![]() ![]() Strangers like you that pictured countenance, Worked busily a day, and there she stands.ĥWill’t please you sit and look at her? I said That piece a wonder, now Fra Pandolf’s hands That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Robert Browning died on the same day that his final volume of verse, Asolando, was published, in 1889. The Browning Society was founded in 1881, and he was awarded honorary degrees by Oxford University in 1882 and the University of Edinburgh in 1884. The latter, based on a seventeenth century Italian murder trial, received wide critical acclaim, finally earning Browning renown and respect in the twilight of his career. Browning went on to publish Dramatis Personae (1864), and The Ring and the Book (1868). Now regarded as one of Browning’s best works, the book was received with little notice at the time its author was then primarily known as Elizabeth Barrett’s husband.Įlizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, and Robert and Pen Browning moved to London soon after. Elizabeth inspired Robert’s collection of poems Men and Women (1855), which he dedicated to her. They had a son, Robert “Pen” Browning, in 1849, the same year Browning’s Collected Poems was published. The couple moved to Pisa and then Florence, where they continued to write. They were married in 1846, against the wishes of Barrett’s father. Eliot, and Robert Frost.Īfter reading Elizabeth Barrett’s Poems (1844) and corresponding with her for a few months, Browning met her in 1845. Nevertheless, the techniques he developed through his dramatic monologues-especially his use of diction, rhythm, and symbol-are regarded as his most important contribution to poetry, influencing such major poets of the twentieth century as Ezra Pound, T.S. He also tried his hand at drama, but his plays, including Strafford, which ran for five nights in 1837, and the Bells and Pomegranates series, were for the most part unsuccessful. In 1833, Browning anonymously published his first major published work, Pauline, and in 1840, he published Sordello, which was widely regarded as a failure. The random nature of his education later surfaced in his writing, leading to criticism of his poems’ obscurities. In 1828, Browning enrolled at the University of London, but he soon left, anxious to read and learn at his own pace. Despite this early passion, he apparently wrote no poems between the ages of thirteen and twenty. In 1825, a cousin gave Browning a collection of Shelley’s poetry Browning was so taken with the book that he asked for the rest of Shelley’s works for his thirteenth birthday, and declared himself a vegetarian and an atheist in emulation of the poet. From fourteen to sixteen, he was educated at home, attended to by various tutors in music, drawing, dancing, and horsemanship.Īt the age of twelve, he wrote a volume of Byronic verse entitled Incondita, which his parents attempted, unsuccessfully, to have published. A bright and anxious student, Browning learned Latin, Greek, and French by the time he was fourteen. It is believed that he was already proficient at reading and writing by the age of five. Much of Browning’s education came from his well-read father. ![]() His rare book collection of more than 6,000 volumes included works in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. His father worked as a bank clerk and was also an artist, scholar, antiquarian, and collector of books and pictures. His mother was an accomplished pianist and a devout evangelical Christian. Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England. Poetry 21 “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning (Dramatic Monologue) Feature Unit: The Sonnets of William Shakespeare (1564–1616).Feature Poet: Emily Dickinson (1830–1886).Feature Unit: The Poetry of World War I.Feature Unit: The Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance.25. An Anthology of Poems for Further Study ![]()
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