This book delves into the literary genius of Robert Browning, the renowned Victorian poet and playwright famous for his dramatic monologues. Although his early works 'Pauline' and 'Paracelsus' were highly praised, his reputation suffered after 'Sordello' was considered too cryptic. However, he reinvented himself with a more personal style, which he showcased in his collection 'Men and Women'. Browning's marriage to fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett and his move to Italy also had a profound effect on his work. This book offers a comprehensive study of Browning's life and works, examining his ironic tone, unique characterization, historical settings, and use of languages.
Excerpt from An Introduction to the Study of Browning I have ever held that the rod with which popular fancy invests criticism is properly the rod of divination: a hazel switch for the discovery of buried treasure, not a birch - twig for the castigation of offenders. It has therefore been my aim in the following pages to direct attention to the best, not to forage for the worst - the small faults which acquire prominence only by isolationflof the poet with whose writings I am concerned. I wish also to give information, more or less detailed, about each of Mr. Browning's works; information sufficient to the purpose I have in view, which is to induce those who have hitherto deprived themselves of a stimulating pleasure to deprive themselves of it no longer. Further, my aim is in no sense controversial. In a book whose sole purpose is to serve as an introduction to the study of a single one of our contemporary poets, I have consciously and carefully refrained from instituting com parisons - which I deprecate as, to say the least, unnecessary - between the poet in question and any of the other eminent poets in whose time we have the honour of living. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Preliminary Material /Ann Moffat -- The Publications of Robert Browning /Ian Martin -- The Controversy about Slavery reported by Aristotle, Politics, I vi, 1255a4 following /Trevor J. Saunders -- Greek Ethics after MacIntyre and the Stoic Community of Reason /A.A. Long -- The Early Pantomime Riots /E.J. Jory -- The Dark Side of the Moon /P.J. Bicknell -- An Early-Fourth-Century Female Monastic Community in Egypt? /Alanna Emmett -- Friends and Enemies of John Chrysostom /J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz -- The Holy Men and their Biographers in early Byzantium and medieval China: A preliminary comparative study in hagiography /Samuel N.C. Lieu -- Reflections upon the Theological Tractates of Boethius /John R.S. Mair -- The Poetic Achievement of George of Pisidia: A literary and historical study /J.D.C. Frendo -- Thema /J.D. Howard-Johnston -- The Life of St Athanasia of Aegina: A critical edition with introduction /Lydia Carras -- The Bath of Leo the Wise /Paul Magdalino -- Iakovos Monachos, Letter 3 /M.J. Jeffreys -- Matthaios Gabalas and his Kephalaia /Athanassios Angelou -- An Emperor without Clothes? Niccolò Niccoli under attack /M.C. Davies -- 'The Faithless Kabazitai and Scbolarioi ' /A.A.M. Bryer -- Constantine XI Palaeologus; some problems of image /Margaret Carroll -- The After-Life of the Letters of Theophylaktos Simokatta /Ann Moffatt -- Plates /Ann Moffat.
Browning's Beginnings was first published in 1980. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Browning's Beginnings offers a fresh approach to the poet who, among major Victorians, has proved at once the most congenial and most inscrutable to modern readers. Drawing on recent developments in literary theory and in the criticism of romantic poetry, Herbert F. Tucker, Jr., argues that Browning's stylistic "obscurity" is the result of a principled poetics of evasion. This art of disclosure, in deferring formal and semantic finalities, constitutes an aesthetic counterpart to his open-ended moral philosophy of"incompleteness," Browning's poems, like his enormously productive career, find their motivation and sustenance in his optimistic love of the future—a love that is indistinguishable from his lifelong fear that there will be nothing left to say. The opening chapters trace the workings of Browning's art of disclosure with extensive and original interpretations of the unduly neglected early poems, Pauline, Paracelsus, and Sordello, and place special emphasis on Browning's attitudes toward poetic tradition and language. A chapter on Browning's attitudes toward poetic tradition and language. A chapter on Browning's plays identifies dynamics of representation in Pippa Passes, Strafford,and King Victor and King Charles. Tucker discusses the pervasive analogy between Browning's ideas about poetic representation and about representation in its erotic and religious aspects, and shows how the early poems and plays illustrate correlative developments in poetics and in the exploration and dramatic rendering of human psychology. The remaining chapters follow the poetic psychology of Browning to its culmination in the great poems of his middle years; exemplary readings of selected dramatic lyrics and monologues suggest that the ways of meaning in Browning's mature work variously bear out the sense of endlessness or perpetual initiation that is central to his poetic beginnings. Tucker thus contends that the "romantic" and the "Victorian" Browning have more in common than is generally supposed, and his book should appeal to students of both periods. Its discussion of general literary issues - poetic influence, closure, representation, and meaning - in application to particular texts should further recommend Browning's Beginnings to the nonspecialist reader interested in poetry and poetic theory.
