Life of Robert Browning [22]
life!
It is pleasant to know of one of them, "The Italian in England",
that Browning was proud, because Mazzini told him he had read this poem
to certain of his fellow-exiles in England to show how an Englishman
could sympathise with them.
After leaving Russia the young poet spent the rest of his `Wanderjahr'
in Italy. Among other places he visited was Asolo,
that white little hill-town of the Veneto, whence he drew hints
for "Sordello" and "Pippa Passes", and whither he returned
in the last year of his life, as with unconscious significance
he himself said, "on his way homeward."
In the summer of 1834, that is, when he was in his twenty-second year,
he returned to Camberwell. "Sordello" he had in some fashion begun,
but had set aside for a poem which occupied him throughout
the autumn of 1834 and winter of 1835, "Paracelsus". In this period, also,
he wrote some short poems, two of them of particular significance.
The first of the series was a sonnet, which appeared above the signature `Z'
in the August number of the `Monthly Repository' for 1834.
It was never reprinted by the author, whose judgment
it is impossible not to approve as well as to respect.
Browning never wrote a good sonnet, and this earliest effort
is not the most fortunate. It was in the `Repository' also,
in 1835 and 1836, that the other poems appeared, four in all.
The song in "Pippa Passes", beginning "A King lived long ago,"
was one of these; and the lyric, "Still ailing, wind?
Wilt be appeased or no?" afterwards revised and incorporated in "James Lee",
was another. But the two which are much the most noteworthy
are "Johannes Agricola" and "Porphyria". Even more distinctively
than in "Pauline", in their novel sentiment, new method,
and generally unique quality, is a new voice audible in these two poems.
They are very remarkable as the work of so young a poet,
and are interesting as showing how rapidly he had outgrown the influence
of any other of his poetic kindred. "Johannes Agricola" is significant
as being the first of those dramatic studies of warped religiosity,
of strange self-sophistication, which have afforded
so much matter for thought. In its dramatic concision,
its complex psychological significance, and its unique,
if to unaccustomed ears somewhat barbaric, poetic beauty,
"Porphyria" is still more remarkable.
It may be of this time, though possibly some years later,
that Mrs. Bridell-Fox writes: -- "I remember him as looking in often
in the evenings, having just returned from his first visit to Venice.
I cannot tell the date for certain. He was full of enthusiasm
for that Queen of Cities. He used to illustrate his glowing descriptions
of its beauties, the palaces, the sunsets, the moonrises,
by a most original kind of etching. Taking up a bit of stray notepaper,
he would hold it over a lighted candle, moving the paper about gently
till it was cloudily smoked over, and then utilising the darker smears
for clouds, shadows, water, or what not, would etch with a dry pen
the forms of lights on cloud and palace, on bridge or gondola
on the vague and dreamy surface he had produced. My own passionate longing
to see Venice dates from those delightful, well-remembered evenings
of my childhood."
"Paracelsus", begun about the close of October or early in November 1834,
was published in the summer of the following year. It is a poem
in blank verse, about four times the length of "Pauline",
with interspersed songs. The author divided it into five sections
of unequal length, of which the third is the most extensive:
"Paracelsus Aspires"; "Paracelsus Attains"; "Paracelsus";
"Paracelsus Aspires"; "Paracelsus Attains". In an interesting note,
which was not reprinted in later editions of his first acknowledged poem,
the author dissuades the reader from mistaking his performance
for one of a class with which it has nothing in common,
from judging it by principles on which it was not moulded,
and from subjecting it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform.
It is pleasant to know of one of them, "The Italian in England",
that Browning was proud, because Mazzini told him he had read this poem
to certain of his fellow-exiles in England to show how an Englishman
could sympathise with them.
After leaving Russia the young poet spent the rest of his `Wanderjahr'
in Italy. Among other places he visited was Asolo,
that white little hill-town of the Veneto, whence he drew hints
for "Sordello" and "Pippa Passes", and whither he returned
in the last year of his life, as with unconscious significance
he himself said, "on his way homeward."
In the summer of 1834, that is, when he was in his twenty-second year,
he returned to Camberwell. "Sordello" he had in some fashion begun,
but had set aside for a poem which occupied him throughout
the autumn of 1834 and winter of 1835, "Paracelsus". In this period, also,
he wrote some short poems, two of them of particular significance.
The first of the series was a sonnet, which appeared above the signature `Z'
in the August number of the `Monthly Repository' for 1834.
It was never reprinted by the author, whose judgment
it is impossible not to approve as well as to respect.
Browning never wrote a good sonnet, and this earliest effort
is not the most fortunate. It was in the `Repository' also,
in 1835 and 1836, that the other poems appeared, four in all.
The song in "Pippa Passes", beginning "A King lived long ago,"
was one of these; and the lyric, "Still ailing, wind?
Wilt be appeased or no?" afterwards revised and incorporated in "James Lee",
was another. But the two which are much the most noteworthy
are "Johannes Agricola" and "Porphyria". Even more distinctively
than in "Pauline", in their novel sentiment, new method,
and generally unique quality, is a new voice audible in these two poems.
They are very remarkable as the work of so young a poet,
and are interesting as showing how rapidly he had outgrown the influence
of any other of his poetic kindred. "Johannes Agricola" is significant
as being the first of those dramatic studies of warped religiosity,
of strange self-sophistication, which have afforded
so much matter for thought. In its dramatic concision,
its complex psychological significance, and its unique,
if to unaccustomed ears somewhat barbaric, poetic beauty,
"Porphyria" is still more remarkable.
It may be of this time, though possibly some years later,
that Mrs. Bridell-Fox writes: -- "I remember him as looking in often
in the evenings, having just returned from his first visit to Venice.
I cannot tell the date for certain. He was full of enthusiasm
for that Queen of Cities. He used to illustrate his glowing descriptions
of its beauties, the palaces, the sunsets, the moonrises,
by a most original kind of etching. Taking up a bit of stray notepaper,
he would hold it over a lighted candle, moving the paper about gently
till it was cloudily smoked over, and then utilising the darker smears
for clouds, shadows, water, or what not, would etch with a dry pen
the forms of lights on cloud and palace, on bridge or gondola
on the vague and dreamy surface he had produced. My own passionate longing
to see Venice dates from those delightful, well-remembered evenings
of my childhood."
"Paracelsus", begun about the close of October or early in November 1834,
was published in the summer of the following year. It is a poem
in blank verse, about four times the length of "Pauline",
with interspersed songs. The author divided it into five sections
of unequal length, of which the third is the most extensive:
"Paracelsus Aspires"; "Paracelsus Attains"; "Paracelsus";
"Paracelsus Aspires"; "Paracelsus Attains". In an interesting note,
which was not reprinted in later editions of his first acknowledged poem,
the author dissuades the reader from mistaking his performance
for one of a class with which it has nothing in common,
from judging it by principles on which it was not moulded,
and from subjecting it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform.