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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.

The post Robert Browning in 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.

by Cassie, Publicity Assistant

Darwin Day continues on the OUPblog! This month, OUP has published a fully corrected and annotated edition of Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. The annotations are by Paul Ekman, the behavioral scientist who inspired the new Fox drama “Lie to Me.” The following post explains Darwin’s three general principles of expression and follows each with an example taken from the text.

I. The principle of serviceable associated habits. Certain complex actions are of direct or indirect service under certain states of the mind, in order to relieve or gratify certain sensations, desires, etc.; and whenever the same state of mind is induced, however feebly, there is a tendency through the force of habit and association for the same movements to be performed, though they may not then be of the least use. Some actions ordinarily associated through habit with certain states of the mind may be partially repressed through the will, and in such cases the muscles which are least under the separate control of the will are the most liable still to act, causing movements which we recognize as expressive. In certain other cases the checking of one habitual movement requires other slight movements; and these are likewise expressive.

Example:

From the continued use of the eyes, these organs are especially liable to be acted on through association under various states of the mind, although there is manifestly nothing to be seen. A man, as Gratiolet remarks, who vehemently rejects a proposition, will almost certainly shut his eyes or turn away his face, but if he accepts the proposition, he will nod his head in affirmation and open his eyes widely. The man acts in this latter case as if he clearly saw the thing, and in the former case as if he did not or would not see it. I have noticed that persons in describing a horrid sight often shut their eyes momentarily and firmly, or shake their heads, as if not to see or to drive away something disagreeable; and I have caught myself, when thinking in the dark of a horrid spectacle, closing my eyes firmly. (Pg. 38)

II. The principle of antithesis. Certain states of the mind lead to certain habitual actions, which are of service, as under our first principle. Now when a directly opposite state of mind is induced, there is a strong and involuntary tendency to the performance of movements of a directly opposite nature, though these are of no use; and such movements are in some cases highly expressive.

Example:

I will here give one other instance of antithesis in expression. I formerly possessed a large dog, who, like every other dog, was much pleased to go out walking. He showed his pleasure by trotting gravely before me with high steps, head much raised, moderately erected ears, and tail carried aloft but not stiffly. Not far from my house a path branches off to the right, leading to the hot-house, which I used often to visit for a few moments, to look at my experimental plants. This was always a great disappointment to the dog, as he did not know whether I should continue my walk; and the instantaneous and complete change of expression which came over him, as soon as my body swerved in the least towards the path (and I sometimes tried this as an experiment) was laughable. His look of dejection was known to every member of the family, and was called his hot-house face. This consisted in the head drooping much, the whole body sinking a little and remaining motionless; the ears and tail falling suddenly down, but the tail was by no means wagged. With the falling of the ears and his great chaps, the eyes became much changed in appearance, and I fancied that they looked less bright. His aspect was that of piteous, hopeless dejection; and it was, as I have said, laughable, as the cause was so slight. Every detail in his attitude was in complete opposition to his former joyful yet dignified bearing; and can be explained, as it appears to me, in no other way, except through the principle of antithesis.

Note from Ekman:
I am less convinced that this is an instance of antithesis. Instead it seems better explained as dejection or what Darwin called ‘lowered spirits.’ He apparently did not accept this as the full explanation because it happened so quickly and the occasion, from his point of view, was so slight. (Pg. 62)

III. The principle of actions due to the constitution of the nervous system, independently from the first of the will, and independently to a certain extent of habit. When the sensorium is strongly excited, nerve-force is generated in excess, and is transmitted in certain definite directions, depending on the connection of the nerve-cells, and partly on habit: or the supply of nerve-force may, as it appears, be interrupted. Effects are thus produced which we recognize as expressive. This third principle may, for the sake of brevity, be called that of the direct action of the nervous system.

Example:

The heart, as I have said, will be all the more readily affected through habitual associations, as it is not under the control of the will. A man when moderately angry, or even when enraged, may command the movements of his body, but he cannot prevent his heart from beating rapidly. His chest will perhaps give a few heaves, and his nostrils just quiver, for the movements of respiration are only in part voluntary. In like manner those muscles of the face which are least obedient to the will, will sometimes alone betray a slight and passing emotion. The glands again are wholly independent of the will, and a man suffering from grief may command his features, but cannot always prevent the tears from coming into his eyes. A hungry man, if tempting food is placed before him, may not show his hunger by any outward gesture, but he cannot check the secretion of saliva. (Pg. 79-80)

by Cassie, Publicity Assistant

Yesterday wasn’t just Lincoln’s birthday. It was also Charles Darwin’s birthday; the 200th anniversary of his birth. Rather than having Darwin get lost among all the Lincoln chatter of the day, the OUPblog decided to declare today an unofficial Darwin Day!

To start the celebration, we have an excerpt from Darwin’s Recollections of the Development of My Mind and Character, a delightfully informal autobiography originally intended for his family. This selection is taken from a new collection of Darwin’s best and most famous works, Evolutionary Writings, edited by James A. Secord.

I am not conscious of any change in my mind during the last 30 years, excepting in one point presently to be mentioned; nor indeed could any change have been expected unless one of general deterioration… I think that I have become a little more skilful in guessing right explanations & in devising experimental tests; but this may probably be the result of mere practice & of a larger store of knowledge. I have as much difficulty as ever in expressing myself clearly & concisely; & this difficulty has caused me a very great loss of time; but it has had the compensating advantage of forcing me to think long & intently about every sentence, & thus I have been often led to see errors in reasoning & in my own observations or those of others. There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading me to put at first my statement & proposition in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words; & then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could have written deliberately.

Having said this much about my manner of writing, I will add that with my larger books I spend a good deal of time over the general arrangement of the matter. I first make the rudest outline in two or three pages, & then a larger one in several pages… Each one of these headings is again enlarged & often transposed before I begin to write in extenso. As in several of my books facts observed by others have been very extensively used, & as I have always had several quite distinct subjects in hand at the same time…I keep from 30 to 40 large portfolios, in cabinets with labelled shelves, into which I can at once put a detached reference or memorandum. I have bought many books & at their ends I make an index of all the facts which concern my work; or if the book is not my own write out a separate abstract, & of such abstracts I have a large drawer full. Before beginning on any subject I look to all the short indexes & make a general & classified index, & by taking the one or more proper portfolios I have all the information collected during my life ready for use.

I have said that in one respect my mind has changed… Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth Coleridge & Shelley, gave me great pleasure, & even as a school-boy I took intense delight in Shakspeare… I have also said that formerly Pictures gave me considerable, & music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare & found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music.— Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure… On the other hand, novels which are works of the imagination, though not of a very high order, have been for years a wonderful relief & pleasure to me, & I often bless all novelists. A surprising number have been read aloud to me, & I like all if moderately good, & if they do not end unhappily,—against which a law ought to be passed. A novel, according to my taste, does not come into the first class, unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love, & if it be a pretty woman all the better.

This curious & lamentable loss of the higher æsthetic tastes is all the odder, as books on history, biographies & travels (independently of any scientific facts which they may contain) & essays on all sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organized or better constituted than mine, would not I suppose have thus suffered; & if I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read some poetry & to listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied could thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, & may possibly be injurious to the intellect & more probably to the moral character by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

…

My habits are methodical, & this has been of not a little use for my particular line of work. Lastly I have had ample leisure from not having to earn my own bread. Even ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of my life, has saved me from the distractions of society & amusement.

Therefore my success as a man of science, whatever this may have amounted to, has been determined, as far as I can judge, by complex & diversified mental qualities & conditions. Of these the most important have been—the love of science—unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject—industry in observing & collecting facts—& a fair share of invention as well as of common sense. With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that thus I shd have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on some important points.