Asolando: Fancies and Facts: "What a thing friendship is, world without end!"

By Robert Browning

Robert Browning is one of the most significant Victorian Poets and, of course, English Poetry.

Much of his reputation is based upon his mastery of the dramatic monologue although his talents encompassed verse plays and even a well-regarded essay on Shelley during a long and prolific career.

He was born on May 7th, 1812 in Walmouth, London. Much of his education was home based and Browning was an eclectic and studious student, learning several languages and much else across a myriad of subjects, interests and passions.

Browning's early career began promisingly. The fragment from his intended long poem Pauline brought him to the attention of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was followed by Paracelsus, which was praised by both William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens. In 1840 the difficult Sordello, which was seen as willfully obscure, brought his career almost to a standstill.

Despite these artistic and professional difficulties his personal life was about to become immensely fulfilling. He began a relationship with, and then married, the older and better known Elizabeth Barrett. This new foundation served to energise his writings, his life and his career.

During their time in Italy they both wrote much of their best work. With her untimely death in 1861 he returned to London and thereafter began several further major projects.

The collection Dramatis Personae (1864) and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868-69) were published and well received; his reputation as a venerated English poet now assured.

Robert Browning died in Venice on December 12th, 1889.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Jan 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781787376427

Robert Browning

Robert Browning (1812-1889) was an English poet and playwright. Browning was born in London to an abolitionist family with extensive literary and musical interests. He developed a skill for poetry as a teenager, while also learning French, Greek, Latin, and Italian. Browning found early success with the publication of Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835), but his career and notoriety lapsed over the next two decades, resurfacing with his collection Men and Women (1855) and reaching its height with the 1869 publication of his epic poem The Ring and the Book. Browning married the Romantic poet Elizabeth Barrett in 1846 and lived with her in Italy until her death in 1861. In his remaining years, with his reputation established and the best of his work behind him, Browning compiled and published his wife’s final poems, wrote a series of moderately acclaimed long poems, and traveled across Europe. Browning is remembered as a master of the dramatic monologue and a defining figure in Victorian English poetry.

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Asolando: Fancies and Facts by Robert Browning

Robert Browning is one of the most significant Victorian Poets and, of course, English Poetry.

Much of his reputation is based upon his mastery of the dramatic monologue although his talents encompassed verse plays and even a well-regarded essay on Shelley during a long and prolific career.

He was born on May 7th, 1812 in Walmouth, London.  Much of his education was home based and Browning was an eclectic and studious student, learning several languages and much else across a myriad of subjects, interests and passions.

Browning's early career began promisingly. The fragment from his intended long poem Pauline brought him to the attention of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was followed by Paracelsus, which was praised by both William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens. In 1840 the difficult Sordello, which was seen as willfully obscure, brought his career almost to a standstill.

Despite these artistic and professional difficulties his personal life was about to become immensely fulfilling.  He began a relationship with, and then married, the older and better known Elizabeth Barrett. This new foundation served to energise his writings, his life and his career.

During their time in Italy they both wrote much of their best work. With her untimely death in 1861 he returned to London and thereafter began several further major projects.

The collection Dramatis Personae (1864) and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868-69) were published and well received; his reputation as a venerated English poet now assured.

Robert Browning died in Venice on December 12th, 1889.

Index of Contents

ASOLANDO: FANCIES AND FACTS

TO MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON

PROLOGUE

ROSNY

DUBIETY

NOW

HUMILITY

POETICS

SUMMUM BONUM

A PEARL, A GIRL

SPECULATIVE

WHITE WITCHCRAFT

BAD DREAMS. I.

BAD DREAMS. II.

BAD DREAMS. III.

BAD DREAMS. IV.

INAPPREHENSIVENESS

WHICH?

THE CARDINAL AND THE DOG

THE POPE AND THE NET

THE BEAN-FEAST

MUCKLE-MOUTH MEG

ARCADES AMBO

THE LADY AND THE PAINTER

PONTE DELL' ANGELO, VENICE

BEATRICE SIGNORINI

FLUTE-MUSIC, WITH AN ACCOMPANIMENT

IMPERANTE AUGUSTO NATUS EST—

DEVELOPMENT

REPHAN

REVERIE

EPILOGUE

ROBERT BROWNING – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

ROBERT BROWNING – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

ASOLANDO

TO MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON

To whom but you, dear Friend, should I dedicate verses—some few written, all of them supervised, in the comfort of your presence, and with yet another experience of the gracious hospitality now bestowed on me since so many a year,—adding a charm even to my residences at Venice, and leaving me little regret for the surprise and delight at my visits to Asolo in bygone days?

I unite, you will see, the disconnected poems by a title-name popularly ascribed to the inventiveness of the ancient secretary of Queen Cornaro whose palace-tower still overlooks us:  Asolare —to disport in the open air, amuse one's self at random. The objection that such a word nowhere occurs in the works of the Cardinal is hardly important—Bembo was too thorough a purist to conserve in print a term which in talk he might possibly toy with: but the word is more likely derived from a Spanish source. I use it for love of the place, and in requital of your pleasant assurance that an early poem of mine first attracted you thither—where and elsewhere, at La Mura as Cà Alvisi, may all happiness attend you!

Gratefully and affectionately yours,

R. B.

ASOLO:  October  15, 1889.

The greater part of Asolando was written in 1888-89, though in one instance at least an early poem was included in the collection. The title of the volume is explained in the dedication. The book, by a strange coincidence, was published on the day of Browning's death.

PROLOGUE

"The Poet's age is sad: for why?

In youth, the natural world could show

No common object but his eye

At once involved with alien glow—

His own soul's iris-bow.

"And now a flower is just a flower:

Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man—

Simply themselves, uncinct by dower

Of dyes which, when life's day began,

Round each in glory ran."

Friend, did you need an optic glass,

Which were your choice? A lens to drape

In ruby, emerald, chrysopras,

Each object—or reveal its shape

Clear outlined, past escape,

The naked very thing?—so clear

That, when you had the chance to gaze,

You found its inmost self appear

Through outer seeming—truth ablaze,

Not falsehood's fancy-haze?

How many a year, my Asolo,

Since—one step just from sea to land—

I found you, loved yet feared you so—

For natural objects seemed to stand

Palpably fire-clothed! No—

No mastery of mine o'er these!

Terror with beauty, like the Bush

Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees,

Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tush!

Silence 'tis awe decrees.

And now? The lambent flame is—where?

Lost from the naked world: earth, sky,

Hill, vale, tree, flower,—Italia's rare

O'er-running beauty crowds the eye—

But flame? The Bush is bare.

Hill, vale, tree, flower—they stand distinct,

Nature to know and name. What