R460600A. Luria and A Soul’s Tragedy.
Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine, June 1846, pp. 573–574.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 13, 393–394.
Mr. Browning is, in our opinion, a great poet, and it is probable he is also a great man. We say this, because there seems to be in him a thorough hatred and scorn of the ad captandum school. He has great perceptions and conceptions, and his delight is in his own might, not in the vain plaudits of those who mistake skill for genius, and smartness for originality. If the comparative neglect of the many is displeasing to him, at all events, Coriolanus-like, he will not show his scars; he cannot
Put on the gown, stand naked and entreat them.
He may perchance have a touch too much, with the proud Roman, of resting on his own powers, and if not despising, disregarding his reader. He understands character and human emotion profoundly, and delineates it powerfully. He never aids the reader by narrative or obtrusion of himself. There are character, passion, and poetry, flung down on the paper, and it is certainly the reader’s fault or misfortune if he does not perceive them. The great secret of his strength and of his hardness is his utter want of sentimentality. He pourtrays the characters of men in all the nakedness and hideousness of true passion. He has chosen an age and a country where these kind of developments have been most, or at all events, best recorded, and we are present, by his art, with the [p. 574→] real and terrific men that have been the slaves of intense hatred, ambition, lust, and of all the impulses of unrestrained human nature. When goodness does appear amongst such a crew, it is of the genuine and angelic kind, as it must be.
In history one reads of the actions of such men, and with but a half belief in the truth of the narration; but the dramatist proves its existence with appalling force. Mr. Browning is deeply imbued and informed with the spirit of the middle age; and he has a great idea, which, in the play of “Luria,” he nobly realises. It is the conflict of mind and matter, of will and intellect.
Brute force shall not rule Florence! Intellect
May rule her, bad or good, as chance supplies;
But intellect it shall be, pure if bad.
The “Soul’s Tragedy” is one of the most intensely dramatic works ever penned. The deepest emotions and the nicest traits of character are developed by the mere external conduct and expression. The villain of the piece is a thorough human villain, and the unfolding his villany is a masterly exposition of the degradations and weakness of human nature. The truly good and the noble are equally powerfully pourtrayed, and Mr. Browning has fulfilled the mission of the poet and the dramatist by giving new and valuable illustrations of our human nature. The theatre and Mr. Browning’s dramas are never likely to come in contact; not at all events until, as in the early days of our true drama, the most refined minds, and therefore the comparatively few, again visit the playhouse as a place to study nature and philosophy. The high drama was always played in its entirety, and always must be, to the reflecting few. When we have another “Globe” or “Blackfriars,” containing a few hundred cultivated spectators, Mr. Browning’s dramas may be performed.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. VIII. Luria; and A Soul’s Tragedy (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1846.
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