Talk:Robert Browning

Biography assessment rating comment

WikiProject Biography Assessment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 04:33, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

This article needs some love! Too many hyperlinks and what's the reference to "Sordello" that mysteriously pops up in the middle. And what happened to the Wilde/quote link below?

Why the "only a clerk"? -- Charles Lamb was a literary guy, despite being only a clerk. -- Marj Tiefert, Tuesday, July 9, 2002

A relatively low wage compared to "skilled professions" (i.e professors) -- Imran

I hope nobody minds me going through and correcting all this stuff, some of it was wildly erroneous and the full text of the Oscar Wilde quote was imho entirely unnecessary - I've moved that to a link, changed the list of works to a complete and correct one (will be adding links to individual volumes later), and started revising the biography. Fosse8 17:43, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I won't change this, because everyone will disagree, but does the word "British" really sound right as a description of a poet? British is something you call an army, not a poet. I realize that there is a desire to avoid the word "English" because that is the language of American, Canadian, Australian and other writers, but really, is anyone going to get very confused if an Englishman is referred to as "English"? American poets are called American. An Englishman can surely be called English without that looking like an unfairly proprietorial attitude toward the language. Just a thought. Fixlein (talk) 16:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Sections

I added some section headers to break up this article into more digestible pieces and to provide a table of contents. If any Browning experts feel it might be divided or labelled differently, please feel free (as always!) to change things. — Jeff Q (talk) 02:18, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

List of works

Would it be practical to provide a concise list of Browning's works? That's actually what I had originally come to this article to find. I suspect others would find it useful, too. — Jeff Q (talk) 02:20, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• I added one of those a long time back with the intention of providing short articles on each of his collections and long poems; I went away for a long time and now the article is (to my mind) much more of a mess. Looking at it, it appears someone vandalised the article and the restoration was a bit patchy. I can't tell if I'm looking at it from a biased perspective but I'd much prefer the text from the old version with the new section headings... I've added the list of works back in from an old edit, and will go through & thoroughly tidy this up over the coming months. Fosse8 03:15, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• If the list is "complete" why is it missing works mentioned in the body of the article? Where is Bishop Blougram, etc?

• The list is one of Browning's published volumes. "Bishop Blougram's Apology" is an individual poem in Dramatis Personae. Actually, the list looks fine to me, but people may be misled by the fact that some famous, individual poems are listed inset beneath the volume title and others are not. Things are only complicated by the fact that the titles of some volumes are also the titles of the poems that they contain (e.g. Fifine at the Fair, Ferishtah's Fancies, The Ring and The Book and several others), whereas other volumes contain many shorter poems. It would be impractical in this article to give a complete list of individual poems, but someone could create a separate page and link to it if they've got the time. --Sordel 09:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Pied Piper?

No mention of The Pied Piper, his best-remembered work? Rhinoracer 10:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• As mentioned above, the list is a list of published volumes, not individual poems - if it helps, think of it as being like a list of albums, rather than individual songs. The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a poem contained in Dramatic Lyrics (and mentioned in that article). Fosse8 10:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Clarification, anyone?

Can anyone explain to me what this sentence from the article actually means? "Set against the backdrop of the conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, Sordello was already difficult to understand for a Victorian audience that was accustomed to the annotation in historical fiction." I don't have any idea what 'the annotation in historical fiction' is, that Sordello evidently was lacking, and that other historical fiction of the period had. Marieblasdell 16:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Browning's poetic style

I really do not like this sentence: Browning chooses some of the most debased, extreme and even criminally psychotic characters no doubt for the challenge of building a sympathetic case for a character who doesn't deserve one and to cause the reader to squirm at the temptation to acquit a character who may be a homicidal psychopath. I think it overstates its case, and projects the reader's response onto Browning's intentions - the phrase 'no doubt' may be no doubt in that particular reader's mind but it certainly has some doubt in this reader's mind. Anybody else think it needs a rewrite?--Guinevere50 02:00, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree; this entire section is distressingly reductive and simple. Yes, "Porphyria's Lover" shows us a killer from the killer's point of view, but the purpose of the poem is not to tackle the challenge of 'building a sympathetic case' for the killer or to make 'the reader squirm'. The poem is a commentary on the impossibility of a poem immortalizing a love affair and a critique of romantic poetics as much as it is a portrait. Similar complaints could be leveled against the reading of "My Last Duchess" and "Fra Lippo Lippi" offered here; the readings lack depth and nuance, presenting extremely complicated and accomplished works as simplistic. One might think, reading this article, that Browning was interested in nothing but shocking his audience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.84.33.61 (talk) 18:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Where is everything?

This article seems to be missing an awful lot, there is an early life and a later life, but nothing in between. Including information referenced both on this discussion page and in the article itself. Was the middle chunk of the article erased? Was there a reason? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.167.70.91 (talk) 04:52, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

It's broken beyond repair, and I've totally given up trying to fix it - have a look at a random version from late 2004 or mid-2005 and compare with what's here now, nothing substantially useful has been added but a lot of good material has been wiped. Fosse8 (talk) 15:35, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

It needs citations in the discussion of "Poetic Style." There are lots of references at the end, but no citations of what is clearly scholarly research in the section itself. --216.62.86.116 (talk) 15:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I had a look at a version from 1 Dec 2005. There is a lot of difference, contradiction and extra material, as you say Fosse8. There is 50% more copy in the current version but that maybe mostly non-descriptive content (refs, links, works etc). What is the protocol for re-introduction? None of the 2005 copy is referenced or verifiable. We couldn't just dump in text wily nilly, even though much of it is interesting... Other than sitting down with a stack of biogs - which is probably what the page needs - not sure what to do with the older material n... I'd appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks Spanglej (talk) 05:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Oops?

I removed a sentence because it looked totally like personal opinion. But I don't know much about poetry so I could have made a mistake. Please take a looky! ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 12:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Pop section

I suggest we cut the "pop" section. It is mostly a list of media inspired by Browning's works. Every famous artist has hundreds of people who are inspired by their work. The list is not comprehensive or notable, in my view. WP:TRIV says "Trivia sections should be avoided." Any objections? Thanks