Summary and Analysis of Victorian Views of Robert Browning's Poetry

In this blog, I will be summarizing and analyzing three texts from the “Victorian Views” section of Robert Browning’s Poetry: “Browning’s Alleged Carelessness,” by William Morris; “Strictures on Browning,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins; and “Browning as a ‘Writer of Fiction,’” by Oscar Wilde. Morris, Hopkins, and Wilde were all Victorian authors themselves, so I was interested in their views on Browning.

Summary

Taken together, these three excerpts give the reader a good sense of the Victorian debates about Robert Browning’s poetry. While Morris and Wilde are both great fans of Browning, Hopkins aligns himself with other Browning detractors. One of the arguments against his poetry is that it was too obscure, and it is with this claim that Morris disagrees. Those who claim obscurity, he argues, do so based on a narrow reading of Browning’s early poems only. His beef with such critics is that their views—erroneous but popular—discourage people from even attempting Browning’s poetry. Wilde’s piece is primarily an argument for Browning “as the most supreme writer of fiction [whose] sense of dramatic situation was unrivalled” (519). Hopkins, on the other hand, thinks Browning’s poetry is frigid, claiming that “Any untruth to nature, to human nature, is frigid” (516). Hopkins openly aligns himself with the early critics who dismissed Browning for being too obscure, concluding that “Browning is not really a poet” (517).

Analysis

I was disappointed to read that Hopkins doesn’t think Browning is a real poet. I haven’t researched his views before, but given that Hopkins also experimented broadly with form, I sort of assumed he would admire Browning for doing the same. I have to wonder if his rejection of Browning isn’t partially based on his own religious views (Hopkins was a Jesuit who often wrote poems—like “The Windhover” and “God’s Grandeur”—that seem to be homages to the glory of God). As Langbaum argued in his essay on dramatic monologue, Browning doesn’t expect his readers to hold with standard Christian theology when they read his religious poems. Instead, the argument for—or against religion—comes entirely from the circumstances inside of the poem. Part of the reason I wonder this is that Hopkins dismisses The Ring and the Book (which he hasn’t read) because he has heard that is isn’t “edifying” or “of our people” (517). In other words, it doesn’t provide moral or religious instruction. While we tend not to critique literature in terms of its potential for edification in the 21^st century, Victorian critics had no such qualms.

I was also struck by Wilde’s argument that Browning is a “supreme writer of fiction.” Although Wilde isn’t concerned with Elizabeth Barrett Browning here, I would argue that she, too, is a skilled fiction writer. For the most part, I like novels. I like to study them, write about them, and teach them. While I enjoy teaching poetry, I don’t often study it or write about it outside of the classroom context. But I’ve always been a fan of the Brownings, and I’ve claimed over the years that the reason I like them so much is that their poems have elements of fiction and narrative in them that we don’t often see in other poetry. More so than other Victorian poetry, theirs is about stories. Because they’re stories relayed via poetry, they lack some of the typical characteristics of fiction—like overt character development—but for the most part, they have similar features.  

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “Strictures on Browning.” Robert Browning's Poetry. Ed. James F. Loucks

and Andrew M. Stauffer. 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 516-517. Print.

Morris, William. “Browning’s Alleged Carelessness.” Robert Browning's Poetry. Ed. James F. Loucks

and Andrew M. Stauffer. 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 501-502. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. “Browning as ‘Writer of Fiction.’” Robert Browning's Poetry. Ed. James F. Loucks and

Andrew M. Stauffer. 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 517-519. Print.