The Poems of Robert Browning
by Robert Browning 
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Description
The vitality and accessibility of Browning's poetry have given it lasting appeal. Many of his finest poems are the intensely dramatic monologues, such as "Andrea del Sarto" or "My Last Duchess," in which the poet's imaginative power is at its height. This splendid collection features selections from Browning's entire career, through the poet's literary successes and critical disappointments. Includes "Paracelsus," "Home Thoughts from Abroad," Sordello," "Christmas-Eve" and selections from show more "The Ring and the Book."" show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
I read enough of the poems and dramas to know that I will keep this collection on my shelves. Pretty sure I only understood the half of it due to age of the writing, language changes and my lack of education, but what I did understand was for the most part enjoyable, and in some instances enlightening.
My favorites:
Fra Lippo Lippi
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
My Last Duchess (not included in this collection)
My favorites:
Fra Lippo Lippi
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
My Last Duchess (not included in this collection)
This volume includes the contents of the 1863 3-volume collection, the 'Dramatis Persona' (1864), a previously unpublished 'Sonnet' and 'Ben Karshook's Wisdom', 'Orpheus and Euridice' (1864) and 'Deaf and Dumb' (1868). I purchased it in order to read 'Sordello' (1840).
The Cambridge Edition of the Poets
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Merrill's English Texts
59 works; 3 members
University literature
145 works; 5 members
CCE 1000 Good Books List
1,033 works; 12 members
Harold Bloom - The Western Canon: C. The Democratic Age
336 works; 15 members
Physical TBR List
68 works; 1 member
Author Information
575+ Works 10,105 Members
Robert Browning was the son of a well-to-do clerk in the Bank of England. He was educated by private tutors and from his own reading in his father's library and elsewhere. Browning's first publication was Pauline (1833). The work made no stir at all. The following year Browning went to St. Petersburg and from there to Italy. On his return to show more England in 1835 he published Paracelsus, a dramatic poem based on the life of the fifteenth-century magician and alchemist. Browning next attempted a play. Strafford was the first of the poet's dramatic failures; it ran only five nights at Covent Garden in 1836. An obscure and difficult poem, Sordello, appeared in 1840. It did a great deal toward giving Browning a reputation for being unintelligible and for limiting the circles of his readers. The most important event in Browning's life occurred in 1846, when he married Elizabeth Barrett. The marriage brought a new lightness and openness of voice to Browning's verse during the next 21 years, resulting in the great dramatic monologues of Men and Women in 1855 and the epic The Ring and the Book in 1867. It is not that these are the most beautiful poems of the Victorian Age, but they are the most perceptive; they reveal more clearly the men and women who speak the monologues, and the poet who conceived them, than any comparable works of the century. In the last two decades of his life Browning produced only a few great poems but much were grotesque and fantastic. He turned, too, to translations and transcriptions from the Greek tragedies; in spite of some powerful passages, these were not highly successful Robert Browning died in Italy in 1889. His body lies in Westminster Abbey. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Robert Browning has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.
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Common Knowledge
- Dedication
- Dedicated to Alfred Tennyson.
In poetry–illustrious and consummate;
In friendship–noble and sincere.
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- 906
- Popularity
- 29,475
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (4.05)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 21
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 55
