If you read
these aright you will wish to know more of Tennyson, the poet who
reconciled science and religion and kept his old faith strong to the
end.
BROWNING GREATEST POET SINCE SHAKESPEARE
HOW TO GET THE BEST OF BROWNING'S POEMS--READ THE LYRICS FIRST
AND THEN TAKE UP THE LONGER AND THE MORE DIFFICULT WORKS.
The greatest of English poets since Shakespeare, is the title given to
Robert Browning by many admirers of recognized ability as critics. For
his dramatic force and his insight into human nature there is no
question that Browning deserves this high rank. In these two qualities
he stands above Tennyson. But a large part of his work is written in a
style so crabbed that it acts as a bar to one's enjoyment of many fine
poems. Only the most resolute reader can go through _Sordello_ or _The
Ring and the Book_, the latter, with its interminable discussions of
motive and its curious descriptions of half-forgotten legal and church
methods of the seventeenth century. If one-half this long poem of
over twenty thousand lines had been cut out, it would have been vastly
improved.
[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HOLLYER AFTER
THE PORTRAIT BY G.F. WATTS, R.A.]
The advocates of Browning hold that the study of the poet's
obscurities is good mental discipline, but I am of the belief that
poetry, like music, should not demand too great exertion of the mind
to appreciate its beauty.
Pages:
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101