Tuesday, 11 November 2014
Sunday, 27 April 2014
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Educated mostly at home, Browning was an extremely bright child and a voracious reader who learned Latin, Greek, French and Italian by the time he was fourteen. He attended the University of London in 1828, the first year it opened, but left to pursue his own reading - his verse is full of references and allusions to other texts.
In the 1830s he met the actor William Macready and tried several times to write verse drama for the stage. At about the same time he began to discover that his real talents lay in taking a single character and allowing him to discover himself to us by revealing more of himself in his speeches than he suspects - the characteristics of the dramatic monologue.
He married fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett in 1846 and a few days later they eloped to Italy (to escape her domineering father), where they lived until her death in 1861. The years in Florence were among the happiest for both of them, although Elizabeth was a much more successful poet during her lifetime. The Ring and the Book (1868-9), based on an "old yellow book" which told of a Roman murder and trial, finally won Browning considerable popularity. He and Tennyson were now mentioned together as the foremost poets of the age.
In the 1830s he met the actor William Macready and tried several times to write verse drama for the stage. At about the same time he began to discover that his real talents lay in taking a single character and allowing him to discover himself to us by revealing more of himself in his speeches than he suspects - the characteristics of the dramatic monologue.
He married fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett in 1846 and a few days later they eloped to Italy (to escape her domineering father), where they lived until her death in 1861. The years in Florence were among the happiest for both of them, although Elizabeth was a much more successful poet during her lifetime. The Ring and the Book (1868-9), based on an "old yellow book" which told of a Roman murder and trial, finally won Browning considerable popularity. He and Tennyson were now mentioned together as the foremost poets of the age.
Friday, 3 January 2014
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
English poet. Born in London into a family of artists, scholars and writers. Brothers William and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were founding members of the art movement the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
A devout High Anglican, she suffered a nervous breakdown as a teenager, which was described as 'religious mania'. She fell in love with various suitors, but rejected them all because they didn't share her religious conditions. Religious themes dominate her work, which explores the tensions between earthly passions and divine love.
Often considered an early 'feminist', she displayed her concern for female fellowship by volunteering for 10 years at St Mary Magdalene's penitentiary for prostitutes and unmarried mothers in Highgate. Her verse includes 'Goblin Market and Other Poems' (1862) and expresses unfulfilled spiritual yearning and frustrated love. She contracted Graves Disease later in life, and the loss of beauty is also a recurrent theme.
She was a skilful technician and made use of irregular rhyme and line length.
Best known for writing the carol, 'In the Bleak Midwinter'.
Suggested reading
Battiscombe, Georgina 'Christina Rossetti' (1981)
Bellas, Ralph 'Christina Rossetti' (1977)
Thomas, Frances 'Christina Rossetti' (1992)
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