R551212A. Men and Women.
The Morning Chronicle, 12 December 1855, p. 3.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 331–332.
We confess that we cannot admire the poetry of Mr. Robert Browning. It may be that we reverse the ordinary rule, and do not like what we cannot understand. Mr. Browning is one of the modern poets who labours under the delusion that he is inspired when he is unintelligible, and that his most melodious strains and softest cadences are those which reflect no meaning and evoke no sympathy. Without wishing to pass too hard a sentence upon the compositions of Mr. Browning, it may at least be asserted that similar contributions to the literature of the age would not have found many admirers in the days of Dryden and Goldsmith. If to write well be to write what nobody but the author himself can understand, then we claim for Mr. Browning a statue in the temple of Fame. Yet although there are not ten people alive, speaking and writing the English language, who can honestly aver that they comprehend the productions of the spasmodic school, of which Mr. Browning is the head and front, still there are people with the hardihood to aver that this is an inspired age, and that “Men and Women” is a poetical composition of great power and brilliancy. The following lines, about the most intelligible and melodious in the book, are appropriately called “Misconceptions”:—
“This is a spray the bird clung to,
Making it blossom with pleasure,
Ere the high tree-top she sprung to,
Fit for her nest and her treasure.
Oh, what a hope beyond measure
Was the poor spray’s, which the flying feet hung to—
So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!
“This is a heart the Queen leant on,
Thrilled in a minute erratic,
Ere the true bosom she bent on,
Meet for love’s regal dalmatic.
Oh, what a fancy ecstatic
Was the poor heart’s, ere the wanderer went on—
Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!”
This may be poetry, but for the life of it we cannot make it out. Let Mr. Browning for the future try to be intelligible, if he wishes to be read.
Reviewed:
Men and Women (RB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1855.
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