R690327D. The Ring and the Book (Boston, 1869).
The Christian Register (Boston), 27 March 1869, p. 4.
Browning’s new poem, in its completed form, justifies the impression which the first volume was suited to produce. It is by far the most elaborate production which he has published, and throughout it bears the marks of a careful and loving workmanship. No one who reads it can doubt that the poet had long meditated on his theme before he put pen to paper, that he had arranged its whole plan even into comparatively unimportant details, and that the verse has been subjected to a rigorous pruning. Everywhere we find passages such as no other living poet could have written, where the strong imagination, the kindling fancy, the picturesqueness of description, or the harmony of the verse, must strike every lover of poetry. And yet with all this one too often finds passages as incomprehensible by an ordinary reader as any part of Sordello; for great as Browning is—and as a dramatic poet he surpasses all his contemporaries,—it must be conceded that he is sometimes hard to read and hard to understand. It is perhaps too early to attempt to decide whether the first place among his works must be given to “Pippa Passes,” “A Blot On the ’Scutcheon,” or to this longer and more elaborate production; but even to intimate a doubt on this point is to bestow high praise on the later work. Certain is it, that the peculiar and, so far as we now remember, entirely original design of the poem, the dramatic power and skill in characterization shown in it, as well as its many striking and noble passages, must insure for it many readers; and that no one can rise from its perusal without a deeper impression of the strength and richness of its author’s genius. The characters are drawn with singular power, and each is a perfect study, while the portraiture of the rival parties described as “Half Rome” and “The other half Rome” shows an equally intimate acquaintance with the thoughts, feelings, sympathies and prejudices by which masses of men are actuated. With occasional roughnesses, frequent obscurities, and a few downright platitudes, the verse is as harmonious as Browning has ever written.
Reviewed:
The Ring and the Book (RB), Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1869.
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