Monday, June 29, 2009

Although Robert Browning is not a very intriguing poet, he has this sort attraction in his poems that it puts the reader into a trance, allowing the reader to think deeply and forming a scene in the mind.

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!'”

-Robert Browning

As such, I am going to do a biographical post about him.

Robert Browning was born 7 May 1812, first child and only son of Robert Browning and Sarah Wiedemann Browning. Robert was an impulsive, fearless little boy who was also rather a prodigy, writing poems and reading Homer at a very young age. He learned many languages and devoured his father's history books. He also liked to read books that were considered rather shocking and not quite suitable for children. Robert also had quite a habit of falling for older women, as his father had done. This first happened when Robert was barely in his teens and he apparently developed a crush on a woman named Eliza Flower, then in her early twenties.

At 16, Robert began attending the newly-formed London University, established for those Nonconformists like Robert who were barred from Oxford and Cambridge. Robert attended for only just over a year, though thanks to his reading, he was really quite an educated man. He also was quite arrogant at times. By the time he was 20, he was convinced that he would be a great poet, if not the great poet. His family had enough money to support him in these poetical endeavours, a good thing as he got off to a very rocky start. His first published work, Pauline, was considered not very good, but promising; his second, Paracelsus, was well-received and Robert was always proud of it. He even wrote several stage plays (between 1836 and 1843) which were also well-received, though quite forgotten today. It was in 1840 that he really had some problems.

In March of that year, Robert published Sordello, a Poem in Six Books, at his father's expense. Sordello was an obscure Mantuan poet/warrior of the early 13th century, and though the poem has many beautifully descriptive passages, no one really understood it. To make matters even worse, three years earlier, a woman named Mrs. Busk had published her own poem on Sordello, done in a lilting, nearly doggerel sort of style. But these problems aside, Robert was beginning to really hit his poetical stride. Between 1841 and 1846, he published four books, mainly collections of his shorter poems that would become among his most famous works.

It was about this time that Robert's correspondence with Elizabeth Barrett began, when he wrote to thank her for a flattering mention of his work in one of her poems. Even in this very first letter, he told her that he loved her, which alarmed Elizabeth immensely. Still, he managed to meet her face to face in May of 1845 and marry her in September of that year. The happy couple went to Florence and were enchanted by it, finally settling in the famous Casa Guidi.

They lived like hermits, the normally gregarious Robert content to stay at home with the usually ill Elizabeth. On 9 March 1849, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning was born, though when Robert's mother Sarah died later that month, never knowing she had a grandson, Robert was devastated. It was Elizabeth and her poems that finally pulled him through.

In 1855, Robert's collection of short poems, Men and Women, was published, an excellent book that received good but not great reviews. But he was mostly neglecting his poetry in order to be with Elizabeth. Her death on 28 June 1861 was more a relief than a shock, as she had been fading badly for some time. Robert re-dedicated himself to his poetry and to his son.

By now, Robert was truly famous, finally one of THE great poets, as he had always wanted. He received two honorary degrees and was much admired, though generally from a distance, as many considered him to be rather ill-tempered. It may surprise you to learn (I know it surprised me) that he actually proposed to another woman ten years after Elizabeth's death, one Lady Louisa Ashburton, but she turned him down. Robert really disliked her after that, even though he told everyone that the proposal was for Pen's sake.

Robert wrote a great deal right up to the end of his life, though he was plagued by colds and bronchitis; his last book, Asolando, was published the day of his death, 12 December 1889. Robert had always assumed he would be buried beside Elizabeth, but as that cemetary had been closed to further burials, he instead received a grand funeral at Westminster Abbey.

Elizabeth Barett is a hyperlink that links to her biography.

The three poems that you may want to view is the following.

The Lost Mistress
Meeting at Night
Porphyria's Lover

YeeHark

Citations:

Poetry Archive. (2002). Robert Browning: Poems. Retrieved Jul. 01, 2009, from

http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/browning_robert.html

Google Search Engine. (2009). Google Search Engine. Retrieved Jul. 01, 2009, from

http://www.google.com.sg

Incompetech. (2009). Robert Browning. Retrieved Jul. 01, 2009, from

http://incompetech.com/authors/rbrowning/

6:57 PM
Blogged