文档介绍：Robert Browning
Together with Tennyson,they are regarded as the best two poets in Victorian Time.
family --- the son of a clerk in the Bank of England
education --- never attended school
was privately educated by his parents, and take interest in art and literature while still a child.
marriage --- the poet Elizabeth Barrett in 1846
lived in Italy until his wife died in 1861.
He spent his rest of life in London.
The phrases of his life & his poetic development
as a child & bachelor:
(Browning began to write verses at the age of 6.)
(a) He began his literary career as an ardent follower of Shelly.
His first poem “Pauline”(《波琳》1833) was attacked by John Mill as “morbid state” of self-worship(“有强烈的病态的自我意识”)
Then he managed to avoid the subjective manner of Shelly and created his own objective way of writing.
All these drama was regarded as failure.
Paracelsus (1835), whose hero was a Renaissance alchemist(炼金术士). Though Browning later called the poem "a failure," it received favorable reviews and brought about important friendships with the authors William Wordsworth
His first play, Strafford (1837), closed after only five performances .
The publication of Sordello in 1840 was a disaster which dealt Browning's growing reputation a severe blow
The experiences are valuable in that they helped him develop “dramatic monologue” to maturity
2 Development of the Dramatic Monologue
After the disappointing reception of Strafford and Sordello, Browning turned to the dramatic monologue. He experimented with and perfected this form in the long poem Pippa Passes (1841) and two collections of shorter poems, Dramatic Lyrics (1842) and Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845).
Usually written in blank verse, the dramatic monologue is the speech of a single character in a moment of some dramatic significance. In the course of his monologue, the speaker reveals what this situation is, as well as the setting of the situation and to whom he is speaking. Of greatest i