In today’s literary world, Robert Browning belongs to a club of great literary minds and is considered in retrospect to have been “one of the most important poets of Victorian England” (Martin 8). During his lifetime, however, his work received considerable criticism and was often not well-received. Much of the criticism was related to the unconventional form he took. Part of this unconventional form can be seen in Browning’s treatment of the aristocracy of his time. But before this can be discussed in terms of his work, it is first important to understand both Victorian England and its literature during the nineteenth century and Robert Browning himself.
Victorian England was a world of social classes where moving from one to another was nearly impossible. Even as industrialization made hard-working middle-class men wealthier, more so than some of their aristocratic counterparts, their acceptance in the highest social circles was strained at best (Loftus n.p.). While middle-class citizens were recruited to white collar jobs, they still remained members of a class beneath the socially elite. And though they may have been tolerated in higher social circles, particularly as the century progressed towards its end and the aristocracy struggled to maintain their financial standing and name-value, true acceptance was unlikely (Bartlett 195) unless their move into aristocracy was based on marriage or through appointments to state offices (Loftus n.p.). However, though most of less-than-high-born status would ever be admitted to the socially elite drawing rooms, there were exceptions and “an author of talent can go there” according to Bartlett (195).
With the rights and entitlements of aristocracy came stereotypes perpetuated both by what the lesser among them were told was true and a tendency to view things unattainable as somehow better and greater in both character and virtue. As such, English aristocrats were attributed with “refined sensibilities” (Bartlett 190) and touted as having greater “morality and virtue, superior to that of any country in Europe” (Bartlett 190). This, however, was little more than a public relations campaign. In his work, Bartlett went on to discuss the selfishness of the nobility, stating a tendency for aristocracy to not produce, but to consume enormously (Bartlett 191) a fact most of the citizenry knew all too well and none would dare speak. And it is this reality and the tendency of aristocracy to adorn their homes with human art and artists (Bartlett 191) that brings us to the unconventionality of Robert Browning.
Robert Browning was born in 1812 to a decidedly hard-working middle class family (Redman vii), the son and grandson of bank clerks (Chesterton 3). Contrary to Bartlett’s view of aristocracy, Browning’s father was a man of true conscience for whom selfishness was a painful concept (Chesterton 6). He was a man of sincere interest in art and literature, and encouraged his son in this pursuit (Chesterton 7). First his intelligence then his precocity limited his formal education, but Browning’s father more than subsidized this at home with “Greek epics and medieval chronicles” (Chesterton 7), grammar lessons and a joyous and loving family who treated learning as a loving game.
Browning attended University College sowing the seeds of his literary bent in the sun of Keats and Shelley, watered by a seemingly counter-intuitive optimism born of the French Revolution (Chesterton 10). Browning explored his own conscience, and held out hope for wisdom and redemption. Common in youth, Browning’s optimism, conscious, and romantic bent persisted, however. And his honest character and ability to laugh at himself won him a broad circle of friends (Chesterton 13). This would prove important as his speech was not of the sort to impress those “refined sensibilities” (Bartlett 190) of the morally self-righteous and literary snobbish that was the highest level of society and academia (Chesterton 62).
Among those friends was a mutual acquaintance of the family of Elizabeth Barrett. As if Shakespeare had written their stories himself, their families were star-crossed by three generations, and their two fathers as different as the night and day in which Elizabeth and Robert had been raised in respectively (Chesterton 70). Barrett’s father, though not an aristocrat, accumulated wealth on the coattails of slavery and indenture, and was seeped in the selfishness and egotism Bartlett attributed to the aristocracy of the day. Having suffered a riding accident, Elizabeth Barrett was confined to couch and bed, her father reveling in the burden and rejoicing in the validation of general human suffering an invalid daughter brought to his self-righteous temperament (Chesterton 71). Worse yet, Browning’s status would ruin Barrett’s “social position” (Chesterton 82). However, having heard one another’s name a mild interest was said to have been sparked in each, and in 1845 Browning wrote a letter which would be the midnight hour of a new day in each of their lives. A year later, the two married in secret. Some days later, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning left the death-bed on which she had spent the last many years, slipped out of her father’s morose home, and ran away with Browning to Italy (Chesterton 84).
The two lived in Italy where there son was born some three years later. They both continued to write, Elizabeth consistently being more well-received that Robert. Despite that, they reportedly rarely disagreed, and lived a life of unprecedented happiness exploring art and literature until Elizabeth’s untimely death in 1861. Chesterton (95) wrote “She died alone in the room with Browning, and of what passed then, though much has been said, little should be. He, closing the door of that room behind him, closed a door in himself, and none ever saw Browning upon earth again but only a splendid surface.” By the time Elizabeth had died, Browning was becoming famous. Upon leaving Italy and returning to England, he was well-known in both England and America.
In his later life he continued to write and publish, but his use of language never softened, and he did not acquiesce to the critics who argued for the clearer and more conventional language of poetry (Chesterton 132). But his unbent knee did not stop the critics. Through his life and up to his death in 1889, and far beyond that, criticisms continued.
Generally the criticisms of Browning’s work consisted of a repeated mantra: they lacked the traditional beauty of the era’s poetry, and they were too difficult for the average Victorian reader to understand (Martin 6). Repeatedly both signed and anonymous criticisms were published decrying the difficulty reading and understanding the work. Words like rough, obscure, and unintelligible were attached to Browning’s name one publication after another (Martin 6). Over time with the sheer volume of Browning’s published work growing, one would imagine greater acceptance; this was not the case. The volume of criticism grew proportionally (Martin 7). He is accused of intentionally writing in ambiguous and course terms in an effort to annoy readers who could not understand him. Ultimately, there was a form and rhythm which all other poetry seemed to follow, and Browning simply did not follow the traditional rules. Like anyone who violated one of the codes of Victorian England, those who made the codes were inevitably going to strike back. His uncompromising refusal to follow the strict boundaries within which poetry should be written was labeled as inflexible, undisciplined, and arrogant, and Browning was accused of disregarding his responsibility to his readership (Martin 7-9). The irony, of course, was that the inflexibility and arrogance of an academically and socially elite England prevented the acceptance of this new form of poetry to which Browning unflinchingly strove to introduce them (Martin 7). James Douglas, in 1903, suggested that Browning would be largely forgotten, saying, “A hundred years hence his works will be read only by the professional man of letter, unless some of his shorter poems are preserved in twenty-first century anthologies” (Douglas 25).
Browning was aware of the criticisms and at times responded. But he did not bend. In an 1868 letter, he responded to a suggestion his work was too difficult to understand and therefore the masses did not like Browning. He replies that his work is not intended to be a “substitute for a cigar or a game at dominoes” and the lost masses are far less important to him than the valued few who do understand (Corson 75). He continued to write in his own way, following his own style, and what is more he violated the time-honored tradition of tactfully ignoring the short-comings of his superiors. In fact, it is suggested that much of his work is a narrative of Browning’s personal perspective of various people including specific nobles or nobility in general.
Browning was not encumbered with the awe of aristocracy. He recognized they were simply people with the flaws of character that plague all of humanity. His intention, however, was never to satirize people, but instead to humanize them. Chesterton noted this in relating an anecdote about a conversation between Browning and two friends. Browning explains that Bishop Brougham’s Apology, while most certainly directed at a particular well-known cardinal, was not done with hostility. Instead, it was meant to act as the cardinal’s defenses and “are intended to say the best that can be said for the persons with whom they deal” (Chesterton 188). And this was the intent of much of Browning’s work addressing the aristocracy. It was in his good nature to show people, all people regardless of their station, as they truly are: human, flawed, and without the labels – good or bad – placed on them by society.
Browning’s work spoke of things that were not otherwise spoken of in polite company. This was never more true than in Porphyria’s Lover. As Ross (71) noted, Porphyria seems to be of a higher social status than the narrator when he says he loves her in vain but she is “Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor, / To set its struggling passion free / From pride” (Browning 22-24). According to Ross, although traditionally assumed to be one of Browning’s monologues depicting a murder, it is about an even more taboo subject in Victorian England: sex. Even more tantalizing, it is about erotic asphyxiation (Ross 69) as suggested by Browning’s lines in the poem: “again / laughed the blue eyes without a stain” (44-45) and “her check once more / Blushed bright beneath my burning lips” (46-48). Each of these lines follows the narrator’s description of strangling Porphyria, but these are not the descriptions of a dead woman. This is a lover rousing again after fainting. Twice the narrator mentions that Porphyria was in no pain, nor does he say she struggled against him. And the narrator points out that looking in her eyes, there is no staining, a reference to vessels breaking when someone is killed by strangulation. In true form, Browning has taken behavior far too base to exist among the elite, stripped away the pretention, and shown the aristocracy naked of everything behind which they hide leaving then with only the same human character which exists in all men. The high-born and repressed Porphyria is driven by her sexual desire just like all creatures. And unable to have her desires met by a man of equal standing, unable to even admit those desires exist in her social world, she turns to a man of common birth who loves her, satisfies her, has earned her absolute trust, but knows he cannot have her. Although one of Browning’s monologues, it is not just the narrator’s character we learn about in Porphyria’s Lover. Ross points out that if we read carefully and consider everything the narrator is telling at more than simply face value, then we can learn a great deal about the likely-aristocratic Porphyria as well (Ross 71).
Another work in which Browning sought to humanize the aristocracy is My Last Duchess (Browning 252), although what is revealed beneath the trappings of the highest in society is much less pleasant upon which to look. Another of Browning’s monologues designed to give the reader an uncolored look at human character (Allingham n.p.), the Duke looks on a picture of his late wife as he speaks with a visitor about his coming marriage to another woman. Showing off the painting which is usually covered, we begin to see a man who is obsessive and controlling. In speaking of her happiness, the narrator tells the visitor “A heart – how shall I say? – too soon made glad. / Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er / She looked on, and her looks when everywhere” (21-24). The Duke seems displeased that his wife was frequently happy for things beyond himself. He is most displeased, however, by what he sees as her ingratitude for marrying him, although in doing so he have her “a nine-hundred-years-old name” (33) demonstrating his own self-importance. In speaking, he demonstrates that women are objects to him, and as such they should have aesthetic value and serve their purpose, but nothing more. His endless speech depicts a man who demands tyrannical control over those in his charge, likening women to a beast who need taming when he makes reference to a figure of “Neptune / Taming a sea-horse” (54-55). And he is willing to murder those who refuse to be controlled as suggested by the following: “This grew; I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together” (45-46). In this case, Browning acknowledged that the Duke in the poem is modeled after a real person whose family Browning had met. His depiction is of a man Browning felt was representative of much of aristocracy: self-involved, powerful beyond measure, and oblivious to the lives or needs of anyone beyond themselves and a few selected from among their own kind (Allingham n.p.).
Browning was a man of genius, but for much of the literary world it took years for many to fully appreciate this. From a loving by socially middle-class upbringing, Browning rose through the ranks likely due in part to his literary circle (Douglas 28) and in part because he continued to publish despite constant criticism. His work could not be avoided. But Browning brought with him the lessons of his youth: optimism and love for his fellow man, and a refined sense of forgiveness that inspired him to see people – good or bad – for what lay in their hearts. He refused to follow the traditions of a class system that required one man to kneel and grovel for another by virtue of nothing more than the happenstance of birth. In an unprecedented display of honesty, he tore away the haughty costumes of the aristocracy and the beggars garb with equal enthusiasm, and forced them to stand side-by-side and be looked upon.
Browning did not satirize the wealthy nor indemnify the wretched. He simply viewed man as man and reported without bias on the similarities between the two. Beggars could be kingly, and kings were merely men. And he would not dress these realizations up in form and verse to say it.
Many struggled to understand Browning’s work, and still do today. Chesterton (65) dismissed the work of the Browning Society, Browning’s greatest advocates, as having no greater understanding of his genius than anyone else. Chesterton, Browning’s “wittiest and most understanding biographer” (Redman viii) noted that only those able to see the world with Browning’s honesty and generosity would ever truly appreciate him (15). Given the many interpretations of his work, it is clear that society struggles still to do so.
Works Cited
Allingham, Phillip V. (Ed.). “Applying Modern Critical Theory to Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess””. Victorian Web. Lakehead University. Web. 28 February 2016. Available at http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/rb/duchess/pva264.html
Bartlett, David W. London by Day and Night; or, Men and Things in the Great Metropolis. New York: Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1852. Web. 28 February 2016. Available at https://archive.org/stream/ londonbydaynight00bart#page/n7/mode/2up
Browning, Robert. “Porphyria’s Lover.” The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning. Ed. Horace E. Scudder. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1895. 286. Web. 28 February 2016. Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/9/5/50954/
Chesterton, G. K. Robert Browning. Project Gutenberg, 2004. Web. 28 February 2016. Available at http://www. gutenberg.net/1/3/3/4/13342/
Corson, Hiram. An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning’s Poetry. Boston: D. C. Heath, 1886. Web. 28 February 2016. Available at https://www.questia.com/read/ 53498011/an-introduction-to-the-study-of-robert-browning-s
Douglas, James. Robert Browning. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1903. Web. 28 February 2016. Available at https://archive.org/details/douglasrobertbro00doug
Loftus, Donna. “The Rise of the Victorian Middle Class.” BBC. BBC, 2011. Web. 28 February 2016.
Martin, Kristi. “Nineteenth-Century Perceptions of Robert Browning: The Poet through His Own Eyes and Those of His Victorian Critics and Devoted Readers.” Master’s thesis, Wake Forest University, 2010.
Redman, Ben Ray. “Introduction.” The Poems of Browning. Roslyn, NY: Black’s Readers Service Company, 1932. vii – ix. Print.
Ross, Catherine. “Browning’s Porphyria’s Lover” Explicator 60.2 (2002): 68-72. Web. 28 February 2016. Available at http://0literature.proquest.com.fama.us.es/pageImage.do? ftnum=113047363&fmt=page&area=criticism&journalid=00144940&articleid=R01614808&pubdate=2002
