Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Robert Browning (1812-1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, and challenging vocabulary and syntax.

Robert Browning

“My sun sets to rise again.”

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Born in South London he was educated at home by a tutor, using the resources of his father's library. By the age of 12 encouraged by his father, Browning had written a book of poetry, which he later destroyed for want of a publisher.  He refused a formal career and ignored his parents' remonstrations by dedicating himself to poetry. He stayed at home until the age of 34, financially dependent on his family until his marriage. His father sponsored the publication of his son's poems.

Elizabeth Barrett-Browning (1806-1861)

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In 1845, Browning met the poet Elizabeth Barrett, six years his senior, who lived as a semi-invalid in her father's house in Wimpole Street, London. They began regularly corresponding and gradually a romance developed between them, leading to their marriage and journey to Italy (for Elizabeth's health) on 12 September 1846.  From the time of their marriage and until Elizabeth's death, the Brownings lived in Italy, residing first in Pisa, and then, within a year, finding an apartment in Florence at Casa Guidi (now a museum to their memory).  In 1861, Elizabeth died in Florence and the following year Browning returned to London.  In the remaining years of his life Browning travelled extensively and in 1878 he revisited Italy for the first time in the seventeen years since Elizabeth's death.  Browning died at his son's home Ca' Rezzonico in Venice on 12 December 1889 and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Robert Browning

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"

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"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" was written in 1852. The title, which forms the last words of the poem, is a line from William Shakespeare's play King Lear. The poem opens with Roland's speculations about the truthfulness of the man who gives him directions to the Dark Tower. Browning does not retell the Song of Roland; his starting point is Shakespeare. The gloomy, cynical Roland seeks the tower and undergoes various hardships on the way, although most of the obstacles arise from his own imagination. Upon reaching the Tower, Roland finds all those who failed to reach the tower, and under it he finally shouts "Childe Roland to the dark tower came". What Roland finds inside the tower is not revealed.  Carol Rumens in the Guardian Newspaper Books Blog considers it “tempting to read the poem as an exploration of an inner state of mind, or even an account of "the battle with depression" even though Browning denied writing conscious allegory”.  She concludes that "Childe Roland" is one of darkest and greatest poems.

Lord Byron 1788-1824

“Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone.” From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS, known simply as Lord Byron, was an English poet, peer and politician who became a revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence, and is considered one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement.  Byron spent his early years in Aberdeen, and was educated at Harrow School and Cambridge University. In 1809, he left for a two-year tour of a number of Mediterranean countries. He returned to England in 1811, and in 1812 the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' were published. Byron became famous overnight. In the wake of Childe Harold’s enormous popularity, Byron was lionized in Whig society. The handsome poet was swept into a liaison with the passionate and eccentric Lady Caroline Lamb, and the scandal of an elopement was barely prevented by a friend She was succeeded as his lover by Lady Oxford, who encouraged Byron’s radicalism.

Lord Byron 1788-1824

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone

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In 1814, Byron's half-sister Augusta gave birth to a daughter, almost certainly Byron's. The following year Byron married Annabella Milbanke, with whom he had a daughter, his only legitimate child. The couple separated in 1816.  Facing mounting pressure as a result of his failed marriage, scandalous affairs and huge debts, Byron left England in April 1816 and never returned.

He contracted a fever from which he died in Greece in 1824. Deeply mourned, he became a symbol of disinterested patriotism and a Greek national hero. His body was brought back to England and, refused burial in Westminster Abbey, was placed in the family vault near Newstead. Ironically, 145 years after his death, a memorial to Byron was finally placed on the floor of the Abbey.

Lord Byron, 2020 Oil on Paper 28x28cm (Private Collection)

 'Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage' was published between 1812 and 1818. Dedicated to "Ianthe", it describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man, who is disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry and looks for distraction in foreign lands. In a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.