Studies in the Poetry of Robert Browning

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... formal, external life, a life of pompous and selfish routine and isolation. The lady, by nature and race, is formed to hate the one and seek the other; the duke to do the contrary. All experience and the promise of life is to the first, death in life to the other. And I fancy the poet had an eye to certain "revivals" and " medisevalisms" that were making a vain effort to become a "way of life" to Englishmen about the date of this poem (1845). "Childe Roland" was first published in 1855, and has, I believe, been a puzzle to most readers since. A study of madness, says an injured reader, with some tendency to produce it. Shall we, then, regard the poem as a pure phantasy, and nothing more? If we do, how shall we take it, and what value could it have? Much still, I should say, as the expression of a series of emotions, or the invention of a series of images that depict these, and so suggest certain experiences of the soul. But how is this? It is hard, I judge, for most of us to understand how a poet may express himself in images and metres simply, stating his emotions and perceptions in concrete imagery. The poet has spoken of " Childe Roland " as a pure romance made in that sense, and we shall take it first in that way. But how did the poem arise in the poet's fancy? and what were its primary suggestions? First, there is the line from Edgar's song in "Lear "--a line that seems to have haunted the poet's mind, insisting on interpretation: "Childe Rowland to the dark tower came." That line is from an old ballad, and takes us back dimly to heroic legends. And I should think the tragic situation in Lear wrought on the poet's fancy. Edgar sings that song in the awful scene on the heath and before the hovel. King Lear is his Childe Rowland, and...