Showing results by author "Robert Browning" in All Categories

Here are the best-loved poems from the final phase of Robert Browning's long and ever-productive career—sharp-eyed and quick-witted, brimming with zest and verve and sparkle, yet equally keen to probe the "bad dreams," the dim-seen, sinister crannies within the human soul.

The legend of a garishly-dressed piper who uses his musical skills to rid a town of a plague of rats and then lures the town's children into a mysterious and inaccessible realm when denied payment for his services dates back to the Middle Ages. Browning's colorful retelling of the tale first appeared in 1842 in the collection Dramatic Lyrics. As with many of Browning's monologues, the poem's vivid wordplay and jangling rhymes make it an apt vehicle for recitation.

Andrea Del Sarto (1836 - 1530) was a Florentine painter whose career flourished during the High Renaissance. In this dramatic monologue, "the faultless painter" (Andrea Senza Errori, as he was surnamed by the Italians) is the speaker. He addresses his unsympathetic wife, Lucrezia, upon whom he dotes, and for whom he has broken faith with his royal patron, Francis I of France so that he can meet the expenses of her indulgent lifestyle. He laments that he has not realized the possibilities of his genius, partly blaming and partly excusing the woman who has failed to support his high ideals.

The dramatic romance was a poetic form particularly favored by Robert Browning. This collection of 25 poems includes many of the poet's most celebrated efforts in this genre. Each of these poems is essentially a monologue or imagined conversation by a character recalling a life-changing event. The particular occurrence may be related to war (Incident of the French Camp), love (The Last Ride Together), murder (Porphyria's Lover), or even a humorous fable (The Pied Piper of Hamelin.)

A selection of Robert Browning's dramatic monologues.

This dramatic romance, first published in 1845, ostensibly relates the story of the escape of a love-lorn young woman from the rigours of life with a stern and uncaring husband. Several commentators have seen the poem as an oblique reference to Browning's own current life situation, in which he enabled his future wife, Elizabeth Barrett, to escape from the confines of a patriarchal household to Italy, a country that forms the backdrop to many of his poems.