Robert Browning – Biography of Robert Browning

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England. His mother was an accomplished pianist and a devout evangelical Christian. His father, who worked as a bank clerk, was also an artist, scholar, antiquarian, and a collector of books and pictures. His rare book collection of more than 6,000 volumes included works in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. Much of Browning’s upbringing came from his knowledgeable father. It is believed that he was already an expert in reading and writing at the age of five.

Bright and anxious student, Browning He learned Latin, Greek and French when he was fourteen years old. From fourteen to sixteen he was home schooled, instructed by various tutors in music, drawing, dancing, and horseback riding. At the age of twelve he wrote a volume of verse entitled Hidden, which his parents tried, unsuccessfully, to publish. In 1825, a cousin gave Browning a collection of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetry; The young man was so impressed with the book that he ordered the rest of Shelley’s works for his thirteenth birthday, declaring himself a vegetarian and an atheist, emulating the poet. Despite this early passion, he apparently did not write a poem between the ages of thirteen and twenty.

In 1828, he enrolled at the University of London, but soon dropped out, eager to read and learn at his own pace. The random nature of his upbringing later surfaced in his writing, drawing criticism for the obscurity of his poems.

In 1833, Browning anonymously published his first major work, Pauline, and in 1840 published Sordello, which was widely considered a failure. He also tried his hand at the theater, but his plays, including Strafford, which ran for five nights in 1837, and the series Bells Y Pomgranates, for the most part they were unsuccessful. However, the techniques he developed through his dramatic monologues – especially his use of diction, rhythm and symbol – are considered his most important contribution to poetry, influencing such important 20th century poets as Ezra Pound, TS Eliot and Robert Frost.

After reading the poems of Elizabeth barrett (1844) and corresponding with her for a few months, Browning met her in 1845. They were married in 1846, against the wishes of Barrett’s father. The couple moved to Pisa and then to Florence, where they continued to write. They had a son, Robert “Pen” Browning, in 1849, the same year that they published their Collected Poems. Elizabeth inspired Robert’s collection of poems, Men and Women (1855), which he dedicated to her. Now considered one of the best works of Browning, the book was received with little interest at the time; its author was known primarily as Elizabeth Barrett’s husband.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, and Robert and Pen Browning soon moved to London. Browning happened to publish Dramatis Personae (1864) and The Ring and the Book (1868-1869). The latter, based on the trial for an Italian homicide in the 17th century, received great critical acclaim, and finally came a twilight of recognition and respect in the career of Browning.

The Browning Society It was founded while he was still alive, in 1881, and received honorary degrees from the University of Oxford in 1882 and the University of Edinburgh in 1884. Robert Browning he died the same day his last volume of verse, Asolando: Fancies and Facts, was published, in 1889.