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2. Robert Browning (1812-1889)
 Life
The equally well-known poet as Tennyson in Victorian
Age was Robert Browning. In 1812, Robert was born into a wealthy family of a
senior clerk in the Bank of England. Young Browning was almost educated at
home, with his mother teaching him music, his father introducing him to
literature and some tutors teaching him gardening, boxing, horsemanship,
etc. In his youth, Browning modeled on Shelley in poetic creation and at his
family’s cost successively published Pauline (1833), Paracelsus
(1835) and Sordello (1840), but did not receive much favorable
recognition. The young poet accepted the criticism and tried to adopt a more
objective style in his poetry. Between 1841 and 1846, encouraged by a
well-known actor then William Charles Macready, he wrote several dramas
including Strafford (1837), Pippa Passes (1841), King
Victor and King Charles (1842), The Return of the Drues (1843),
A Blotin the’ Seutcheon (1843), Colombe’s Birthday (1844) and
A Soul’s Tragedy (1846). Later, all of them were collected in the
book, Bells and Pomegranates (1846). Although they were not appealing
to the public, they contributed much to the development and improvement of
Browning’s skill on dramatic monologue.
Since 1845, Browning began his famous courtship in English
literary history with Elizabeth Barrett, who was six years older than him
and had already been a famous poet then. Miss. Barrett was also an invalid
under the protection of her tyrannical father. One year later, they married
secretly and then eloped to Italy.
During the next 15 years happy marriage, Browning
published Men and Women (1855), which together with Dramatic Lyrics
(1842), Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845) and Dramatic Personae
(1864) represented his greatest talents in dramatic monologue and
established him as a popular poet at that time.
In 1861, Mrs. Browning died of illness and then Browning
returned to England. From 1868 to 1869,
he published his monumental work and masterpiece, The Ring and the Book,
in which his use of dramatic monologue reached its summit. In 1889, Browning
died in Venice, Italy, and then the body was carried back to Britain and
buried in the Westminster Abbey. His last works included Fifine at the
Fair (1872), Pacchiarotto, with Other Poems (1876), La Saisiaz
(1878), Ferishtah’s Fancies (1884) and Asolando (1889).
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