By Gregory Tate
This year marked the bicentenary of the birth of the Victorian poet Robert Browning in 1812, although this news might come as something of a surprise. The bicentenary of Browning’s contemporary Charles Dickens was celebrated with so many exhibitions, festivals, and other events that an official Dickens 2012 group was set up to co-ordinate and keep track of them all. The writings of Alfred Tennyson, Browning’s (consistently more popular) rival, also cropped up in some high-profile places throughout the year. But although academic specialists and other Browning enthusiasts organised conferences and special publications in 2012, media commentators and cultural institutions remained almost wholly silent about the Browning anniversary.
There are many possible reasons for this silence. There’s the issue of religion: Browning’s robust Christian faith, and his love of abstruse theological speculation, are perhaps less congenial to twenty-first-century tastes than the yearning doubt of Tennyson or the pious sentimentality of Dickens. Browning’s habit of writing poems about arcane subjects (such as the thirteenth-century troubadour Sordello or the sixteenth-century alchemist Paracelsus) might also alienate readers. The reason might, however, be something even more fundamental: Browning’s poetry is difficult, and discomfiting, to read. When Browning was buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey on 31 December 1889, Henry James wrote that “a good many oddities and a good many great writers have been entombed in the Abbey; but none of the odd ones have been so great and none of the great ones so odd.” For James, Browning’s oddness was an essential part of his poetic achievement. Today, it seems, the general view (if there is a general view on him at all) is that his oddness precludes greatness.
For most of his life, Browning’s oddness was seen by his Victorian contemporaries as the key characteristic of his writing. John Ruskin, for example, wrote to the poet in 1855 to describe the poems in his new book Men and Women as “absolutely and literally a set of the most amazing Conundrums that ever were proposed to me.” Browning’s reply to Ruskin is significant, because it suggests that his difficult style is central to the goals of his poetry: “I know that I don’t make out my conception by my language; all poetry being a putting the infinite within the finite.” This definition of poetry was closely tied to Browning’s views on psychology: throughout his career he was preoccupied with the question of how to fit what he saw as the infinite capacities of the human mind into the finite media of language and poetic form. His answer was to adopt a knotty, convoluted, and tortuous syntax which articulated the difficulty, but also the necessity, of conveying the workings of the mind through the more or less inadequate tools of language.
Browning’s approach is exemplified in what is arguably his greatest poem, The Ring and the Book (1868-1869), a psychological epic which recounts the events of a seventeenth-century murder case from nine different perspectives. Browning sets out to integrate these conflicting perspectives into an authoritative and morally educational account of the murder, describing them as:
The variance now, the eventual unity,
Which make the miracle. See it for yourselves,
This man’s act, changeable because alive!
Action now shrouds, now shows the informing thought.
The poem’s concern is not with the murder itself, “this man’s act”, but with tracing “the informing thought,” the motive behind the act. This poetic analysis of thought, Browning argues, enables the synthesis of conflicting accounts into an “eventual unity,” and the dense style of his verse is a key element of this process. “Art,” he states “may tell a truth / Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought.” By testing and confounding his readers, Browning’s difficult (and odd) poetry invites them to think carefully about the minds of other people, breeding new thoughts and telling oblique truths.
In The Ring and the Book Browning addresses the “British Public, ye who like me not.” The publication of this poem, however, marked a sea change in Victorian opinions of the poet. In the 1870s and 1880s his writing was admired simultaneously for its evident Christianity and its intellectual richness, and he was venerated as a sage and a moral teacher by the Browning Society which was founded in 1881 to study and champion his work. He was also celebrated, by Henry James and by Modernists such as Ezra Pound, as (in James’s words) “a tremendous and incomparable modern.” In 2012, though, Browning’s modernity and relevance have not been sufficiently emphasised. This is a shame, because, in his psychological sophistication and in his awareness of the complexities and limitations of language, he still has truths to tell to the British public, who like him not. Those truths, and Browning’s poems, might be oblique and difficult, but they’re worth the effort.
Gregory Tate is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Surrey. His book, The Poet’s Mind: The Psychology of Victorian Poetry 1830-1870, was published by OUP in November 2012. You can follow him on Twitter @drgregorytate.
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Image credit: Robert Browning. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
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The love letters of the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett have been made available for viewing online.
This Saturday is Ezra Pound’s 125th birthday, so we’ve decided to run an excerpt from Professor A. David Moody’s biography of the poet in his honor.
The Cantos, Ezra Pound’s ambitious, though incomplete, long poem, can at first seem unintelligible and chaotic, a sprawling mess of Latin and Greek, Confucius and Kublai Khan and the Russian Revolution. Yet according to Moody, Pound was inspired, also, by the more traditional structure and form of long poems by earlier poets. In the following selection from Ezra Pound: Poet, A Portrait of the Man and His Work (Volume I), Moody discusses the beginnings of Pound’s epic – and how Pound reconciled the influences of Dante and Robert Browning with the frenzied tenor of the modern world. –Hanna Oldsman, Publicity Intern
[Pound] was going back to his old master not so much to learn as to argue with him and assert his independence. He was taking Browning’s Sordello as a point of departure for his cantos, as ‘the thing to go on from’. He had to start there because he thought it ‘the best long poem in English since Chaucer’, and the only one with a ‘live form’. But that form was not right for what he had to do, and he would be finding his own in breaking free from Browning’s.
He first began to mention being at work on his long poem in the summer of 1915. ‘It is a huge, I was going to say, gamble, but shan’t’, he told Alice Corbin Henderson in early August; and in September he told Milton Bronner that it was ‘a cryselephantine poem of immeasurable length which will occupy me for the next four decades unless it becomes a bore.’ His Scriptor Ignotus, back in 1906, had likewise predicted that the great epic would take just so long to write. He told his father in mid-December that his mind was then ‘in the Vth canto’, but the surviving drafts show that he was still casting about for a form at that date, and it was a full year before he had the first three trial cantos in any sort of shape. [….]
His materials could be endless, immeasurable, but he hardly knew how to put them in order. He had any amount of the past and the present to sort through, and, since he chose to examine it without preconception, it presented itself to him as a vast heap of random records and anecdotes. The best he could do at first was set about abbreviating some of those, and he produced a litter of fragmentary drafts, some of them in typescript. In one of these, headed ‘Fragment / Modern World’, the valet of Ser D’Alviano gossips about what his master was saying about writers and their books in 1520. In another, numbered ‘[page] 102’ and headed ‘Foot Note. A toss-up’, Pound’s visit to the great Provençal scholar Emil Levy in Freiburg is woven into the tale of de Maensac. A sequence of six or seven pages tries out ways to envision paradise, as by seeing points of colour, making stars of them and then making each star ‘a nest of noble voices’. Bits of all those drafts, and others, will turn up in ‘Canto V’, though the visit to ‘old Levy’ will go into
I think the late Steve Irwin and now his daughter Bindi Sue have turned a lot of kids (and adults) onto Australia and its wildlife, so Kersplatypus
will appeal to many young children, and they’ll be into learning even more about Australia.
The folks at Sylvan Dell have developed a wealth of learning activities in a variety of subject areas (math, science, language arts, etc.) and more to help you expand upon Kersplatypus. In fact, they have this with every book, which I think is wonderful.
First, in the back of Kersplatypus, they have a “For Creative Minds Section,” that offers expansion activities such as platypus facts, and discussion questions about bullies. This section is even available in pdf format online that you can print out and duplicate.
Second, they offer a comprehensive guide chock full of teaching activities that can help you discuss the book and teach more about Australia. There are language arts, science, math, research and geography, and character activities.
Third, they offer a wealth of learning links where you and your child can go online to learn more about Australia and its animals.
Next, you can go online and listen to each published book in audio format. Kersplatypus is not available yet.
Sylvan Dell also offers online comprehension quizzes teachers can use to test reading comprehension.
Finally, Sylvan Dell offers a variety of ideas for craft activities for your budding artists.
Finally,
In an effort to continue developing our Teaching Activities section we encourage teachers, parents and librarians to submit additional activities to go with any Sylvan Dell title. Please e-mail [email protected] for further information and/or submissions. If accepted, we will send you two free books as a "thank you."
Kersplatypus by Susan K. Mitchell, illustrated by Sherry Rogers
On February 10th, Sylvan Dell is bringing us
Kersplatypus, the story of a creature who appears in the Australian Outback after the big rains. The other animals, including Kookaburra, Wallaby, and Blue-Tongued Skink among many other animals indigenous to the Outback, have never seen a creature this before and have no idea what he is. Even the poor creature himself doesn't know, so they all set upon a mission to help him discover where he belongs. They first lead him to a tree, which he attempts to climb but falls down with a KERSPLAT! Determined to help him find his place, the animals go through a number of similar scenarios until, with the help of wise, old Bandicoot, he finally figures it out.
Susan K. Mitchell does an excellent job with characterization. Brushtail Possum is the nurturer of the group as she is the first to help the creature, and mischievous Blue-Tongued Skink reminds me of my little brother. We get a clear picture of his personality early on in the story when he first sees the creature, " 'You're the craziest looking thing I've ever seen,'… 'What are you supposed to be?'" Mitchell also does a great job of giving young readers interesting facts about Australian wildlife through her story without making it seem like they're being taught a lesson. Through the creature's attempts to find where he belongs, readers learn that possums live in trees, kookaburras fly, wallabies bounce high in the air, and much more.
Sherry Rogers' vivid and detailed illustrations perfectly complement the story and bring the characters to life. One of my favorite illustrations is the scene where Wallaby is bouncing in the air. Blue-Tongued Skink is lying on a rock, hands under his chin, with a grin on his face just waiting to see the creature go KERSPLAT!
Children, teachers, and parents will also enjoy the "For Creative Minds" section in the back of the book where there are a number of activities including more fun facts about the platypus and much more. Also, be sure to visit Sylvan Dell's website where you can find a multitude of
learning links to learn even more about Australia and its creatures.
This guy definitely has the blues!
From Kersplatypus written by Susan K. Mitchell
Published by Sylvan Dell Publishing
Illustrated by Sherry L Rogers
For most of his life, Browning’s oddness was seen by his Victorian contemporaries as the key characteristic of his writing. John Ruskin, for example, wrote to the poet in 1855 to describe the poems in his new book Men and Women as “absolutely and literally a set of the most amazing Conundrums that ever were proposed to me.” Browning’s reply to Ruskin is significant, because it suggests that his difficult style is central to the goals of his poetry: “I know that I don’t make out my conception by my language; all poetry being a putting the infinite within the finite.” This definition of poetry was closely tied to Browning’s views on psychology: throughout his career he was preoccupied with the question of how to fit what he saw as the infinite capacities of the human mind into the finite media of language and poetic form. His answer was to adopt a knotty, convoluted, and tortuous syntax which articulated the difficulty, but also the necessity, of conveying the workings of the mind through the more or less inadequate tools of language.
what a sweet, sad thing....your illustrations are just amazing.
well that just breaks my heart! that meanie with the blue mouth needs to be taught some manners!
Blue and Bluer! I love the blue tongued Skink! And poor Platypus, he is do sad. I am waiting for this book to add to my bookshelf!
lov that bright blue tounge and the work on the platypus's fur is amazing
Oh, I feel so sorry for the little guy. You can certainly create some beautiful emotions on paper. Amazing!
poor guy, i sympathize. lots of character in your characters!
I think a blue-tongued Chow needs to teach Mr. Skink how to be kind. Wonderful illo!
Your drawings are so animated and warm. My husband that normally knows everything thought that the Platypus lived in the Mississippi River. (Personally, I think he got them mixed up with the Alligator gar). Anyway, just amazing art!
I love your sad platypus! Absolutely wonderful!
Can't wait to see if he finds where he belongs! What a naughty skink to laugh!Nicely done.
your characters are really cute!!
Poor platypus! I want to give him a big hug!
This brings a tear to my eye!
Wow, very impressive! And thanks for stopping by.
Beautiful illustration as always!
OH the poor little dotie pet, such a sweetie.
awww! poor thing.
very nice, sherry!