Life of Robert Browning [33]
thrilling poignant strain
the quintessential part of the tense life of the whole play.
So much has been written concerning the dramas of Robert Browning --
though indeed there is still room for a volume of careful criticism,
dealing solely with this theme -- that I have the less regret
in having so inadequately to pass in review works of such poetic magnitude
as those enumerated above.
But it would be impossible, in so small a book as this,
to examine them in detail without incurring a just charge of misproportion.
The greatness and the shortcomings of the dramas and dramatic poems
must be noted as succinctly as practicable; and I have dwelt more liberally
upon "Pauline", "Paracelsus", and "Strafford", partly because
(certainly without more than one exception, "Sordello")
these are the three least read of Browning's poems, partly because
they indicate the sweep and reach of his first orient eagle-flight
through new morning-skies, and mainly because in them
we already find Browning at his best and at his weakest,
because in them we hear not only the rush of his sunlit pinions,
but also the low earthward surge of dullard wings.
Browning is foreshadowed in his earliest writings, as perhaps
no other poet has been to like extent. In the "Venus and Adonis",
and the "Rape of Lucrece", we have but the dimmest foreview of the author
of "Hamlet", "Othello", and "Macbeth"; had Shakespeare died prematurely
none could have predicted, from the exquisite blossoms of his adolescence,
the immortal fruit of his maturity. But, in Browning's three earliest works,
we clearly discern him, as the sculptor of Melos previsioned his Venus
in the rough-hewn block.
Thenceforth, to change the imagery, he developed rapidly upon the same lines,
or doubled upon himself in intricate revolutions; but already
his line of life, his poetic parallel, was definitely established.
In the consideration of Browning's dramas it is needful to be sure
of one's vantage for judgment. The first step towards this assurance
is the ablation of the chronic Shakespearian comparison. Primarily,
the shaping spirit of the time wrought Shakespeare and Browning
to radically divergent methods of expression, but each to a method
in profound harmony with the dominant sentiment of the age in which he lived.
Above all others, the Elizabethan era was rich in romantic adventure,
of the mind as well as of the body, and above all others,
save that of the Renaissance in Italy, animated by a passionate curiosity.
So, too, supremely, the Victorian era has been prolific of novel and vast
Titanic struggles of the human spirit to reach those Gates of Truth
whose lowest steps are the scarce discernible stars and furthest suns we scan,
by piling Ossas of searching speculation upon Pelions of hardly-won
positive knowledge. The highest exemplar of the former is Shakespeare,
Browning the profoundest interpreter of the latter.
To achieve supremacy the one had to create a throbbing actuality,
a world of keenest living, of acts and intervolved situations and episodes:
the other to fashion a mentality so passionately alive
that its manifold phases should have all the reality
of concrete individualities. The one reveals individual life to us
by the play of circumstance, the interaction of events,
the correlative eduction of personal characteristics:
the other by his apprehension of that quintessential movement or mood or phase
wherein the soul is transitorily visible on its lonely pinnacle of light.
The elder poet reveals life to us by the sheer vividness of his own vision:
the younger, by a newer, a less picturesque but more scientific abduction,
compels the complex rayings of each soul-star to a singular simplicity,
as by the spectrum analysis. The one, again, fulfils his aim
by a broad synthesis based upon the vivid observance and selection
of vital details: the other by an extraordinary acute psychic analysis.
In a word, Shakespeare works as with the clay of human action:
Browning as with the clay of human thought.
As
the quintessential part of the tense life of the whole play.
So much has been written concerning the dramas of Robert Browning --
though indeed there is still room for a volume of careful criticism,
dealing solely with this theme -- that I have the less regret
in having so inadequately to pass in review works of such poetic magnitude
as those enumerated above.
But it would be impossible, in so small a book as this,
to examine them in detail without incurring a just charge of misproportion.
The greatness and the shortcomings of the dramas and dramatic poems
must be noted as succinctly as practicable; and I have dwelt more liberally
upon "Pauline", "Paracelsus", and "Strafford", partly because
(certainly without more than one exception, "Sordello")
these are the three least read of Browning's poems, partly because
they indicate the sweep and reach of his first orient eagle-flight
through new morning-skies, and mainly because in them
we already find Browning at his best and at his weakest,
because in them we hear not only the rush of his sunlit pinions,
but also the low earthward surge of dullard wings.
Browning is foreshadowed in his earliest writings, as perhaps
no other poet has been to like extent. In the "Venus and Adonis",
and the "Rape of Lucrece", we have but the dimmest foreview of the author
of "Hamlet", "Othello", and "Macbeth"; had Shakespeare died prematurely
none could have predicted, from the exquisite blossoms of his adolescence,
the immortal fruit of his maturity. But, in Browning's three earliest works,
we clearly discern him, as the sculptor of Melos previsioned his Venus
in the rough-hewn block.
Thenceforth, to change the imagery, he developed rapidly upon the same lines,
or doubled upon himself in intricate revolutions; but already
his line of life, his poetic parallel, was definitely established.
In the consideration of Browning's dramas it is needful to be sure
of one's vantage for judgment. The first step towards this assurance
is the ablation of the chronic Shakespearian comparison. Primarily,
the shaping spirit of the time wrought Shakespeare and Browning
to radically divergent methods of expression, but each to a method
in profound harmony with the dominant sentiment of the age in which he lived.
Above all others, the Elizabethan era was rich in romantic adventure,
of the mind as well as of the body, and above all others,
save that of the Renaissance in Italy, animated by a passionate curiosity.
So, too, supremely, the Victorian era has been prolific of novel and vast
Titanic struggles of the human spirit to reach those Gates of Truth
whose lowest steps are the scarce discernible stars and furthest suns we scan,
by piling Ossas of searching speculation upon Pelions of hardly-won
positive knowledge. The highest exemplar of the former is Shakespeare,
Browning the profoundest interpreter of the latter.
To achieve supremacy the one had to create a throbbing actuality,
a world of keenest living, of acts and intervolved situations and episodes:
the other to fashion a mentality so passionately alive
that its manifold phases should have all the reality
of concrete individualities. The one reveals individual life to us
by the play of circumstance, the interaction of events,
the correlative eduction of personal characteristics:
the other by his apprehension of that quintessential movement or mood or phase
wherein the soul is transitorily visible on its lonely pinnacle of light.
The elder poet reveals life to us by the sheer vividness of his own vision:
the younger, by a newer, a less picturesque but more scientific abduction,
compels the complex rayings of each soul-star to a singular simplicity,
as by the spectrum analysis. The one, again, fulfils his aim
by a broad synthesis based upon the vivid observance and selection
of vital details: the other by an extraordinary acute psychic analysis.
In a word, Shakespeare works as with the clay of human action:
Browning as with the clay of human thought.
As