ROBERT
BROWNING AS A VICTORIAN POET
BROWNING
AS A POET OF DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES
BROWNING
AS A POET OF HOPE AND OPTIMISM
INTRODUCTION:
Robert Browning,
the greatest poet next to Lord Alfred Tennyson, is a dazzling star in the
firmament of Victorian English poetry. He is one of the finest love poets of English
literature. His most important political works are:
1.Pauline
(1833)
2.
Paracelsus (1835)
3.
Sordello (1840)
4.
Dramatic Lyrics (1842)
5.
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)
6.
Men and Women (1855)
7.
The ring and the book (1868)
BROWNING VS TENNYSON:
Browning and
Tennyson are the two most dominant poets of the Victorian age. But there is a
sharp contrast between the two. Tennyson was the product of his age and was
much influenced by his times, by industrial development, Oxford Movement,
Feminism etc. But Browning remains aloof from all these movements of his times
and his poetry does not reflect these spirits. It was because of this that he
was mostly not recognized as a great poet in his early career. But later on
Tennyson’s popularity deceased and that of Browning increased later in his
life.
BROWNING'S LOVE POEMS:
Browning's
expression of love in his poems is different from most love poets of English
literature. He is not concerned with divine love or love for god, love for the
country etc. He deals with only the love between men and women. Stopford Brooke
avers in this regard:
"The love poems of Browning do not mean those poems which deal
with absolute love or the love of the ideas as truth and beauty or love of
mankind or country; but it means the isolating passion of one sex for the
other, chiefly in youth, weather moral or immoral."
Browning's
love poems give expression to all the forms of physical love. The fierce animal
passion of Ottima is found in 'Pippa Passes' and the romantic love is found in
his 'the last Ride Together'.
REALISM IN HIS LOVE POEMS:
Browning's
love poetry is highly realistic by nature. He has expressed the realistic idea
that a man loves a woman not for her spiritual qualities but for her physical
charm only. Crierson and Smith rightly observe:
"With her curls, her dental chin, her little tricks of speech,
the causeless laughter ... That is the real thing, and in that kind of love
poetry, browning is a master."
In his poetry,
we do not see the stars, the fairies, the mountains and the rivers; but instead
we see the realistic day-today objects like piano, urban streets, medicine
bottles, fashionable clothes etc. G. K. Chesterton truly opens:
"Browning’s love poetry is the finest in the world because it
does not talk about raptures and ideals and gates of heaven."
In short, his
poetry is down to earth and realistic.
ALL SHADES OF LOVE IN BROWNING'S POETRY:
Browning's
love poetry is highly comprehensive. We find all different shades of love in
him. He deals with successful as well as unsuccessful love. Of the poems whose
subject is physical love, about two third represent the feelings of man and one
third, the feeling of woman. Some poems present men's successful love but some
other poems express men's despair in love. Some very famous love poems are - 'By
the Fireside', 'One Word More', 'Love in a Life', 'One Way of Love' etc.
Crompton Racket has beautifully summed up Browning's comprehensive poetry:
"Certain aspects of love have been more finely rendered by
other poets; but in range of matter, Browning has no superior."
BROWNING'S DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES:
What is a Dramatic
Monologue?
Dramatic Monologue is
the poetic technique wherein a long speech by a single character is addressed to
the other character in order to convince the listener about something.
Monologue provides us a peep into the psyche of the character.
Browning has
been appreciated as a dramatic poet. In fact, he wrote a few plays, but he was
not successful as a dramatist. However, his dramatic art is well reflected in
his love poems in the form of dramatic monologues. He is the supreme master of
writing dramatic monologues. In his monologues, Browning portrays a wide
variety of characters from all classes of life - cowards, scholars, musicians,
painters, cheats etc. Browning has successfully used this device to reveal the
inner psychology of his characters.
BROWNING’S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE:
Browning has
expressed his thoughts on the problems of life in a philosophical way. His
poems like ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’, “Abt Vogler’ etc reveal his philosophical bent of
mind. He seems to be a different poet in comparison to the other Victorian
poets as far as philosophy of life is concerned. When most Victorian poets
expressed despair and melancholy during the 19th century, Browning
comes out as a poet of hope and optimism. He has strong faith in God and feels
safe in the hands of God. Pauline’s lover says, “I saw
God everywhere – I felt presence.” Paracelsus declares his faith in God:
“Thus He dwells in all
From life’s minute
beginnings, at last to man.”
Unlike Thomas
Hardy, Browning does not consider God as cruel or tyrannical. He considers God
as a soothing power for the mankind. Mark his words:
“God made all the creatures
and gave them
Our love and our fear
We and they are His
children
One family here.”
In one of
his songs of Pippa, he writes:
“God’s in His heaven
All’s right with the world.”
Browning’s
optimism is found in his following lines:
“Strive and thrive, try
speed, fight on forever.”
OBSCURITY IN BROWNING'S POETRY:
Browning is a
difficult poet to understand. His poetry is often criticized for its obscurity;
because it is packed with too many thoughts and his style of presentation too
lacks simplicity and clarity. Douglas Jarrod was unhappy when he read
Browning's poem 'Sordello' and said:
"My God! I'm an idiot....I can't understand two consecutive
lines of an English poem (Sordello)!"
Once a student
went to browning to understand and solve the meaning of his poem. Browning replied
the boy in a jocular mood and said:
"When I wrote this poem, only two persons knew the meaning of
it - God and I. Now only one of them (God) knows it."
CONCLUSION:
In short, we
may say that Robert Browning was a great poet next to Tennyson during the
Victorian era. He has been revered as a poet of love and is remembered for his
dramatic monologues. In spite of obscurity in his poems, his optimistic
philosophy of life well expressed in his poetry also makes him a serious poet
of English literature.
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