to the majestic eagle that so well typifies his own strong, fearless nature. The "contumacious grasshopper" does not escape him. He sings of the intelligence of the dog "Tray," and describes the form, spirit, and power of horses with the force of a Bonheur. Who can forget the wild lynx in Karshish, or the grotesque animal forms in Childe Roland? Caliban names in rapid order the animals that come under the observation of his acute and unreflecting mind. In Saul, a poem perhaps above all others revealing Browning's attitude toward nature, are pictured the animals of the desert, the field, and the wilderness. Characteristics.-First we note in Browning a virility that calls to the heroic in our nature; as a critic in commenting on the obscurity of Childe Roland says, "Browning's chief virtue is that he makes one feel willing to blow horns and wave banners and lead forlorn hopes." He lacks artistic finish, his sentences do not always lend themselves as exercises in grammatical analysis, but his thought has the tonic quality of the salt sea. "Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!" He is full of the joy of life and living, but he never looks upon weakness and effeminacy with soft indulgence. "I count life just a stuff To try the soul's strength on." Cowardice is the cardinal sin; weakness the only thing to fear. In the Epilogue placed at the end of his complete works we find this verse: "One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Sleep to wake." His obscurity is a quality that has occasioned almost endless discussion. In the early days Frederick Tennyson wrote of Browning's poetry as "Chinese puzzles, trackless labyrinths, unapproachable nebulosities." Mr. Chesterton gives an amusing illustration of how the poet's mind worked in unusual forms of expression. He says that if Browning were describing so simple a thing as a man being knocked downstairs by another to whom he had given the lie he might write, "What then? You lie' and doormat below stairs Takes bump from back." It is useless to deny that he is often obscure. This is referred to by the poet himself in his preface to the First Series of Selections from his works, “I can have little doubt that my writing has been in the main too hard for many I should have been pleased to communicate with; but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never pretended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar or a game of dominoes to an idle man. So, perhaps, on the whole, I get my deserts, and something over — not a crowd, but a few I value more." This obscurity is due to the amazing resourcefulness of his mind, a mind so full of knowledge easily acquired that it was hard for him, an essentially modest man, to realize that other minds were not so well equipped; then it was also due to his method, the dramatic method of assuming to speak in the person of some one else. He had the power of entering so intimately into the life and environment of his character that to him explanations seemed superfluous. As is well known, his favorite method is that of the dramatic monologue; having assumed the personality of another his imagination works so rapidly that frequently the poet leaves his reader far in the rear. Another characteristic is his universality. By this I mean the wide range of topics and characters covered by his poems. Ancient, medieval, and modern times; the Orient and the Occident- all are touched upon with the intimate acquaintance of an expert. "The men and women [writes Mr. Symons] who live and move in that new world of his creation are as varied as life itself; they are kings and beggars, saints and lovers, great captains, poets, painters, musicians, priests and popes, Jews, gipsies and dervishes, street-girls, princesses, dancers with the wicked witchery of the daughter of Herodias, wives with the devotion of the wife of Brutus, joyous girls and malevolent greybeards, statesmen, cavaliers, soldiers of humanity, tyrants and bigots, ancient sages and modern spiritualists, heretics, scholars, scoundrels, devotees, rabbis, persons of quality and men of low estate, men and women as multiform as nature or society has made them. He has found and studied humanity, not only in English towns and villages, in the glare of gaslight and under the open sky, but on the Roman Campagna, in Venetian gondolas, in Florentine streets, on the Boulevards of Paris, and in the Prado of Madrid, in the snow-bound forests of Russia, beneath the palms of Persia and upon Egyptian sands, on the coasts of Normandy and the salt plains of Brittany, among Druses and Arabs and Syrians, in brand-new Boston and amidst the ruins of Thebes." References Books: Browning, Poet and Man. CARY. Robert Browning. DowDEN. Robert Browning. CHESTERTON. Life and Letters of Robert Browning. ORR. Life of Robert Browning. SHARP. Robert Browning. Gosse. Robert Browning. HERFORD. Life of Robert Browning. GRIFFIN. An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning. SYMONS. The Browning Cyclopaedia. BERDOE. An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry. CORSON. A Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning. ORR. The Browning Society's Papers. Studies of the Mind and Art of Robert Browning. FOTHERINGHAM. The Ring and the Book. HODELL. The Ring and the Book. HORNBROOKE. Browning Study Programmes. PORTER and CLARKE. Magazines: Browning's Old Yellow Book. HODELL. Atl., vol. 101, p. 407. A Philistine View. LOUNSBURY. Atl., vol. 84, p. 764. The Theology of Robert Browning. WHITE. Poet Lore, vol. 12, p. 417. Browning and the Larger Public. STEAD. Rev. of Revs., vol. 15, p. 184. Robert Browning the Musician. GOODRICH-FREER. 19th Cent., vol. 49, p. 648. Influence of Italy on the Poetry of the Brownings. FONBLANQUE. Fortn., vol. 92, p. 327. Esoteric Browningism. LANG. Forum, vol. 6, p. 300. UNIV. OF MIC JAN 193 |