Browning: Poems Edited by Peter Washington

by Browning, Robert; Browning, Elizabeth Barrett; Washington, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781400040223
• ISBN10: 1400040221
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-01-14
• Publisher: Everyman's Library

Summary

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are without parallel in the nineteenth century: celebrated poets, they became equally famous for their marriage. Still popular more than a century after their deaths, their poetry vividly reflects the unique nature of their relationship. This collection presents the Brownings' work in the context of their lives: the early years and their initial friendship, their courtship and marriage, the fifteen happy years they spent living in Italy until Elizabeth's death. Whether in short poems such as Elizabeth's "Hector in the Garden" and Robert's "Natural Magic," or in extracts from longer works such asAurora LeighandPauline, the great themes they shared are all represented: love, marriage, illicit passion, England and Italy, childhood, religion, poetry, and nature. Elizabeth's famousSonnets from the Portuguese,based on their love affair, is included in its entirety. The poems are augmented with a generous selection of the marvelous letters the Brownings wrote to each other.

Author Biography

Robert Browning (1812-1889) was born in Camberwell, London, the son of a clerk in the Bank of England. The strongest influence on his education were the books in his father's extensive library, particularly the writings of Byron and Shelley. His dramatic poem Paracelsus, published in 1835, established his reputation and brought him the friendship of the actor-manager William Macready. When Macready's eldest son Willie was ill in bed, Browning wrote for the boy's entertainment the poem of The Pied Piper, a story he remembered from his own childhood. After its appearance in print in 1842, it became a children's classic, attracting new illustrators in every generation.

In 1846 Robert Browning married a fellow poet, Elizabeth Barrett, eloping with her to Italy where they lived until Elizabeth's death in 1861. He them returned to England to live with his only sister Sarianna, but later he went back to Italy, where he died at the Rezzonico Palace in Venice.

Peter Washington is the editor of many of the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, including Love Poems, and is the author of Madame Blavatsky's Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 9
Robert Browning
Love	p. 13
Love in a Life	p. 14
Life in a Love	p. 15
One Way of Love	p. 16
Another Way of Love	p. 17
Cristina	p. 19
Porphyria's Lover	p. 22
From Pauline	p. 25
The Lost Mistress	p. 28
My Last Duchess	p. 29
Evelyn Hope	p. 32
Never the Time and the Place	p. 35
Now	p. 36
Meeting at Night	p. 37
Parting at Morning	p. 37
Up at a Villa - Down in the City	p. 38
A Serenade at the Villa	p. 43
A Toccata of Galuppi's	p. 46
Love among the Ruins	p. 50
Two in the Campagna	p. 54
'De Gustibus-'	p. 57
A Light Woman	p. 59
In Three Days	p. 62
In a Year	p. 64
Time's Revenges	p. 68
Popularity	p. 71
Memorabilia	p. 74
How it Strikes a Contemporary	p. 75
My Star	p. 80
Fame	p. 81
The Lost Leader	p. 82
Misconceptions	p. 84
Inapprehensiveness	p. 85
Dubiety	p. 87
Respectability	p. 89
Humility	p. 90
Summum Bonum	p. 91
Speculative	p. 92
In the Doorway	p. 93
May and Death	p. 95
Home-thoughts, from Abroad	p. 96
Prospice	p. 97
A Face	p. 99
Magical Nature	p. 100
Natural Magic	p. 101
White Witchcraft	p. 102
House	p. 103
Appearances	p. 105
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Question and Answer	p. 109
A Woman's Shortcomings	p. 110
A Man's Requirements	p. 112
A Sea-side Walk	p. 114
To Flush, My Dog	p. 116
Flush or Faunus	p. 121
Grief	p. 122
Discontent	p. 123
Patience Taught by Nature	p. 124
The Weakest Thing	p. 125
A Dead Rose	p. 126
A Denial	p. 128
The Measure: Hymn IV	p. 131
A Child's Thought of God	p. 133
Hector in the Garden	p. 134
Hiram Powers's Greek Slave	p. 139
Amy's Cruelty	p. 140
The North and the South	p. 143
From Heine	p. 145
A Musical Instrument	p. 149
A View Across the Roman Campagna	p. 151
'Died...'	p. 153
From Aurora Leigh	p. 155
Sonnets from the Portuguese	p. 175
The Best Thing in the World	p. 200
Letters	p. 201
Robert Browning: Epilogue	p. 251
Index of First Lines	p. 252
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.