alternatehistory.com

It has often been stated in literary theory that a writer’s style will vary in accordance with changes in their own personal experiences. Nowhere has this been more apparent in the stylistic shifts employed by one of Britain’s underrated poets, Robert Browning. Originally associated with the twilight of the Romantics who dominated in his formative years, Browning’s later work came to be associated with a darker, self-described “dingier” aesthetic. Browning’s shift from the Shelleyan style into a more personal, darker poetry would eventually see critical acclaim, but for the duration of his lifetime it would see his work scorned.

The catalyst for the stylistic shift would come from Browning’s own personal experiences. He had met the poet Elizabeth Barrett, six year his senior, at an informal gathering in London and had begun to secretly court her, aware of her father’s opposition to her marrying. He had dreamt of them eloping to Italy and establishing themselves like his hero Shelley. The dream would however peter out: Elizabeth, would reject his proposal of marriage. While much speculation has been written around whether or not this was down to the influence of her domineering father, such speculation casts an unfair shadow upon her. As Browning’s later writings reveal, the attraction was simply not mutual.

Browning, angered and saddened by the rejection would leave London for Italy, establishing himself in the ancient Tuscan city of Pisa. Here, the Italian landscapes and culture would rekindle something of the Romantic influence of his heroes Shelley and Byron, but as his work from this period attests, he began to reject the Romantic ideal in favour of something more personal. In his monologue, “I legami che legamo”, he wrote of burning the collected works of Shelley, and his other possessions, so as to free himself from “the ties that bind” and start anew. The poem, while not a critical or commercial success in Britain, would see a shift in his style as he primarily wrote, darker and more abstract monologues. Browning, following the publication of his volume “The Death of the Severed Sun” would leave Pisa for Germany, eventually establishing himself in a small apartment near the Hamburg docks. Here he would continue his experimentation, beginning work on the abstract and experimental collection which he termed his “Cantos.” He would also renew his correspondence with Elizabeth Barrett, which they maintained until her death. The reconnection between the two would see Browning arrange for the publication of several of her collections translated into German.

His time in Hamburg would see him become loosely affiliated with the burgeoning socialist movement, and while his politics rarely appeared directly in his work, his experiences in the movement would inspire the collection “The Auguries” which he published in 1851. The darker, more nihilistic tone in his poetry during this period won him a small international following, with his works being published in small numbers across Europe, though never enough to provide a sustainable income. During his “leaner years” as he termed them, Browning would continue work on his Cantos while working as a bank clerk. The Cantos would contain themes of frustration, alienation and melancholy. The most famous of these is the poem “The Serpent That Sinks Its Teeth Into Its Tail” which is famous for a particularly evocative passage:

The serpent hisses what my damage has been

My blood forms and begs me to open my heart again

And I feel this coming like a storm

The venomous voice tempts me

Drains me, bleeds me

The walls come down

The flood fills me

The serpent drowns

I look into his dying eyes, my fear fades

And I remember all of the times

I have died

I will die

The Cantos would receive a mixed reception, and like his previous work would fail to be commercially successful. Nevertheless, the collection’s abstraction, vocal dissonance and melancholic tone brought him further attention, and with it a broader audience. Following a brief return to London, Browning would suffer from writer’s block a sensation aggravated by the death of Elizabeth Barrett which would affect him deeply. Browning, depressed and unable to write would move to the United States in 1858, establishing himself in New York where he found work writing literary reviews for several local publications. It would be here that he would begin to write poetry again, and it was in New York that his ambitions for further experimentation with the medium would bare fruit, as he undertook a project to stage several works of his own, as well of those of Schiller, Dante and Blake to music, which were then performed in open arenas. The outbreak of the Civil War would scupper plans to perform the pieces outside of New York, though he had begun to gain some influence in the local New York literary scene.

Browning, in the aftermath of the war, would change his style again, moving from the heavily personalised monologues of his time in Europe, to a more detached third person narrative, in which he would describe the narrative in mundane, unpoetic language. This shift drew criticism from the local literary press, but his wryly comic asides about life in New York would draw him to the attention of the writer and journalist Mark Twain, who’s description of the period as “a Gilded Age” matched Browning’s own ironic detachment. The two would meet in 1873 and developed a cordial friendship, often exchanging ideas in long rambling letters.

While Browning had apparently mellowed in moving to America, he would die from an overdose of opium and morphine in 1876 at the age of sixty-four, seemingly disheartened at the constant critical rejection of his work. While he was little mourned at the time outside of a few small circles, his work would shift the forgotten fringes of nineteenth century literature during the early years of the twentieth he would find a new audience as the burgeoning modernist movement took inspiration from his mid-century experimentations.
Top