Robert Browning

Robert Browning ( born May 7, 1812 London district of Camberwell, † December 12, 1889 in Venice) was an English poet and playwright.

Life

Browning's parents were Robert and Sarah Wiedemann Browning ( daughter of a German shipowner in turn, and a Scot ), he had a sister named Sarianna. Browning sr. was a bank official and used his quite high income to build an extensive library where they found numerous rare books - a preference that would influence Browning.

Browning was a highly gifted child. At the age of 14, he mastered French, Italian, Ancient Greek and Latin. Already at 16 he attended, even if only for a short time, the London University. As a young man he aspired to the poets of English Romanticism, with its special devotion Shelley was, he greatly imitated in his early works.

1833 was published anonymously his first long poem Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession with the financial support of his parents. From the work not a single copy was sold to Browning's own information. But Pauline caught the attention of John Stuart Mill, who noted especially the spasmodic morbidity of the poem. Later, Browning was from this early work, which was still strongly committed to Shelleyschen Konfessionalstil, dissociate. 1835 appeared the dramatic poem Paracelsus, the main stations portrays in a dialogic way in the life of the alchemist Paracelsus. Unlike Pauline Paracelsus brought him some success and led to the first contacts with the London literary scene.

With its Blankversepos Sordello that an obscure episode of the medieval history of northern Italy dramatized - namely the fate of the troubadour Sordello during the war between the Guelphs and Ghibellines - succeeded Browning, his reputation as a promising young writer to ruin at one stroke. The work was generally considered to be unreadable by the Tennyson quote is handed down, he did not understand until the last line, whether Sordello was a person or a city now.

Browning's most creative phase began in 1841 with the publication of the dramatic poem Pippa Passes ( which was filmed in 1909 by DW Griffith ) and lasted until 1869, the year of publication of the last volume of The Ring And The Book. Between 1842 and 1846 came six plays, of which only A Blot In The ' Scutcheon briefly experienced an unsuccessful performance. The most important works of this period are the books of poetry, Dramatic Lyrics (1842 ) and Dramatic Romances And Lyrics (1845 ), in which Browning founded the genre of the dramatic monologue, a form of poetry in which the lyric I is represented by a fictionalized, realistic spokesman figure. In the two volumes of 1842 and 1845, there are some of Browning's most famous poems, " My Last Duchess", " Porphyria 's Lover ," " Count Gismond ", " The Pied Piper Of Hamelin " ("The Pied Piper of Hamelin " ) (all 1842 ); "How They Brought The Good News From Ghent To Aix ," "The Bishop Orders His Tomb At St. Praxed 's Church ", " The Glove ", " The Lost Leader" (all 1845).

1845 also began Browning's correspondence with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who finally in 1846 led to a marriage of the two. Since Elizabeth's father did not approve of the marriage, the two set off to Italy, where they settled after a short stay in Pisa in Florence. There, her son Robert Wiedemann ( " Pen" ) was born in 1849. During the 1850s, both published from Italy continues in England, where the works of Browning's wife found a much stronger echo. Browning's own art came in only a small circle of recipients of interest - but including the Pre-Raphaelites. Main work of the Italian time is Men And Women (1855 ), a collection of 51 poems, including many of Browning's best and most famous dramatic monologues ( and Others "Fra Lippo Lippi ," " Andrea del Sarto ," " Cleon ," " A Toccata Of Galuppi's, "" Bishop Blougram 's Apology "," Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came ").

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, and Browning returned with his son back to England. 1864 published the poetry collection Dramatis Personae, which amplifies processed time-critical payments, such as the criticism of the Bible of the Higher Criticism and the evolution debate in poems such as " Caliban upon Setebos " and "A Death In The Desert ". The band evolved into Browning's first commercial success. From 1868 to 1869, the long blank verse poem The Ring and the Book, which meant Browning's final breakthrough and sold so well that he could live as a freelance writer without financial worries from then on appeared.

From 1878 to Browning kept coming back to Italy. In Asolo he lived in the villa Scotti Pasini. He died in 1889 at his son's house in Venice and was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Effect

Browning was one of the favorite poets of the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. A line of Browning's poem, " The Statue and the Bust " is immortalized on the back of Shackleton's grave stone: " I hold .. that a man shoulderstand strive to the uttermost for his life 's set price" ( I mean .. a man should be up on utmost for the right price of his life striving ).

Browning's poem " Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came " is one of the starting points for Stephen King's saga " The Dark Tower " dar.

Works

Poetry:

• Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession, 1833
• Paracelsus, 1835
• Sordello, 1840
• Bells and Pomegranates, No.. I: Pippa Passes, 1841
• Bells and Pomegranates, No.. III: Dramatic Lyrics, 1842
• Bells and Pomegranates, No.. VII: Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, 1845
• Christmas -Eve and Easter -Day, 1850
• Men and Women, 1855
• Dramatis Personae, 1864
• The Ring and the Book, 1868-1869
• Balaustion 's Adventure, including a transcript from Euripides, 1871
• Prince Hohen stem - Schwangau, Saviour Of Society, 1871
• Red Cotton Night -Cap Country, or Turf And Towers, 1873
• Aristophanes ' Apology, including a transcript from Euripides, being the Last Adventure Of Balaustion, 1875
• The Inn Album, 1875
• Pachiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper a, 1876
• La Saisiaz and The Two Poets Of croisic, 1878
• Dramatic Idyls, 1879
• Dramatic Idyls, Second Series, 1880
• Jocoseria, 1883
• Ferishtah 's Fancies, 1884
• Parleyings With Certain People Of Importance In Their Day, 1887
• Asolando, 1889

Theater:

• Strafford, 1837
• Bells and Pomegranates, No.. II: King Victor And King Charles, 1842
• Bells and Pomegranates, No.. IV: The Return Of The Druses, 1843
• Bells and Pomegranates, No.. V: A Blot In The Scutcheon, 1843
• Bells and Pomegranates, No.. VI: Colombe 's Birthday, 1844
• Bells and Pomegranates, No.. VIII: Luria and A Soul 's Tragedy, 1846

Translations:

• The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, 1877