R560300A. Men and Women (Boston, 1856).
Graham’s American Monthly Magazine, March 1856, pp. 273–274.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 376.
That Robert Browning is a man of peculiar, original and vigorous genius, has never been doubted except by those who profess their incompetency to understand its creations. Is this obscurity due to his thoughts or his expression? The answer would seem to be, that it is to be referred to both, but the obscurity in the thoughts commonly proceeds from their fineness or their novelty. They are not readily apprehended, because they have been brought forth from recesses of consciousness which are unvisited by ordinary thinkers, and require all the sorcery there is in imaginative expression to be even suggested to minds which are loose and inexact in their percep- [p. 274→] tions. This magic of expression Browning possesses but imperfectly. He does not easily evoke the mood he addresses. The material of language seems to resist his efforts to shape it into the form of his thought; and this feeling of strain on the part of the poet, and resistance on the part of his material, often jars unpleasantly on the reader’s mind. Browning is therefore a poet to be studied in order to be enjoyed. The present volume contains some fifty poems, not one of which is deficient in merit, and some of which are of transcendent excellence. Many record experiences or observations of the subtle workings of thought and emotion, which we think have never before appeared in literature, and which are positive additions to our knowledge of human nature. It is to be regretted that in numerous instances this originality is expressed in words which hint, rather than convey his meaning, and that those poems in which he is clearest he is not greatest. We ought perhaps to except “Evelyn Hope;” yet exquisitely melodious and simple as it is, we doubt if its full beauty and depth are perceived by ordinary readers. It seems to us that “Evelyn Hope,” “Any Wife to any Husband,” “In a Balcony,” “Saul,” “Two in the Campagna,” “One Word More,” not to particularize others among the poems in this volume, will eventually rank with the most striking poetical productions of the century. If the reader cannot at first understand them, let him study them until he does, for study they will certainly reward.
Reviewed:
Men and Women (RB), Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1856.
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