The Life and Work of Robert Browning
Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, which is now a part of London. He had no real formal education so he was largely self educated. His father was a smart man with an extensive library.
His mother was kindly, religious minded woman, who loved music and her brilliant son. He lived at his parents house almost until the time of his marriage. He attended a boarding school near Camberwell and spent a little bit of his time traveling to places like Russia and Italy. But he preferred to have his education at home, where he was tutored in foreign languages, boxing, music, and horsemanship, and where he read
"omnivorously." At the age of 14 he first discovered Percy Shelly works and was strongly influenced by it. After reading Shelly, He made the decision to be an atheist and a liberal. But in a few years he grew away from atheism and the extreme phases of his liberalism. The things he learned from the books he read would largely influence his poems later in his life.
His earlier poetry was regarded with indifference and largely misunderstood. It was not until the 1860's that he would at last gain publicity and would even be compared with Alfred Lord Tennyson, another very famous poet of the time. Some of his early poetry was influenced by his unusual education. The poet also had an anxious desire to avoid exposing himself explicitly to his readers. The first poem he wrote called Pauline, was written in 1883 at the age of twenty-one, but he did not sign it because of his fear of exposing himself to the public too much.
Since Browning did not want to expose himself too personally, he decided to try his hand at writing plays. He was encouraged by the actor
W.C. Macready. Browning began work on his first play, Strafford, a historical tragedy. Unfortunately, the play only lasted four nights when it was first put on in London in 1837. For ten more years, the young writer would continue to struggle to produce a play that would better hold the attention of the audience, but they all remained failures. Not only did Browning profit from this otherwise disheartening experience, but writing the dialogue for the characters helped him explore the "dramatic dialogue." The dramatic dialogue, "enabled him to, through imaginary speakers, to avoid explicit autobiography and yet did not demand that these speakers act out the story with the speed or simplifications that a stage production demands.
"Robert Browning." Critical Survey of Poetry: English Language Series. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Vol. 1. Englewood Cliffs: Salem, 1982. 338, 341.
Most people have fallen in love at least once in their lives. I too fall in this category. Just like any Disney movie that you watch, people fall in love with each other, and they get married and live happily ever after right? Wrong! In real life, there are some strange things that can happen, including death, divorce, or other weird things that you never see in Disney movies. Robert Browning’s literary works are great examples of “Non-Fairytale Endings.” Not only does Browning have endings in his stories that aren’t the norm in children movies, but he also has some twisted and interesting things happen in the story of lovers. In Robert Browning’s works, Porphyria’s Lover, and My Last Duchess, the speakers can be both compared and contrasted.
Thinking about history and Genocides, we want to imagine the enemies as being somehow different from us. Take watching a film, for instance, you’re watching an action film with a villain or killer. We consider them to be different from us we are scared of them, we look at the differently than a “normal” human. We tend to think of the enemies in history to be the same as the villain or killer in a movie. We perceive this because we don’t want to assume that any normal human being is capable of committing a Genocide. As a society, we believe we are different from the chaos in the world. Christopher Browning’s book, Ordinary Men: Reserved Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland, portrayed the story from the opposite viewpoint. Everyday
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an extraordinary writer, who used real life experiences in every one of his stories. However, growing up in a Puritan society during a reformation gave Hawthorne a distorted view on God’s character. Hawthorne was intelligent, but by no means a people person, which created a pathway for him to become an author. There were a few key points in his life growing in a religion zealous society that lead him to abandon his faith. Hence, the short story of “Young Goodman Brown” representing that humans are cynical and evil, and the dangers of losing your faith in God.
held, and he is clearly very controlling in his relationships. Browning's use of the first person narrative in "My Last Duchess" allows the reader to gain insight into the Duke's character and personality. The use of the servant as a listener also allows the reader to see how the Duke interacts with others and how he wants to be perceived. Overall, Browning's use of the first person narrative in his dramatic monologues is a powerful tool in revealing the thoughts and feelings of his characters.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning follows ideal love by breaking the social conventions of the Victorian age, which is when she wrote the “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. The Victorian age produced a conservative society, where marriage was based on class, age and wealth and women were seen as objects of desire governed by social etiquette. These social conventions are shown to be holding her back, this is conveyed through the quote “Drew me back by the hair”. Social conventions symbolically are portrayed as preventing her from expressing her love emphasising the negative effect that society has on an individual. The result of her not being able to express her love is demonstrated in the allusion “I thought one of how Theocritus had sung of the sweet
America is a melting pot. Our leaders, immigrants from other countries, successes, and tragedies, are constantly changing this nation. American food, music, and ideals are also constantly being modified. American literature is no exception. Many great writers have influenced and reshaped our literature, and Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of them. He faced his problems and moved on. He was and is one of the most influential American writers, and he is more than a writer.
“Some say the world will end in fire,/ Some say in ice./ From what I’ve tasted of desire/ I hold with those who favor fire./ But if it had to perish twice,/ I think I know enough of hate/ To say that for destruction ice/ Is also great/ And would suffice.” This poem by Robert Frost is an excellent example of how even though people tend to think that Frost’s poems are just fun easy to read poems, a lot of them actually have dark themes to them. The poem “Fire and Ice” quoted above is a poem all about death and his prefered way to die/ destroy the world. So, although the average reader will quote Robert Frost as being a poet of positivity, yet many of his poems actually point out the dark side of human existence.
wisdom Do you think that is true of the poems of Frost and the other
Instructor Mendoza English 1B 22 July 2015. Robert Frost: Annotated Bibliography. Research Question: What are the common themes in Robert Frost's work? Robert Frost is a very successful poet from the 20th century, as well as a four time Pulitzer Prize winner.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, born on Independence Day of 1807, led an unorganized childhood, transferring schools frequently. Despite all of the chaos surrounding his early life, Hawthorne gained experiences that allowed him to craft novels and short stories which later earned places as classics of American literature.
Browning's amazing command of words and their effects makes this poem infinitely more pleasurable to the reader. Through simple, brief imagery, he is able to depict the lovers' passion, the speaker's impatience in reaching his love, and the stealth and secrecy of their meeting. He accomplishes this feat within twelve lines of specific rhyme scheme and beautiful language, never forsaking aesthetic quality for his higher purposes.
Robert Browning frequently wrote dramatic monologues to enhance the dark and avaricious qualities in his works. Browning's use of this particular style is to "evoke the unconstrained reaction of a person in aparticular situation or crisis" (Napierkowski 170). A poem may say one thing, but when mixed with dramatic monologue, it may "present a meaning at odds with the speaker's intention"(Napierkowski 170). This change may show the reader more insight into the poem without directly stating the underlying facts. The reader is allowed to "isolate a single moment in which the character reveals himself more starkly" (Napierkowski 171). Browning's use of dramatic monologue "disposes the reader to suspend moral judgement" (Napierkowski 171) causing a haughtiness to hover over many of his works.
In Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue “Fra Lippo Lippi” we as the readers are presented with a lot of background information about the speaker itself. This monologue overall subjects a monk/painter of Renaissance Italy. I find this monologue very interesting because of the fact that Browning uses sarcasm and witty personality in his favor at the beginning of the poem. The trait of the authorities being overzealous in the monk’s eyes is what charms the beginning first half of the monologue. For this writing assignment, I will analyze specific lines of 1-60; I believe the monk reveals a lot about himself as a character in the very first half of the poem which is why I find this of significance. While analyzing these specific lines, I will also describe how these lines help us as readers better understand this character in question.
Although written in the twentieth century, much of Robert Frost’s poetry is still relevant today. Frost is considered to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. His poetry was largely based on, although not limited to, man’s ever present battle with understanding his relationship with nature. Frost constantly illustrates the difficulties man face, and how they struggle to develop individual identities in the world that they live in. Frosts style and structure are said to take a more 19th century traditional stance however similarities are prominent with his work and the works of his twentieth century contemporaries. “A brook in the city” is a poem that demonstrates Frosts concerns of ever changing human life and man’s attitude towards nature and preservation, this essay will discuss if this poem, in connection with many others, exemplifies Frosts poetic style and views on poetry as a whole.