Robert Browning was born this day. He
In March 1833, Pauline, a fragment of a confession was published
anonymously by Saunders and Otley at the expense of the author, the costs of
printing having been borne by an aunt, Mrs Silverthorne.It is a long poem
composed in homage to Shelley and somewhat in his style.
Originally Browning considered Pauline as the first of a series
written by different aspects of himself, but he soon abandoned this idea. The
press noticed the publication. W.J. Fox writing in the The Monthly
Repository of April 1833 discerned merit in the work. Allan Cunningham praised it in theThe Athenaeum. Some years later, probably in
1850, Rosetti came across it in the Reading
Room of the British Museum and wrote to Browning, then in Florence to
ask if he was the author.John Stuart Mill, however, wrote that the author
suffered from an "intense and morbid self-consciousness".Later
Browning was rather embarrassed by the work, and only included it in his
collected poems of 1868 after making substantial changes and adding a preface
in which he asked for indulgence for a boyish work.
was an
English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic
verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the
foremost Victorian poets.
In Florence, probably from early in 1853, Browning worked on
the poems that eventually comprised his two-volume Men and Women, for which he is
now well known; in 1855, however, when these were published, they made
relatively little impact.
Elizabeth died in 1861: Robert Browning returned to London
the following year with Pen, by then 12 years old, and made their home in 17
Warwick Crescent, Maida Vale. It was only when he returned to England and
became part of the London literary scene—albeit while paying frequent visits to
Italy— (though never again to Florence) that his reputation started to take
off.
In 1868, after five years work, he completed and published
the long blank-verse poem The Ring and the Book. Based on a convoluted
murder-case from 1690s Rome, the poem is composed of twelve books, essentially
ten lengthy dramatic monologues narrated by the various characters in the
story, showing their individual perspectives on events, bookended by an
introduction and conclusion by Browning himself. Long, even by Browning's own
standards (over twenty thousand lines), The Ring and the Book was the
poet's most ambitious project and arguably his greatest work; it has been
praised as a tour de force of dramatic poetry. Published
separately in four volumes from November 1868 through to February 1869, the
poem was a success both commercially and critically, and finally brought
Browning the renown he had sought for nearly forty years. The Robert
Browning Society was formed in 1881 and his work was recognised as belonging
within the British literary canon.
John Vincent "Vince" Cable (born 9 May 1943) is a British Liberal Democrat politician who has been the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills since 2010 and the Member of Parliament for Twickenham since 1997.
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