Browning, Robert: Major English poet of the Victorian age

 Robert Browning:

(1812-1889)

English poet Robert Browning was born on 1812. He was the son of well to do official of the Bank of England. Till the age of 14, he had no formal education though he studied at home with the help and encouragement of his father, a highly cultivated man with an excellent library. His parents made no objection to their son choosing poetry as a career.

 At the age of 14 Browning had fallen under the spell of Percy Bysshe Shelley. His first published poem was ‘Pauline’ in 1833, ‘Restless’ in 1835 was a definite advance but it was not well received though Elizabeth Barrett found in it ‘the expression of a new mind’. In 1840 ‘Sordello’ was published which was perhaps the most ambitious and disastrous of his early poems. It was widely criticized as obscure and Browning never really threw off this don’t of obscurity.  He published privately a number of small publications including some of his best known poems. ‘Soliloquy in the Spanish Cloister’, ‘the Pied Piper of Hamelin’, ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘Home Thoughts from Abroad’.

He was dissatisfied with all his works so far and still searching for his true voice.  In January 1845, he first wrote to Elizabeth pirate a letter that led to a correspondence and a meeting. In September 1846, they first married secretly and eloped to Paris and then to Italy.  They lived in Italy for the next 15 year until her death.

In 1850 Browning published ‘Christmas Eve’ and ‘Easter day; two points but they were not artistic success.  His publication ‘Men and Women’ contain many of his finest poems including ‘Love among the ruins’,  ‘Childe Rolande’, ‘The dark tower’,  ‘Karshish and the Arab Physician’,  ‘Bishops Blougram’s Apology’,  ‘By the fireside’ and ‘the last Ride Together’.

In June 1861, Elizabeth Barrett Browning died, A month later Browning packed up and left Italy for London. The greatest experience of his life was over but it was not the end of his writing. In the year 1864 he published ‘Dramatist Personae’ which received far more acclaimed than any of his previous books.

Robert brown is not a very popular poet but he created fresh idioms in English poetry and his language and technique were as bold as his designs. He remains one of the greatest of Victorian poets.

visit my website: