A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)

This half of Rome accepts Pompilia's story of all that led to her flight, and Caponsacchi's statement that he assisted in it simply to save her life. It thinks the husband's int...

"PIPPA PASSES" represents the course of one day--Pippa's yearly holiday; and is divided into what is virtually four acts, being the occurrences of "Morning," "Noon," "Evening,"...

The two first of these are inspired by the belief in the distinctness and continuity of the soul's life; and represent love as a condition of the soul with which positive experi...

Next follows the Pope's version of the story, which differs from those preceding it, in being the summing up of a spiritual judge, who deals not only with facts but with conditi...

The man of faith begins by exclaiming, how hard it is to be (practically) a Christian; and how disproportionate to our endeavour is our success in becoming so. The sceptic repli...

"YOUTH AND ART" is a humorous, but regretful reminiscence of "Bohemian" days, addressed by a great singer to a sculptor, also famous, who once worked in a garret opposite to her...

This tomb, as the Bishop has planned it, is a miracle of costliness and beauty; for it is to secure him a double end: the indulgence of his own tastes, and the humiliation of a...

Mr. Browning alludes, in the course of this monologue, to the two opposite theories of human probation: one confining it to this life, the other extending it through a series of...

Another change takes place: one felt more easily than defined; and he becomes aware that he is looking not on Venice, but on the world, and that what seemed her Carnival is in r...

Chiappino is best understood by comparison with Luitolfo, his fellow-townsman and friend. Luitolfo has a gentle, genial nature; Chiappino, if we may judge him by his mood at the...

for they farther declare that though we aim at truth, our words cannot always be trusted to hit it. The best cannon ever rifled will sometimes deflect. Words do this also. We re...

But he found no response. The listeners mistook his seriousness for satire, and broke out afresh at the excellence of such a joke; and recovering his presence of mind as quickly...

So far the picture is consistent; but if we look below its surface discrepancies appear. The Tower is much nearer and more accessible than Childe Roland has thought; a sinister-...

This theory of creation is derived from Caliban's own experience. In like manner, when he has got drunk on fermented fruits, and feels he would like to fly, he pinches up a clay...

"IXION" is an imaginary protest of this victim of the anger of Zeus, wrung from him by his torments, as he whirls on the fiery wheel.[114] He has been sentenced to this punishme...

[Footnote 42: Whirligig is a parody of the word "vortex." Vortex itself is used in derision of Socrates, who is represented in the "Clouds" as setting up this non-rational force...

Mr. Browning has raised the mother's act out of the sphere of vulgar crime, by the characteristic method of making her tell her story: and show herself, as she may easily have b...

She had appealed for protection against her husband's violence to the Archbishop and to the Governor. She had striven to enlist the aid of his brother-in-law, Conti. She had imp...

But another check is in store for him. He has taken for granted that the cause in which he is to be enlisted is the people's cause. The new soul in him can conceive nothing less...

He had by a second will bequeathed all his possessions to the Church, reserving in them a life-interest for his virtual wife; and when the cousinry swooped down on what they tho...

They are even outside my subject because they are literal; and therefore show Mr. Browning as a scholar, but not otherwise as a poet than in the technical power and indirect poe...

The Lombard League also figures in the story, as the consequence of Salinguerra's and Palma's conspiracy against San Bonifacio; though it also appears as brought about by the hi...

The lyrical supplement to Fancy 12 somewhat obscures the idea on which it turns, by presenting it from a different point of view. But here, as in the remainder of the book, we m...

An ultra-consciousness of self is in fact the key-note of the whole mental situation. Pauline's lover has been a prey to the spiritual ambition so distinctly illustrated in thes...

P. 10. 1. _Milesian smart-place._ 2. _Phrunikos._ (Phrynicus.) 1. The painful remembrance of the capture of Miletus. 2. A dramatic poet, who made this capture the subject of a t...

And since the belief in personality is the belief in human life in its fullest and truest form, it includes the belief in love and self-sacrifice. It may, indeed, be said that w...

It may be wondered why Mr. Browning treats the shallower political cunning as merely a foil to the deeper, instead of opposing to it something better than both: but he finds the...

This book was written at the request of some of the members of the Browning Society, and was originally intended to be a primer. It bears the marks of this intention in its gene...

"HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD" is a longing reminiscence of an English April and May, with their young leaves and their blossoms, their sunshine and their dew, their song of the c...

"I have just noticed in this month's 'Nineteenth Century' that it is inquired by a humorous objector to the practice of spelling (under exceptional conditions) Greek proper name...

_In a Balcony_, p. 1. _Dramatis Personæ_:-- _James Lee's Wife_, p. 41. _Gold Hair; a Story of Pornic_, p. 62. _The Worst of it_, p. 70. _Dîs aliter visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jo...

388 Eagle, The 1884 xv. 6 368 Earth's Immortalities 1845 iii. 105 vi. 45 386 Echetlos 1880 xv. 85 368 England in Italy 1845 iv. 180 v. 47 368 "England, Oh to be in," 1845 iii. 1...

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare vi. 66 Hamelin Town's in Brunswick v. 102 "Heigho!" yawned one day King Francis v. 36 Here is a story shall stir you! Stand...