Life and Letters of Robert Browning [30]
first edition of `Paracelsus' was affixed a preface,
now long discarded, but which acquires fresh interest in a retrospect
of the author's completed work; for it lays down the constant principle
of dramatic creation by which that work was to be inspired.
It also anticipates probable criticism of the artistic form which on this,
and so many subsequent occasions, he selected for it.
==
`I am anxious that the reader should not, at the very outset --
mistaking my performance for one of a class with which it has
nothing in common -- judge it by principles on which it was never moulded,
and subject it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform.
I therefore anticipate his discovery, that it is an attempt,
probably more novel than happy, to reverse the method usually adopted
by writers whose aim it is to set forth any phenomenon
of the mind or the passions, by the operation of persons and events;
and that, instead of having recourse to an external machinery of incidents
to create and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I have ventured
to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress,
and have suffered the agency by which it is influenced and determined,
to be generally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout,
if not altogether excluded: and this for a reason. I have endeavoured
to write a poem, not a drama: the canons of the drama are well known,
and I cannot but think that, inasmuch as they have immediate regard
to stage representation, the peculiar advantages they hold out are really such
only so long as the purpose for which they were at first instituted
is kept in view. I do not very well understand what is called
a Dramatic Poem, wherein all those restrictions only submitted to
on account of compensating good in the original scheme
are scrupulously retained, as though for some special fitness in themselves --
and all new facilities placed at an author's disposal
by the vehicle he selects, as pertinaciously rejected. . . .'
==
Mr. Fox reviewed this also in the `Monthly Repository'.
The article might be obtained through the kindness of Mrs. Bridell-Fox;
but it will be sufficient for my purpose to refer to its closing paragraph,
as given by her in the `Argosy' of February 1890. It was a final expression
of what the writer regarded as the fitting intellectual attitude
towards a rising poet, whose aims and methods lay so far beyond
the range of the conventional rules of poetry. The great event
in the history of `Paracelsus' was John Forster's article on it
in the `Examiner'. Mr. Forster had recently come to town.
He could barely have heard Mr. Browning's name, and,
as he afterwards told him, was perplexed in reading the poem by the question
of whether its author was an old or a young man; but he knew that a writer
in the `Athenaeum' had called it rubbish, and he had taken it up
as a probable subject for a piece of slashing criticism.
What he did write can scarcely be defined as praise. It was the simple,
ungrudging admission of the unequivocal power, as well as brilliant promise,
which he recognized in the work. This mutual experience
was the introduction to a long and, certainly on Mr. Browning's part,
a sincere friendship.
Chapter 6
1835-1838
Removal to Hatcham; some Particulars -- Renewed Intercourse
with the second Family of Robert Browning's Grandfather --
Reuben Browning -- William Shergold Browning -- Visitors at Hatcham --
Thomas Carlyle -- Social Life -- New Friends and Acquaintance --
Introduction to Macready -- New Year's Eve at Elm Place --
Introduction to John Forster -- Miss Fanny Haworth -- Miss Martineau --
Serjeant Talfourd -- The `Ion' Supper -- `Strafford' --
Relations with Macready -- Performance of `Strafford' --
Letters concerning it from Mr. Browning and Miss Flower --
Personal Glimpses of Robert Browning -- Rival Forms
of Dramatic Inspiration -- Relation of `Strafford' to `Sordello' --
Mr. Robertson and the `Westminster Review'.
It was
now long discarded, but which acquires fresh interest in a retrospect
of the author's completed work; for it lays down the constant principle
of dramatic creation by which that work was to be inspired.
It also anticipates probable criticism of the artistic form which on this,
and so many subsequent occasions, he selected for it.
==
`I am anxious that the reader should not, at the very outset --
mistaking my performance for one of a class with which it has
nothing in common -- judge it by principles on which it was never moulded,
and subject it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform.
I therefore anticipate his discovery, that it is an attempt,
probably more novel than happy, to reverse the method usually adopted
by writers whose aim it is to set forth any phenomenon
of the mind or the passions, by the operation of persons and events;
and that, instead of having recourse to an external machinery of incidents
to create and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I have ventured
to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress,
and have suffered the agency by which it is influenced and determined,
to be generally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout,
if not altogether excluded: and this for a reason. I have endeavoured
to write a poem, not a drama: the canons of the drama are well known,
and I cannot but think that, inasmuch as they have immediate regard
to stage representation, the peculiar advantages they hold out are really such
only so long as the purpose for which they were at first instituted
is kept in view. I do not very well understand what is called
a Dramatic Poem, wherein all those restrictions only submitted to
on account of compensating good in the original scheme
are scrupulously retained, as though for some special fitness in themselves --
and all new facilities placed at an author's disposal
by the vehicle he selects, as pertinaciously rejected. . . .'
==
Mr. Fox reviewed this also in the `Monthly Repository'.
The article might be obtained through the kindness of Mrs. Bridell-Fox;
but it will be sufficient for my purpose to refer to its closing paragraph,
as given by her in the `Argosy' of February 1890. It was a final expression
of what the writer regarded as the fitting intellectual attitude
towards a rising poet, whose aims and methods lay so far beyond
the range of the conventional rules of poetry. The great event
in the history of `Paracelsus' was John Forster's article on it
in the `Examiner'. Mr. Forster had recently come to town.
He could barely have heard Mr. Browning's name, and,
as he afterwards told him, was perplexed in reading the poem by the question
of whether its author was an old or a young man; but he knew that a writer
in the `Athenaeum' had called it rubbish, and he had taken it up
as a probable subject for a piece of slashing criticism.
What he did write can scarcely be defined as praise. It was the simple,
ungrudging admission of the unequivocal power, as well as brilliant promise,
which he recognized in the work. This mutual experience
was the introduction to a long and, certainly on Mr. Browning's part,
a sincere friendship.
Chapter 6
1835-1838
Removal to Hatcham; some Particulars -- Renewed Intercourse
with the second Family of Robert Browning's Grandfather --
Reuben Browning -- William Shergold Browning -- Visitors at Hatcham --
Thomas Carlyle -- Social Life -- New Friends and Acquaintance --
Introduction to Macready -- New Year's Eve at Elm Place --
Introduction to John Forster -- Miss Fanny Haworth -- Miss Martineau --
Serjeant Talfourd -- The `Ion' Supper -- `Strafford' --
Relations with Macready -- Performance of `Strafford' --
Letters concerning it from Mr. Browning and Miss Flower --
Personal Glimpses of Robert Browning -- Rival Forms
of Dramatic Inspiration -- Relation of `Strafford' to `Sordello' --
Mr. Robertson and the `Westminster Review'.
It was