Introduction to Robert Browning [2]
the Palazzo Rezzonico, when, in the course of what I was telling him about the study of his works in the United States, I alluded to the divided opinion as to the meaning of the above expression in `My Last Duchess', some understanding that the commands were to put the Duchess to death, and others, as I have explained the expression on p. 87 of this volume (last paragraph). He made no reply, for a moment, and then said, meditatively, "Yes, I meant that the commands were that she should be put to death." And then, after a pause, he added, with a characteristic dash of expression, and as if the thought had just started in his mind, "Or he might have had her shut up in a convent." This was to me very significant. When he wrote the expression, "I gave commands", etc., he may not have thought definitely what the commands were, more than that they put a stop to the smiles of the sweet Duchess, which provoked the contemptible jealousy of the Duke. This was all his art purpose required, and his mind did not go beyond it. I thought how many vain discussions take place in Browning Clubs, about little points which are outside of the range of the artistic motive of a composition, and how many minds are occupied with anything and everything under the sun, except the one thing needful (the artistic or spiritual motive), the result being "as if one should be ignorant of nothing concerning the scent of violets, except the scent itself."
H.C.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE.
INTRODUCTION.
I. The Spiritual Ebb and Flow exhibited in English Poetry from Chaucer to Tennyson and Browning. {This section contains Browning's `Popularity' and many excerpts.}
II. The Idea of Personality and of Art as an intermediate agency of Personality, as embodied in Browning's Poetry.
III. Mr. Browning's "Obscurity". {This section contains Browning's `My Last Duchess'}
IV. Browning's Verse.
V. Arguments of the Poems.
Wanting is -- What? My Star. The Flight of the Duchess. The Last Ride Together. By the Fireside. Prospice. Amphibian. James Lee's Wife. A Tale. Confessions. Respectability. Home-Thoughts from Abroad. Home-Thoughts from the Sea. Old Pictures in Florence. Pictor Ignotus. Andrea del Sarto. Fra Lippo Lippi. A Face. The Bishop orders his Tomb. A Toccata of Galuppi's. Abt Vogler. `Touch him ne'er so lightly', etc. Memorabilia. How it strikes a Contemporary. "Transcendentalism". Apparent Failure. Rabbi Ben Ezra. A Grammarian's Funeral. An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician. A Martyr's Epitaph. Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. Holy-Cross Day. Saul. A Death in the Desert.
POEMS.
Wanting is -- What? My Star. The Flight of the Duchess. The Last Ride Together. By the Fireside. Prospice. Amphibian. James Lee's Wife. A Tale. Confessions. Respectability. Home Thoughts, from Abroad. Home Thoughts, from the Sea. Old Pictures in Florence. Pictor Ignotus. Andrea del Sarto. Fra Lippo Lippi. A Face. The Bishop orders his Tomb. A Toccata of Galuppi's. Abt Vogler. "Touch him ne'er so lightly." Memorabilia. How it strikes a Contemporary. "Transcendentalism": Apparent Failure. Rabbi Ben Ezra. A Grammarian's Funeral. An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician. A Martyr's Epitaph. Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. Holy-Cross Day. Saul. A Death in the Desert.
A LIST OF CRITICISMS OF BROWNING'S WORKS.
INTRODUCTION.
I. The Spiritual Ebb and Flow exhibited in English Poetry from Chaucer to Tennyson and Browning.
Literature, in its most restricted art-sense, is an expression in letters of the life of the spirit of man co-operating with the intellect. Without the co-operation of the spiritual man, the intellect produces only thought; and pure
H.C.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE.
INTRODUCTION.
I. The Spiritual Ebb and Flow exhibited in English Poetry from Chaucer to Tennyson and Browning. {This section contains Browning's `Popularity' and many excerpts.}
II. The Idea of Personality and of Art as an intermediate agency of Personality, as embodied in Browning's Poetry.
III. Mr. Browning's "Obscurity". {This section contains Browning's `My Last Duchess'}
IV. Browning's Verse.
V. Arguments of the Poems.
Wanting is -- What? My Star. The Flight of the Duchess. The Last Ride Together. By the Fireside. Prospice. Amphibian. James Lee's Wife. A Tale. Confessions. Respectability. Home-Thoughts from Abroad. Home-Thoughts from the Sea. Old Pictures in Florence. Pictor Ignotus. Andrea del Sarto. Fra Lippo Lippi. A Face. The Bishop orders his Tomb. A Toccata of Galuppi's. Abt Vogler. `Touch him ne'er so lightly', etc. Memorabilia. How it strikes a Contemporary. "Transcendentalism". Apparent Failure. Rabbi Ben Ezra. A Grammarian's Funeral. An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician. A Martyr's Epitaph. Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. Holy-Cross Day. Saul. A Death in the Desert.
POEMS.
Wanting is -- What? My Star. The Flight of the Duchess. The Last Ride Together. By the Fireside. Prospice. Amphibian. James Lee's Wife. A Tale. Confessions. Respectability. Home Thoughts, from Abroad. Home Thoughts, from the Sea. Old Pictures in Florence. Pictor Ignotus. Andrea del Sarto. Fra Lippo Lippi. A Face. The Bishop orders his Tomb. A Toccata of Galuppi's. Abt Vogler. "Touch him ne'er so lightly." Memorabilia. How it strikes a Contemporary. "Transcendentalism": Apparent Failure. Rabbi Ben Ezra. A Grammarian's Funeral. An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician. A Martyr's Epitaph. Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. Holy-Cross Day. Saul. A Death in the Desert.
A LIST OF CRITICISMS OF BROWNING'S WORKS.
INTRODUCTION.
I. The Spiritual Ebb and Flow exhibited in English Poetry from Chaucer to Tennyson and Browning.
Literature, in its most restricted art-sense, is an expression in letters of the life of the spirit of man co-operating with the intellect. Without the co-operation of the spiritual man, the intellect produces only thought; and pure