INTRODUCTION

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SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BROWNING.

GENERALIZATIONS about so varied a poet as Robert Browning are as misleading as they are easy. It has become the fashion for each critic to speak of him with a series of more or less suitable epithets. He is obscure, dramatic, Christian, modern, introspective, and so forth. But, in truth, neither his friends nor his enemies are in position to know altogether or even almost what he is. A few years of honest study and honest reflection will not be too much to give to a poet who makes, tacitly at least, such claims as Robert Browning.

The present volume aims at being the first step in such quiet, unassuming work. We need little general analysis of Browning. The real aim of this little book is simply to put students into the way of pursuing successfully a study of his poetry. Never was author for whom it is more disastrous that his readers should begin at the wrong end. This volume hopes to present an untangled skein to its student.

For this purpose are needed: (a) the chief facts of the poet's life; (b) a chronological table of his longer works; (c) a few citations from the best criticisms of him; (d) a brief list of the reviews or other articles worth consulting; (e) careful notes, explanatory of historical, local, or otherwise obscure allusions in the selections.

I. THE LIFE AND WORKS OF BROWNING.

Robert Browning was born at Camberwell, London, in 1812. His father was a clerk in the Bank of England. When Robert was eight years old he made a metrical translation from Horace. He studied at London University. At twenty he published his first poem, Pauline; and at twentythree, Paracelsus. From that time his production has been steady and large. In 1846 he married Elizabeth Barrett. In 1849 a son was born to him. In 1861 Mrs. Browning died. The years from 1851 to 1861 were a time of less productive activity than any others of his life, but were perhaps the most important in his intellectual and emotional development.

His first poem, Pauline, scarcely commanded the attention. even of the professional critics-usually alert to find even a novel failure; but the value of Paracelsus was recognized by many critics. The drama of Strafford, which followed, must be confessed a failure upon the stage, though Macready did his best for its success. After Sordello-a hopeless poem for a public unaccustomed to Browning's manner,—came a most extraordinary series known as Bells and Pomegranates. The very name seems to have been inexplicable to most readers. It was simply a conceit borrowed from the decoration upon the robe of the Jewish high-priest.* Mr. Browning explained it at the end of the series † in this fashion: "I meant by the title to indicate an endeavour towards something like an alternation, or mixture, of music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought, which looks too ambitious thus expressed, so the symbol was preferred."

*"And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about; a golden bell and a pomegran ate, upon the hem of the robe round about."-Exodus, xxviii. 33, 34. † Preface to Ist edition of A Soul's Tragedy.

These poems were issued in shilling numbers, at irregular intervals, and with yellow-paper covers. Paper and type were as unattractive as possible. The pages were printed in double columns. Little effort was made to interest even the small audience which such poems could hope to gain. But in spite of this indifference the poems made their way. The series included all the Dramas, the Dramatic Lyrics and Romances, and The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's. It will be seen that the material for the present selection is largely drawn from Bells and Pomegranates.

In 1850 were published Christmas Eve and Easter Day, and in the next ten years the two volumes of short poemsMen and Women and Dramatis Persona. During these years a distinct change took place in the character of Mr. Browning's work. He forsook the dramatic form. He wrote brief, pointed poems of incident, of character, of emotion, instead of the long philosophical meditations of the early period. The picturesque aspects of life seem to have laid hold on him. Youth and Art, Rabbi Ben Ezra," Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," represent this period in the present selection. It is not presumptuous to say that Mrs. Browning's influence is evident in all the work of the decade, and that the comparative silence of the last part of it was due to the eternal silence gathering about the woman the poet loved.

With 1868 began the third and last epoch in Browning's work. The Ring and the Book was in a new vein,—the richest that he had yet worked. This is no place for an abstract or a criticism of this great epic. It was closely followed by a dozen poems in the same external style. They are a phil osophical presentation of a dramatic motif; The Inn Album, Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, Fifine at the Fair are like what we should expect if a master took the musical situations of a great Wagnerian opera and put them into the symphonic form.

These poems were issued in shilling numbers, at irregular intervals, and with yellow-paper covers. Paper and type were as unattractive as possible. The pages were printed in double columns. Little effort was made to interest even the small audience which such poems could hope to gain. But in spite of this indifference the poems made their way. The series included all the Dramas, the Dramatic Lyrics and Romances, and The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's. It will be seen that the material for the present selection is largely drawn from Bells and Pomegranates.

In 1850 were published Christmas Eve and Easter Day, and in the next ten years the two volumes of short poemsMen and Women and Dramatis Persona. During these years a distinct change took place in the character of Mr. Browning's work. He forsook the dramatic form. He wrote brief, pointed poems of incident, of character, of emotion, instead of the long philosophical meditations of the early period. The picturesque aspects of life seem to have laid hold on him. Youth and Art, Rabbi Ben Ezra," Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," represent this period in the present selection. It is not presumptuous to say that Mrs. Browning's influence is evident in all the work of the decade, and that the comparative silence of the last part of it was due to the eternal silence gathering about the woman the poet loved.

With 1868 began the third and last epoch in Browning's work. The Ring and the Book was in a new vein,-the richest that he had yet worked. This is no place for an abstract or a criticism of this great epic. It was closely followed by a dozen poems in the same external style. They are a phil osophical presentation of a dramatic motif; The Inn Album, Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, Fifine at the Fair are like what A we should expect if a master took the musical situations of a great Wagnerian opera and put them into the symphonic form.

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