The writer of a handbook to Mr. Browning's poetry must contend with
exceptional difficulties, growing out of what I have tried to describe
as the unity in variety of Mr. Browning's poetic life. This unity of
course impresses itself on his works; and in order to give a systematic
survey of them, we must treat as a collection of separate facts what is
really a living whole; and seek to give the impression of that whole by
a process of classification which cuts it up alive. Mr. Browning's work
is, to all intents and purposes, one group; and though we may divide and
subdivide it for purposes of illustration, the division will be always
more or less artificial, and, unless explained away, more or less
misleading. We cannot even divide it into periods, for if the first
three poems represent the author's intellectual youth, the remainder are
one long maturity; while even in these the poetic faculty shows itself
full-grown. We cannot trace in it the evidence of successive manners
like those of Raphael, or successive moods like those of Shakespeare;
or, if we do, this is neutralized by the simple fact that Mr. Browning's
productive career has been infinitely longer than was Raphael's, and
considerably so than Shakespeare's; and that changes which meant the
development of a genius in their case, mean the course of a life in his.
And this is the central fact of the case. Mr. Browning's work is
himself. His poetic genius was in advance of his general growth, but it
has been subject to no other law. "The Ring and the Book" was written at
what may be considered the turning-point of a human life. It was in some
degree a turning-point in the author's artistic career: for most of his
emotional poems were published before, and most of the argumentative
after it; and in this sense his work may be said to divide itself into
two. But the division is useless for our purpose. The Browning of the
second period is the Browning of the first, only in a more crystallized
form. No true boundary line can be drawn even here.
My endeavour will, therefore, be to bring the sense of this real
continuity into the divisions which I must impose on Mr. Browning's
work; and thus also to infuse something of his life into the meagre
statement of contents to which I am forced to reduce it. The few words
of explanation by which I preface each group may assist this end. At the
same time I shall resist all temptation to "bring out" what I have
indicated as Mr. Browning's leading ideas by headings, capitals,
italics, or any other artificial device whatever; as in so doing I
should destroy his emphasis and hinder the right reading, besides
effacing the usually dramatic character, of the individual poems. The
impressions I have received from the collective work will, I trust, be
confirmed by it.