the mechanics of human psychology. The motions of love, hate, passion, instinct, violence, desire, poverty, violence, and sex and sensuousness are raised from the dead in his poetry with a striking virility and some are even introduced with a remarkable brilliance.

Thanks to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, so many people living in such close quarters, poverty, violence, and sex became part of everyday life. The absence of family and community ties meant newfound personal independence; it also meant the loss of a social safety net. The mid-nineteenth century also saw the rapid growth of newspapers, which functioned not as the current-events journals of today but as scandal sheets, filled with stories of violence and carnality. Hurrying pedestrians, bustling shops, and brand-new goods filled the streets, and individuals had to take in millions of separate perceptions a minute. The resulting over stimulation led, according to many theorists, to a sort of numbness. Notably many writers now felt that in order to provoke an emotional reaction they had to compete with the turmoils and excitements of everyday life had to shock their audience in ever more novel and sensational ways. Thus violence also became a sort of aesthetic choice for many creative people.

Two British poets from different centuries, Robert Browning and Carol Ann Duffy
represented in their poems two extraordinary female figures suffering from
frustrated love which gave them ‘homicidal’ desire. Robert Browning’s ‘The
Laboratory’ was first published in 1844, and set in seventeenth-century France. He
was inspired by the life story of a French Marquise who murdered her father,
brothers, and planned to kill her husband. Robert Browning portrays a woman who
orders poison from a pharmacist to kill the person who ‘ensnared’ her lover. Her
passion to poison the woman, and the excessive pleasure she takes from watching
the preparation of the poison is aberrant. On the other hand, Carol Ann Duffy’s
‘Havisham’ was written in 1998, reanimating Charles Dickens’ well-known
character Miss Havisham from Great Expectations who was left at the altar and
consequently went mad. The violent and aggressive tone of Havisham and her
psychopathic fantasies about a honeymoon with a male corpse are perverted; but
still, whether she is truly depraved is questionable. This chapter’s aim is to
question and evaluate each speaker’s moral and mental condition by raising several
questions: Is she acting rationally or impulsively? Is it jealousy and/or revenge? If
so, does that justify her behaviour? Is it her nature or is it madness? The excessive
thoughts and behaviours of the characters are surely ‘wrong’ and ‘evil’ according
to the current codes of ethics and morals of the time. Still, questions regarding
whether the speaker has any reason behind her behaviour and/or whether she is
mad or purely evil dominate both poems. Therefore, the further aim of the chapter
will be to find answers to the raised questions.

One of the most effective literary devices within different didactic and aesthetic forms is the dramatic monologue. The dramatic monologue distinguishes the speaker's character from that of the poet's. The double meaning that lies at the heart of the dramatic monologue, conveys the speaker's version or variety of meaning and intentions. The Dramatic monologue has been practiced for a very long time, but it was Robert browning who invested it with a deeper level of meaning giving it frequency in an attempt to support preexisting aesthetic values in favor of a poem that valued form over content. Although such a dialogue is called dramatic, it is not a theatrical device, proper. The speaker of the poem delivers such comments on the slice of life at disposal that would leave us with a deep emotional experience. By listening to the words pouring out of the speaker's mind, the reader/listener obtains a psychoanalytic view of the speaker. The current article aims to study Robert browning, the prominent Victorian poet, by putting on the pedestal his essential role in investing the dramatic monologue in English literature with an essential poetic significance and role by reviewing a number of his major poems.

The 1860s was the decade which defined Algernon Charles Swinburnes career (1837-1909), just as it was the decade in which he was most criticised; it set the tone for future critics and researchers who would venture upon studying Swinburnes poetry. Swinburne published quite a few books during this decadecollections of poems as well as dramas. Some of his earlier works were dismissed, while others, like Atalanta in Calydon, were praised for their great rhythm and exceptional writing style. However, Swinburne came to undeniable fame and infamy after publishing his Poems and Ballads in 1866. Swinburnes collection of poems was deemed unacceptable by the standards of the Victorian mock-morality. Many reviewers, both anonymous and named, came forward to criticise the young poet by calling his work immoral, disgusting, tasteless, and so on. The backlash was so strong that Swinburnes publisher, Moxon, withdrew Poems and Ballads from circulation less than a month after its publication. It cannot be denied that Swinburnes poems, indeed, were telling stories based on themes unusual for the readers of the nineteenth century: death, sexuality, incest, rape, and other similar topics were the basis for most of the poems in Poems and Ballads. However, these are only the superficial aspects of his poems. By referencing only these, the philosophy of Swinburnes poems is pushed back, ignored, and forgotten. It is most unfortunate, that most of Swinburnes early critics and the majority of his researchers in the 20th century do not get past this superficial veil of his poems. One of the themes that is most commonly observed throughout Swinburnes career is love after death. While this notion was brought to its peak in the poets masterpiece, Tristram of Lyonesse (1882), it is also present in his earlier works. Some of Swinburnes poems give a new meaning to the concepts of love and death. Most importantly, the love which is most often observed in Poems and Ballads is not the pure emotion so very familiar to the Victorians. On the contrary, it is an emotion fuelled by lust and desire. Phaedra, Dolores, Faustinethese poems which were given the names of their heroines, put the innermost feelings and desires of their protagonists on the front. Swinburne portrays the men whom they love getting torn apart by that very same love. The three archetypes of femme fatale, femme * I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Noriyuki Harada of Keio University, as well as Professor Takayuki Tatsumi of Keio University, for their guidance and valuable advice as well as insightful comments and suggestions.

The two articles that follow pose a remarkable contrast in ways one can interpret the figure of the Pied Piper, though each inspects poems written by the same author, Robert Browning. A general failure to recognize the profundity and gravity of his famous " child's story,' even by scholarly specialists in the area of Victorian verse,  must have something to do with the tendency to shun anything that resembles a religious (in the widest sense, openminded)  point of view on great works of literature.
Suggested reading:  https://www.amazon.com/Piper-Hamelin-Viewed-Solar-Wanderer-ebook/dp/B0182P2UGG

Please note the following correction. The text includes a reference to John and Paul as 'apostles' in connection with the reference to 'the day of John and Paul, the 26th of June in 1284 when the Pied Piper entered Hamelin according to the earliest known record of the Piper's appearance in the town. Subsequent research has shown me that the John and Paul in question were Christian martyrs who were executed during the rule of Julian the Apostate, who died on the 26th of June in 363 during a military excursion into Parthia.. The story of the Pied Piper arguably finds its origin in a campaign to eradicate cultic midsummer practices in midsummer on the rocky height near Hamelin referred to earlier as Koppelberg or the Kopan.

“Prufrock is one of the great inventions of the modern literary imagination: he has become an      archetype for the ‘complex’ of over-scrupulous timidity. He is a man paralyzed by an overwhelming anxiety about the possibility of getting things wrong.”

The Dramatic Monologues of Robert Browning Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, London in 1812 and died in 1889 ("The Victorian Age" 1248,49). He lived with his parents till the age of 34 when he got married (1249). He also preferred to be educated at home rather than studying at the university (1249). His education at home included learning foreign languages, music, boxing, horsemanship, and reading whatever was available (1249). "From this unusual education, he acquired a store of knowledge on which to draw for the background of his poems" (1249). He was married to Elizabeth Barret, a famous poet at the time, and "was sometimes referred to as "Mrs. Browning's husband", because he "was a relatively unknown experimenter whose poems were greeted with misunderstanding and indifference" till he gained public recognition in the 1860s (1248). "Alongside Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-92), Robert Browning is the most famous and most frequently studied Victorian poet, valued for his acute psychological insights, engagement with key Victorian concerns and poetic innovation" (Martens 1). His poetry was admired by two different groups of readers for mainly two different reasons ("The Victorian Period" 1248). While one group saw him as a philosopher and a religious teacher solving the mysteries religion and philosophy are concerned with, the other admired him for his "attempt to solve the problem of how poetry should be written" (1248). Robert Browning is also the Victorian poet who is very radical in rejecting Romantic poetics of his time "as so much of his poetry replaces the Romantic personal voice of the poet with that of fictional, dramatic speakers" (Martens 9). In this way, "he avoids the dangers of Kutlu 1

Generally known for his rich dramatic monologues, as one of the Victorian age’s most prominent poets and playwrights, Robert Browning’s (1812-1889) “The Last Ride Together” from his volume “Men & Women” (1855) offers a particular mixture of Modern, Victorian, Romantic and Classical dimensions that has rarely been approached in their rights as such. The poem itself represents perhaps, as British poet and critic Arthur Symons once said; “the noblest and most truly unique’ of “all love poems” (Seymons”1906, 125) for its particular insight into the specific, moment by moment, tribulations of both; the interior sensations of longing and love, and the anterior practical responsibilities towards social reality at large. Critics, such as Goldfarb (1965,255), insist on an interpretation of this poem as basically sexual! Others, have swept it under the all-covering umbrella of “dramatic monologue” of which Browning is most famous (Curry:1908), (Phelps: 1915), (Drew:1970) (Martens:2011). Many more critics have commented on this poem’s moral structure or message (Chapman:1969, 187), (Jones: 11891,14) or attempted to categorize it under some rather narrow generic dichotomies of male and female expressionism (Nettleship; 1868, 16,17). This article will approach “The Last Ride Together” slightly differently. Depending more on analysis of textual structure, rather than simply form, or style, it attempts to reveal the kind of aesthetic and cultural philosophy underlying variable choices of vocabulary and phraseology, while defining the sort of world-view it advocates. Understanding the Classical, Romantic, Victorian and, more significantly, Modern dimensions in this particular poem – as well as the ways in which they are woven together in a unique aesthetic and cultural fabric - may help widen the horizon of understanding of Browning’s poetics at large. This mosaic of aesthetic effects and shades, spanning over most known eras of cultural history, seems to offer a truly universalize-able work of art for contemplation and further appreciation.

Here you may read the text of a book that inspects words based on the common root of the verbs wandern in German and to wander in English in works by Shakespeare, Goethe, Wordsworth among other Romantic poets and Robert Browning. What emerges from the aggregate result of the verbal patterns in which such words are involved?

Book:  http://www.lulu.com/shop/julian-scutts/just-wandering/paperback/product-24290786.html

Dans la lignée des poètes romantiques dont il se veut l’héritier, Robert Browning développe une poétique originale de l’oralité dans l’écrit en faisant parler des hommes et des femmes, jeunes ou vieux, réels ou fictifs, d’époques et de conditions sociales très diverses. Cette poétique de la voix s’élabore dès les premiers poèmes et les pièces de théâtre, dans lesquels Browning expérimente constamment de nouveaux modes
d’expression qui assemblent des éléments lyriques et dramatiques. La forme du monologue dramatique, qui apparaît dans les recueils phares des Dramatic Lyrics (1842), Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845), Men and Women (1855) et Dramatis Personae (1864), lui permet de déployer la gamme de ses possibilités. Browning met en place un assemblage
subtil d’où émerge un matériau phonique dense et humain,
dans lequel différentes variables se combinent pour créer un rythme et une identité vocale propres à chaque locuteur. La polyphonie culmine dans l’écriture fuguée qui caractérise The Ring and the Book (1868-9). Cette enquête policière, dont le lecteur est le détective, est une œuvre majeure et foisonnante dont la structure polyphonique retentit d’accents aussi bien carnavalesques que philosophiques – et par-dessus tout ironiques – exposant ainsi ce qui constitue pour Browning les mille couleurs du kaléidoscope humain.

A study of the professionally produced plays by four major Victorian writers, set against the context of the battle between the Major and Minor theatres over the legitimacy of popular dramatic forms. Given the potential threat to authorial reputation, the book asks, why did these writers choose to embark on dramatic careers?

The Victorian poet, Robert Browning was mostly regarded as a great poet of love and an innovator of the dramatic monologue. He was also equally popularly the best-known for his philosophy of optimism, and the philosophy of the Imperfect. But few have looked at Browning’s philosophy of pain, suffering, and evil revealed in his poetry. A humble attempt has been made in this article to explore the common subjects, themes and treatment of pain, suffering, and evil in the poetry of Robert Browning to which a precise and careful evaluative investigation have been assessed by a gone through his some poems abounded with multiple and manifold notions and speeches of speakers, lofty subject-matters, ejaculated diction, presentation, contemporary common psychoanalytical issues and cultural appearance, philosophy of the grand stories on the ground of common subjects and objects, selection of the private and common symbols, perfect imaginary, viewpoint and the perfect creation of characterizatio...

This study argues that Robert Browning uses the method of "introspection," the psychological method of selfexamination or first-person observation of one's own mental and emotional processes, used by the Victorian psychologists, to represent various psychological states of the speaker in Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession (1833). Accordingly, this study analyses it pursuing the different methods Browning used in the portrayal of the human soul to obtain an insight into the changes in the inner world of humans and to achieve a realistic representation of it. The endeavour of the speaker to achieve self-knowledge through self-analysis and how he is represented as an introspective individual are scrutinised. Furthermore, Browning's use of the matters of self-consciousness, the first and/or thirdperson speech, and subjectivity and objectivity-that were discussed and used in the discourse of introspection-to examine the images of the self and subjective experience are studied and illustrated in the analysis of the work. In this analysis, scientific studies conducted by the leading figures in Victorian psychology, and definitions used and discussed by them are used in the discussion.

Una serie d'informazioni bio-bliografiche su Aldo Ricci, linguista, direttore della scuola d'inglese dell'Istituto Britannico a Firenze, autore e saggista scomparso prematuramente nel marzo 1930, all'età di trentasette anni.. Mario Praz lo definì "pioniere degli studi anglosassoni in Italia".

Kensington Gardens has influenced many artistic and literary ideas, with a strong emphasis on childhood imagination, fantasy and magic. The natural beauty of the Gardens has inspired the artists and writers, who have moulded British mythology by maintaining and re-inventing local myths and legends. They include the poets Thomas Tickell, Matthew Arnold and Robert Browning, The Pre-Raphaelite painters, illustrators Beatrix Potter and Arthur Rackham, authors Kenneth Grahame, A A Milne and perhaps most famously, J M Barrie. The area is rich in local folklore; throughout the ages successive generations of artists and writers have imbued the Gardens with a variety of fantastic and mystical attributes. These mythologies have been continually built upon and reinterpreted for new audiences in a diverse range of creative forms. Kensington Gardens contains a number of alleged sacred sites, some ancient and others more modern. The question is not if all of these myths are derived from truth; it is about identifying them and understanding how and why they came to be. Barrie has been associated with the area since he published The Little White Bird in 1902, marking the first brief appearance of Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn't grow up. Those chapters were later reworked as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906) illustrated by Arthur Rackham, who depicted actual locations within the Gardens. Fairies, mythical creatures, birds that hatch and become human babies populate Barrie's tales. But these fairies were not the first to be found in Kensington and another wild boy, one who couldn't grow up, lived

In this study I compare lines and passages in the works of Shakespeare and German poets with a view to examining signs of coherence that cannot be easily explained as a result of imitation or conscious adherence to tradition. The field of inquiry bears the heading of "wandering" the ambit of which includes the Pied Piper of Hamelin understood as a solar wanderer on the basis of Jung's theory of the unconscious