Robert Browning

Robert Browning by C. H. (Charles Harold) Herford CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE. PARACELSUS. The Boy sprang up ... and ran, Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.- A Death in the Desert. Dass ich erkenne, was die WeltIm Innersten zusammenhält.- Faust. Judged by his cosmopolitan sympathies and his encyclopædic knowledge, by the scenery and the persons among whom his poetry habitually moves, Browning was one of the least insular of English poets. But he was also, of them all, one of the most obviously and unmistakably English. Tennyson, the poetic mouthpiece of a rather specific and exclusive Anglo-Saxondom, belonged by his Vergilian instincts of style to that main current of European poetry which finds response and recognition among cultivated persons of all nationalities; and he enjoyed a European distinction not attained by any other English poet since Byron. Browning, on the contrary, with his long and brilliant gallery of European creations, Browning, who claimed Italy as his "university," remains, as a poet, all but unknown even in Italy, and all but non-existent for the rest of the civilised world beyond the Channel. His cosmopolitan sympathies worked through the medium of a singularly individual intellect; and the detaching and isolating effect which pronounced individuality of thinking usually produces, even in a genial temperament, was heightened in his case by a robust indifference to conventions of all kinds, and not least to those which make genius easily intelligible to the plain man. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.