Browning's Heroines

Browning's Heroines

When this book was projected, some one asked, "What is there to say about Browning's heroines beyond what he said himself?"and the question, though it could not stay me, did chill momentarily my primal ardour. Soon, however, the restorative answer presented itself. "If there were nothing to say about Browning's heroines beyond what he said himself, it would be a bad mark against him." For to suggestto open magic casementssurely is the office of our artists in every sort: thus, for them to say all that there is to say about anything is to show the casement stuck fast, as it were, and themselves battering somewhat desperately to open it. Saying the things "about" is the other people's function. It is as if we suddenly saw a princess come out upon her castle-walls, and hymned that fair emergence, which to herself is nothing. Browning, I think, is "coming back," as stars come back. There has been the period of obscuration. Seventeen years ago, when the Yellow Book and the National Observer were contending for les [Pg viii]jeunes, Browning was, in the more "precious" cterie, king of modern poets. I can remember the editor of that golden Quarterly reading, declaiming, quoting, almost breathing, Browning! It was from Henry Harland that this reader learnt to read The Ring and the Book: "Leave out the lawyers and the Tertium Quid, and all after Guido until the Envoi." It was Henry Harland who would answer, if one asked him what he was thinking of: regardless of all aptitude in the allusion, making it simply because it "burned up in his brain," just as days "struck fierce 'mid many a day struck calm" were always his days of excitement.... A hundred Browning verses sing themselves around my memories of the flat in Cromwell Road. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 21247
Author: Mayne, Ethel Colburn
Release Date: Apr 28, 2007
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Armfield, Maxwell, 1881-1972