Browning

[aeolium]

Not gravy but Robert, the bicentenary of whose birth yesterday has gone pretty much unmarked by the BBC AFAIK, though it has been noticed in some of the papers e.g here in the Grauniad. I have a complete edition of his poetry, bought for £1 a few decades ago, but I confess I know very few poems apart from some of the more famous ones. He is much less well known now than for instance Tennyson and Housman, and I wonder if that is partly due to an archaism and whimsy in his style and also because of a predilection for writing long dramatic poems on esoteric subjects. Perhaps in this latter respect he seems more of a poet born out of his time, someone who would have been closer to the romantic poets of the early C19 who like him were attracted to Italy and its stories.

Do people still read him now and if so what are the poems that stand out and what qualities distinguish them?

[Richard Tarleton]

Do people still read him now and if so what are the poems that stand out and what qualities distinguish them?

Rob Cowan did mark the occasion yesterday by reading a bit of “A Toccata of Galuppi’s” and then playing a bit of Galuppi.

I “did” Browning for A level in, er, 1966, and rather enjoyed it, though the habit did not stick. I can remember bits and pieces, such as "My Last Duchess", but that's about it. Browning's team mate on that A level syllabus was Yeats, who left an altogether profounder impression.

[vinteuil]

Glaring, accusingly, at me as I write is a good copy of "The Ring and the Book", plus various commentaries on same, which I acquired a dozen years ago really really meaning to give it a Serious Read. Many distractions have intervened; I have always seemed to have something better to do...

But yes, I do read Browning - and have much enjoyed the 'conversation poems' (such as 'My Last Duchess').
It's the technical brilliance, and the wit and amused lively intelligence, that I enjoy in Browning rather than anything too Heavy.

[Lateralthinking1]

He deserves better. Born in Camberwell and commemorated to this day in good old Walworth - SE17. A short piece about Browning and Dickens, Walworth and Wemmick, Ruskin and Babbage, and Little Britain - http://www.digitaldickens.com/content.php?id=161.

ONLY the prism’s obstruction shows aright
The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light
Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;
So may a glory from defect arise:
Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak
Its insuppressive sense on brow and cheek,
Only by Dumbness adequately speak
As favoured mouth could never, through the eyes.

[aeolium]

Browning's does seem to be a strange and disconcerting voice, not least in having some of the most idiosyncratic first lines outside nonsense verse in all poetry, from the banal "What's become of Waring", to the striking "Oh, Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find" and the glorious "Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away". And there are very diverse rhythms in his poetry as if he is often experimenting with different metres, such as the echoing one in Love Among the Ruins: "Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,/Miles and miles/".

There is a recording of Browning's voice on one of the British Library CDs of poets reading their own work - RB actually forgets his own lines but is anyway given a cheer by some of his admirers. He comes across as very genial, one given to smiles like his Pied Piper - "No tuft on cheek or beard on chin,/But lips where smiles went out and in".

Anyway, a toast to his bicentenary and let's hope his work is brought out from the shadows.

[french frank]

Diverse subjects too. The Pied Piper of Hamelin was one we read/had read to us in our little village primary school. I don't think we had to learn the whole thing, but I can still remember the beginning, and odd couplets, excuse inaccuracies:

Hamelin town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city.
The River Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its walls on the southern side.
A prettier spot you never spied.
When begins my ditty &c

A thousand guilders!
The mayor looked blue,
And so did the corporation too.

You threaten us, fellow,
Do your worst!
Blow your pipe
Until you burst! [much hilarity here from the class of 8-11 year olds!]

[aeolium]

It's a lovely poem, ff. I remember reading it (and being read it) as a child. I like some of the outrageous rhymes such as those of a fat rat's memory:

And it seemed as if a voice
(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery
Is breathed) called out "Oh rats, rejoice!
"The world is grown to one vast dry-saltery!
"So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
"Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!"
And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,
All ready staved, like a great sun shone
Glorious scarce an inch before me,
Just as methought it said "Come, bore me!"
-- I found the Weser rolling o'er me!

[Lateralthinking1]

Good stuff. My grandmother would frequently be seen on Browning Street in Walworth. Browning died five months before she arrived and 92 years before she departed. However, on the day he celebrated his 200th birthday, she celebrated her 122nd. I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say that she could really read or write but there were similar wonderful idiosyncrasies.

[vinteuil]

I can still remember the beginning, and odd couplets, excuse inaccuracies:

Hamelin town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city.
The River Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its walls on the southern side.
A prettier spot you never spied.
When begins my ditty &c

A thousand guilders!
The mayor looked blue,
And so did the corporation too.

You threaten us, fellow,
Do your worst!
Blow your pipe
Until you burst! ]

French Frank is a scholar; I hope therefore that she will excuse the attempt of a scholar manqué to make a few minor amendments...

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its walls on the southern side;
A prettier spot you never spied;
When begins my ditty,
[Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.]

/ ... /

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the corporation too.

/.../

You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst!
Blow your pipe there till you burst!

[french frank]

French Frank is a scholar; I hope therefore that she will excuse the attempt of a scholar manqué to make a few minor amendments...

.

Wasn't bad, though, after well over half a century! (Harmonica beginners will be familiar with what is known as 'The Close Enough Style')

When begins my ditty,
[Almost five hundred years ago,
To see thetownsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.]

Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats
And bit the babies in their cradles
Tumpety tumpety tumpty vats
And tumpety tum from the cooks' own ladles ...