Robert Browning

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/rb/rbov.html

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell (a suburb of London), the first child of Robert and Sarah Anna Browning. His mother was a fervent Evangelical and an accomplished pianist. Mr. Browning had angered his own father and forgone a fortune: the poet's grandfather had sent his son to oversee a West Indies sugar plantation, but the young man had found the institution of slavery so abhorrent that he gave up his prospects and returned home, to become a clerk in the Bank of England. On this very modest salary he was able to marry, raise a family, and to acquire a library of 6000 volumes. He was an exceedingly well-read man who could recreate the seige of Troy with the household chairs and tables for the benefit of his inquisitive son.

Indeed, most of the poet's education came at home. He was an extremely bright child and a voracious reader (he read through all fifty volumes of the Biographie Universelle ) and learned Latin, Greek, French and Italian by the time he was fourteen. He attended the University of London in 1828, the first year it opened, but left in discontent to pursue his own reading at his own pace. This somewhat idiosyncratic but extensive education has led to difficulties for his readers: he did not always realize how obscure were his references and allusions.

In the 1830's he met the actor William Macready and tried several times to write verse drama for the stage. At about the same time he began to discover that his real talents lay in taking a single character and allowing him to discover himself to us by revealing more of himself in his speeches than he suspects-the characteristics of the dramatic monologue. The reviews of Paracelsus (1835) had been mostly encouraging, but the difficulty and obscurity of his long poem Sordello (1840) turned the critics against him, and for many years they continued to complain of obscurity even in his shorter, more accessible lyrics.

In 1845 he saw Elizabeth Barrett's Poems and contrived to meet her. Although she was an invalid and very much under the control of a domineering father, the two married in September 1846 and a few days later eloped to Italy, where they lived until her death in 1861. The years in Florence were among the happiest for both of them. Her love for him was demonstrated in the Sonnets from the Portugese, and to her he dedicated Men and Women, which contains his best poetry. Public sympathy for him after her death (she was a much more popular poet during their lifetimes) surely helped the critical reception of his Collected Poems (1862) and Dramatis Personae (1863). The Ring and the Book (1868-9), based on an "old yellow book" which told of a Roman murder and trial, finally won him considerable popularity. He and Tennyson were now mentioned together as the foremost poets of the age. Although he lived and wrote actively for another twenty years, the late '60s were the peak of his career. His influence continued to grow, however, and finally lead to the founding of the Browning Society in 1881. He died in 1889, on the same day that his final volume of verse, Asolando, was published. He is buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.

1812 Born in Camberwell, a London suburb. His father is a clerk at the Bank of England; his family are religious dissenters.

1820 Takes up school, as a weekly boarder in Peckham.

1826 Begins writing poetry, influenced largely by Shelley. Is tutored in French, Italian, Latin, and Greek.

1828 Attends London University for a semester; there he toys with atheism. Returns home, to study, write, and publish (at his father's expense) poetry. He will live at home until his thirties.

1833 Anonymously publishes his first work, the autobiographical Pauline, A Fragment of a Confession. It has almost no sales. Starts work on Sordello.

1834 Travels across Europe to Saint Petersburg, Russia; returns home.

1835 Publishes Paracelsus. which wins literary praise. Begins friendships with Carlyle, poet and critic W. S. Landor, and other men of letters.

1837 Strafford, the first of a series of unsuccessful plays, is produced and published.

1838 First visit to Italy.

1840 Publishes Sordello, a long narrative poem in dramatic monologue. It gains a reputation as "unintelligible" and "meaningless," establishing Browning as an obscure poet.

1841 Begins publishing a series of books under the title Bells and Pomegranates; composed mostly of plays. Publishes Pippa Passes.

1842 Publishes collection of poems called Dramatic Lyrics, including notably "My Last Duchess."

1843-1844 Production of three now obscure plays. Visits Italy for a second time.


1845 Writes a letter to Elizabeth Barrett praising her poetry. Visits her and declares his love. Her father is against marriage, though. Publication of Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.

1846 Publication of A Soul's Tragedy, concluding the Bells and Pomegranates series. Marries Elizabeth Barrett, secretly. They settle in Florence, Italy, where they will live in a happy marriage for fifteen years.

1849 A son is born, Robert Barrett-Browning ("Pen").

1850 Publishes Christmas Eve and Easter Day.

1851-1852 Visits Paris and London. Strikes friendships with literary and artistic figures of the day, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Charles Kingsley, and Tennyson.

1855 Publishes a two-volume poetry collection, Men and Women; it includes most of his best works, including "Fra Lippo Lippi" and "Andrea del Sarto."

1861 Elizabeth Barrett Browning dies; Browning moves to London with his son "Pen. "

1864 Publishes Dramatis Personae.

1868 Publishes The Ring and the Book, a long narrative poem of greed, deception, and murder; based on an Italian story. Though it was a popular success, it is now little read.

1869 Browning proposes marriage to Lady Ashburton, only to be rejected. This proposal, an example of Browning's propensity for social climbing, will continue to embarrass him in society and shame him over his infidelity towards his dead wife.

1871-1887 Publishes over a dozen volumes of poetry during this period, which now reside in near-obscurity. They include narrative poems such as Red-Cotton Nightcap Country and the two collections of Dramatic Idyls, verse plays such as The Inn Album, and translations from Greek such as The Agamemnon of Aeschylus.

1880 Dr. F. J. Furnivall and others establish the Browning Society in London. They study his works and idolize him.

1889 Publishes Asolando, a last collection of poems, and an edition of his complete works. Dies in Venice of bronchitis; is buried in Poets' Comer of Westminster Abbey.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/englit/victorian/INTRO/browning.html

Robert Browning

(1812-89)

Robert Browning was the son of a bank clerk. He had one sister and lived with his parents until he married. Browning attended a boarding school and spent a short time at the University of London, but was educated primarily through private tutoring. He initiated an intense correspondence with Elizabeth Barrett Barrett in 1844 after reading her Poems of that year. Two years later they secretly married and went to live in Italy. There they lived happily and wrote much, largely supported by Elizabeth Barrett Browning's independent income, until her death in 1861; they had one child. As a poet, Browning did not meet with a great deal of commercial success, especially in his earlier attempts at drama, but his work gradually garnered respect. In Men and Women (1855) and Dramatis Personae (1864), his use of the dramatic monologue to represent the inner workings of characters' minds, often in extreme situations, results in some of his finest work. His epic-length treatment, in the form of dramatic monologues, of a murder trial in Renaissance Rome, The Ring and the Book (1868-69), is considered one of the greatest Victorian poems. He lived to see the founding of the Browning Society in 1881, and by the end of the century, his reputation had eclipsed that of his wife.

http://www.love-poems.me.uk/biography_browning_robert.htm

Browning Robert - Biography, picture and poemsLife in a Love
a poem by Robert Browning 

Escape me?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here? 
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,—
So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me—
Ever
Removed!

The Pied Piper Of Hamelin
Robert Browning


Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.

Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

At last the people in a body
To the Town Hall came flocking:
"'Tis clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy;
And as for our Corporation—shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine
What's best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!"
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.

An hour they sate in council,
At length the Mayor broke silence:
"For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell;
I wish I were a mile hence!
It's easy to bid one rack one's brain— 
I'm sure my poor head aches again
I've scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!"
Just as he said this, what should hap
At the chamber door but a gentle tap?
"Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?"
(With the Corporation as he sat,
Looking little though wondrous fat;
Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister
Than a too-long-opened oyster,
Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous
For a plate of turtle green and glutinous)
"Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!"

"Come in!"—the Mayor cried, looking bigger:
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red;
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out and in— 
There was no guessing his kith and kin!
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire:
Quoth one: "It's as my great-grandsire,
Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,
Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!"

He advanced to the council-table:
And, "Please your honours," said he, "I'm able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures living beneath the sun,
That creep or swim or fly or run,
After me so as you never saw!
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that do people harm,
The mole and toad and newt and viper;
And people call me the Pied Piper."
(And here they noticed round his neck
A scarf of red and yellow stripe,
To match with his coat of the selfsame cheque;
And at the scarf's end hung a pipe;
And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying
As if impatient to be playing
Upon this pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old-fangled.)
"Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,
Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;
I eased in Asia the Nizam
Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats;
And, as for what your brain bewilders,
If I can rid your town of rats
Will you give me a thousand guilders?"
"One? fifty thousand!"—was the exclamation
Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

Into the street the Piper stepped,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
In his quiet pipe the while;
Then, like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled
Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives— 
Followed the Piper for their lives.
From street to street he piped advancing,
And step for step they followed dancing,
Until they came to the river Weser,
Wherein all plunged and perished!
- Save one who, stout a Julius Caesar,
Swam across and lived to carry
(As he, the manuscript he cherished)
To Rat-land home his commentary:
Which was, "At the first shrill notes of the pipe
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples, wondrous ripe,
Into a cider-press's gripe:
And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,
And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,
And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,
And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks;
And it seemed as if a voice
(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery
Is breathed) called out 'Oh, rats, rejoice!
The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!
So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!'
And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,
All ready staved, like a great sun shone
Glorious scarce and inch before me,
Just as methought it said 'Come, bore me!'
- I found the Weser rolling o'er me."

You should have heard the Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.
"Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles!
Poke out the nests and block up the holes!
Consult with carpenters and builders,
And leave in our town not even a trace
Of the rats!"—when suddenly, up the face
Of the Piper perked in the market-place,
With a, "First, if you please, my thousand guilders!"

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation too.
For council dinners made rare havoc
With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gypsy coat of red and yellow!
"Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,
"Our business was done at the river's brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what's dead can't come to life, I think.
So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you something for drink,
And a matter of money to put in your poke;
But, as for the guilders, what we spoke
Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.
Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.
A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!"

The Piper's face fell, and he cried
"No trifling! I can't wait, beside!
I've promised to visit by dinner-time
Bagdat, and accept the prime
Of the Head Cook's pottage, all he's rich in,
For having left, in the Calip's kitchen,
Of a nest of scorpions no survivor— 
With him I proved no bargain-driver,
With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver!
And folks who put me in a passion
May find me pipe to another fashion."

"How?" cried the Mayor, "d'ye think I'll brook
Being worse treated than a Cook?
Insulted by a lazy ribald
With idle pipe and vesture piebald?
You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst,
Blow your pipe there till you burst!"

Once more he stepped into the street;
And to his lips again
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;
And ere he blew three notes (such sweet
Soft notes as yet musician's cunning
Never gave the enraptured air)
There was a rustling, that seemed like a bustling
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling,
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering,
And, like fowls in a farmyard when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood,
Unable to move a step, or cry
To the children merrily skipping by— 
And could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper's back.
But how the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council's bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However he turned from South to West,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.
"He never can cross that mighty top!
He's forced to let the piping drop,
And we shall see our children stop!"
When, lo, as they reached the mountain's side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and the children followed,
And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain-side shut fast.
Did I say, all? No! One was lame,
And could not dance the whole of the way;
And in after years, if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say,— 
"It's dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can't forget that I'm bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me:
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey-bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles' wings:
And just as I became assured
My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the Hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before,
And never hear of that country more!"

Alas, alas for Hamelin!
There came into many a burgher's pate
A text which says, that Heaven's Gate
Opes to the Rich at as easy rate
As the needle's eye takes a camel in!
The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,
To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,
Wherever it was men's lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart's content,
If he'd only return the way he went,
And bring the children behind him.
But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavour,
And Piper and dancers were gone for ever,
They made a decree that lawyers never
Should think their records dated duly
If, after the day of the month and year,
These words did not as well appear,
"And so long after what happened here
On the Twenty-second of July,
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six":
And the better in memory to fix
The place of the children's last retreat,
They called it, the Pied Piper's Street— 
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor
Was sure for the future to lose his labour.
Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern
To shock with mirth a street so solemn;
But opposite the place of the cavern
They wrote the story on a column,
And on the great Church-Window painted
The same, to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away;
And there it stands to this very day.
And I must not omit to say
That in Transylvania there's a tribe
Of alien people that ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress
On which their neighbours lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
But how or why, they don't understand.

So, Willy, let you and me be wipers
Of scores out with all men—especially pipers:
And, whether they pipe us free, from rats or from mice,
If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise.

http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/r/ro/robert_browning.html

Robert Browning

Robert Browning (May 7, 1812 - December 12, 1889) was an English poet.

He was born in Camberwell, Surrey, the only son of Robert and Sarah Browning. Despite his father being only a bank clerk, he was raised in a household that had a library of 6000 books. His mother was a devout Nonconformist, and they lived simply, but his father encouraged Robert's interest in literature and the arts.

He was a rapid learner and by the age of 14 was fluent in French, Greek, Italian, and Latin as well as his native English. He became a great admirer of the Romantic poets, especially Shelley. In imitation of the latter, he became an atheist and a vegetarian, but in later life he looked back on this as a passing phase. At age 16 he attended University College, London but dropped out after his first year.

In 1833, Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession, was published anonymously, and marked the beginning of his career as a poet. Having become friendly with a Russian diplomat, he had the opportunity to visit St Petersburg, and this journey was an inspiration to him.

His works include:

Paracelsus (1835)

Sordello (1840)

Pippa Passes (play) (1841)

Dramatic Lyrics (1842)

"Porphyria's Lover"

"Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"

"My Last Duchess"

Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)

"How They Brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent"

"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church"

Men and Women (1855)

"A Toccata of Galuppi's"

"'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came'"

"Fra Lippo Lippi"

"Andrea Del Sarto"

"A Grammarian's Funeral"

"An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician"

Collected Poems (1862)

Dramatis Personae (1864)

"Caliban upon Setebos"

"Rabbi Ben Ezra"

The Ring and the Book (1869)

The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1888)

In 1846, he married secretly Elizabeth Barrett, a semi-invalid, and they made their home in Italy. Their son, Robert, was born in Florence in 1849. Following Elizabeth's death in 1861, Browning and his son returned to London. He became romantically involved with Lady Ashburton, but did not re-marry. In 1878, he returned to Italy, and spent summer holidays there on several occasions.

His remains can be found in Westminster Abbey.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_browning.html

A minute's success pays the failure of years.
Robert Browning

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for?
Robert Browning

Ambition is not what man does... but what man would do.
Robert Browning

And gain is gain, however small.
Robert Browning

Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.
Robert Browning

Fail I alone, in words and deeds? Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
Robert Browning

Faultless to a fault.
Robert Browning

Go practice if you please with men and women: leave a child alone for Christ's particular love's sake!
Robert Browning

God is the perfect poet.
Robert Browning

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.
Robert Browning

How good is man's life, the mere living! How fit to employ all the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!
Robert Browning

I count life just a stuff to try the soul's strength on.
Robert Browning

Inscribe all human effort with one word, artistry's haunting curse, the Incomplete!
Robert Browning

Kiss me as if you made believe You were not sure this eve, How my face, your flower, had pursed It's petals up ...
Robert Browning

Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.
Robert Browning

Love is energy of life.
Robert Browning

Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.
Robert Browning

Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.
Robert Browning

My sun sets to rise again.
Robert Browning

Never the time and the place and the loved one all together!
Robert Browning

Of what I call God, And fools call Nature.
Robert Browning

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake.
Robert Browning

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.
Robert Browning

Stung by the splendor of a sudden thought.
Robert Browning

Take away love and our earth is a tomb.
Robert Browning

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.
Robert Browning

The moment eternal - just that and no more - When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut, and lips meet!
Robert Browning

'Tis not what man does which exalts him, but what man Would do!
Robert Browning

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
Robert Browning

What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew.
Robert Browning

What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all; Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold.
Robert Browning

Who hears music feels his solitude peopled at once.
Robert Browning

You should not take a fellow eight years old and make him swear to never kiss the girls.
Robert Browning