A NORTON CRITICAL EDITION
ROBERT BROWNING'S
POETRY
AUTHORITATIVE TEXTS
CRITICISM
SECOND EDITION
Selected and Edited by
JAMES E LOUCKS
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEWARK
ana
ANDREW M. STAUFFER
BOSTON
UNIVERSITY
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY
New York * London
Contents
Preface
ix
The Texts of the Poems
A Note on the Texts
3
The Experimental Phase (1833-45)
Pauline; A Fragment of a Confession (1833;
final version 1888)
From Paracelsus (1835)
From Sordello (1840)
Pippa Passes (1841)
From Dramatic Lyrics (1842)
My Last Duchess
Count Gismond
Incident of the French Camp
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
In a Gondola
Cristina
Johannes Agricola in Meditation
Porphyria's Lover
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
From Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)
"How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix"
Pictor Ignotus
The, Italian in England
The Englishman in Italy
The Lost Leader
' Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
["Here's to Nelson's Memory!"]
Home-Thoughts, from the Sea
The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church
Garden Fancies
The Laboratory
Meeting at Night; Parting at Morning
5
5
29
39
44
83
83
84
88
89
92
98
100
101
103
110
110
112
114
118
124
125
125
126
126
130
134
136
The Major Phase (1855-69)
From Men and Women (1855)
Love Among the Ruins
A Lovers' Quarrel
Up at a Villa—Down in the City
137
137
139
144
CONTENTS
A Woman's Last Word
Fra Lippo Lippi
A Toccata of Galuppi's
By the Fire-Side
Mesmerism
An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience
of Karshish, the Arab Physician
My Star
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"
Respectability
A Light Woman
The Statue and the Bust
How It Strikes a Contemporary
The Last Ride Together
The Patriot—An Old Story
Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha
Bishop Blougram's Apology
Memorabilia
Andrea del Sarto
In a Year
"De Gustibus—"
Women and Roses
Holy-Cross Day
The Guardian-Angel
Cleon
Popularity
Two in the Campagna
A Grammarian's Funeral
"Transcendentalism: A Poem in Twelve Books"
One Word More
From Dramatis Personae (1864)
Dis aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de Nos Jours
Abt Vogler
Rabbi Ben Ezra
Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the Island
Confessions
Prospice
Youth and Art
A Likeness
Apparent Failure
Epilogue
From The Ring and the Book (1868-69)
Book V. Count Guido Franceschini
Book VII. Pompilia
Book X. The Pope
The Later Achievement (After 1870)
From Fifine at the Fair (1872)
Prologue (Amphibian)
Epilogue (The Householder)
147
148
157
160
169
174
181
181
188
189
191
198
201
204
205
210
235
236
242
244
246
247
252
254
262
264
266
270
271
277
277
283
286
292
300
302
302
305
307
309
312
315
361
401
448
448
451
CONTENTS
From Aristophanes' Apology (1875)
[Thamuris Marching]
From Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper:
With Other Poems (1876)
House
Fears and Scruples
Numpholeptos
From Jocoseria (1883)
Adam, Lilith, and Eve
Never the Time and the Place
From Parleyings with Certain People of importance in
Their Day (1887)
With Christopher Smart
From Asolando: Fancies and Facts (1889)
Prologue
Bad Dreams, I-IV
"Imperante Augusto Natus Est—"
Development
Epilogue
Prose
From "Introductory Essay" to the Letters of
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1852)
452
452
455
455
457
459
459
462
463
464
464
471
471
473
478
482
485
486
Criticism
VICTORIAN VIEWS
John Forster • Evidences of a New Genius for
Dramatic Poetry
Thomas Carlyle • [Letter to Browning]
George Eliot • [Review of Men and Women]
William Morris • [Browning's Alleged Carelessness]
John Ruskin • [Browning and the Italian Renaissance]
Walter Bagehot • [Browning's Grotesque Art]
Robert W. Buchanan • [The Ring and the Book]
Alfred Austin • The Poetry of the Period: Mr. Browning
Algernon Charles Swinburne • [Browning's Obscurity]
Gerard Manley Hopkins • [Strictures on Browning]
Oscar Wilde • [Browning as "Writer of Fiction"]
Henry James • Browning in Westminster Abbey
495
497
498
501
502
504
508
509
513
516
517
519
MODERN ESSAYS IN CRITICISM
Robert Langbaum • The Dramatic Monologue:
Sympathy versus Judgment
Herbert F. Tucker • Dramatic Monologue and the
Overhearing of Lyric
Isobel Armstrong • The Politics of Dramatic Form
Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor • The Pragmatics of Silence,
and the Figuration of the Reader in Browning's
Dramatic Monologues
523
542
557
576
viii
CONTENTS
Catherine Maxwell • Browning's Pygmalion and the
Revenge of Galatea
Daniel Karlin • Browning's Poetry of Intimacy
589
610
INTERPRETATIONS OF POEMS
Stefan Hawlin • Browning's 'A Toccata of Galuppi's':
How Venice Once Was Dear
Harold Bloom • Browning's "Childe Roland": All Things
Deformed and Broken
Erik Gray • Andrea del Sarto's Modesty
Isobel Armstrong • Browning's "Caliban" and Primitive
Language
Susan Brown • "Pompilia": The Woman (in) Question
Robert Browning: A Chronology
Selected Bibliography
Index of Titles
622
634
643
651
659
679
681
687