Browning, Robert, 1812-1889; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
In the summer of 1834, that is, when he was in his twenty-second year,
he returned to Camberwell. "Sordello" he had in some fashion begun, but
had set aside for a poem which occupied him throughout the autumn of
1834 and winter of 1835, "Paracelsus." In this period, also, he wrote
some short poems, two of them of particular significance. The first of
the series was a sonnet, which appeared above the signature 'Z' in the
August number of the _Monthly Repository_ for 1834. It was never
reprinted by the author, whose judgment it is impossible not to approve
as well as to respect. Browning never wrote a good sonnet, and this
earliest effort is not the most fortunate. It was in the _Repository_
also, in 1835 and 1836, that the other poems appeared, four in all.
The song in "Pippa Passes," beginning "A King lived long ago," was one
of these; and the lyric, "Still ailing, wind? Wilt be appeased or no?"
afterwards revised and incorporated in "James Lee," was another. But the
two which are much the most noteworthy are "Johannes Agricola" and
"Porphyria." Even more distinctively than in "Pauline," in their novel
sentiment, new method, and generally unique quality, is a new voice
audible in these two poems. They are very remarkable as the work of so
young a poet, and are interesting as showing how rapidly he had outgrown
the influence of any other of his poetic kindred. "Johannes Agricola" is
significant as being the first of those dramatic studies of warped
religiosity, of strange self-sophistication, which have afforded so much
matter for thought. In its dramatic concision, its complex psychological
significance, and its unique, if to unaccustomed ears somewhat barbaric,
poetic beauty, "Porphyria" is still more remarkable.
It may be of this time, though possibly some years later, that Mrs.
Bridell-Fox writes:--"I remember him as looking in often in the
evenings, having just returned from his first visit to Venice. I cannot
tell the date for certain. He was full of enthusiasm for that Queen of
Cities. He used to illustrate his glowing descriptions of its beauties,
the palaces, the sunsets, the moonrises, by a most original kind of
etching. Taking up a bit of stray notepaper, he would hold it over a
lighted candle, moving the paper about gently till it was cloudily
smoked over, and then utilising the darker smears for clouds, shadows,
water, or what not, would etch with a dry pen the forms of lights on
cloud and palace, on bridge or gondola on the vague and dreamy surface
he had produced. My own passionate longing to see Venice dates from
those delightful, well-remembered evenings of my childhood."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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