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Title: Life of Robert Browning

Author: William Sharp

Release Date: December 26, 2004 [EBook #14476]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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"Great Writers."

EDITED BY
ERIC ROBERTSON AND FRANK T. MARZIALS.

LIFE OF BROWNING.

FOR FULL LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES, SEE CATALOGUE AT END OF BOOK

LIFE

OF

ROBERT BROWNING

BY

WILLIAM SHARP.

LONDON
WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1897

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

London, Robert Browning's birthplace; his immediate predecessors and
contemporaries in literature, art, and music; born May 7th, 1812; origin
of the Browning family; assertions as to its Semitic connection
apparently groundless; the poet a putative descendant of the Captain
Micaiah Browning mentioned by Macaulay; Robert Browning's mother of
Scottish and German origin; his father a man of exceptional powers,
artist, poet, critic, student; Mr. Browning's opinion of his son's
writings; the home in Camberwell; Robert Browning's childhood;
concerning his optimism; his fondness for Carravaggio's "Andromeda and
Perseus"; his poetic precocity; origin of "The Flight of the Duchess";
writes Byronic verse; is sent to school at Peckham; his holiday
afternoons; sees London by night, from Herne Hill; the significance of
the spectacle to him. Page 11.

CHAPTER II.

He wishes to be a poet; writes in the style of Byron and Pope; the
"Death of Harold"; his poems, written when twelve years old, shown to
Miss Flower; the Rev. W.J. Fox's criticisms on them; he comes across
Shelley's "Daemon of the World"; Mrs. Browning procures Shelley's poems,
also those of Keats, for her son; the perusal of these volumes proves
an important event in his poetic development; he leaves school when
fourteen years old, and studies at home under a tutor; attends a few
lectures at University College, 1829-30; chooses his career, at the age
of twenty; earliest record of h