A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) by Mrs. Sutherland Orr
page 20 of 489 (04%)
page 20 of 489 (04%)
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asserts itself, though in a less obvious manner.
So much of Mr. Browning's moral influence lies in the hopeful religious spirit which his works reveal, that it is important to understand how elastic this is, and what seeming contradictions it is competent to unite. The testimony of one poem might otherwise be set against that of another with confusing results. Mr. Browning's paternal grandfather was an Englishman of a west country stock;[1] his paternal grandmother a Creole. The maternal grandfather was a German from Hamburg named Wiedemann, an accomplished draughtsman and musician.[2] The maternal grandmother was completely Scotch. This pedigree throws a valuable light on the vigour and variety of Mr. Browning's genius; for it shows that on the ground of heredity they are, in great measure, accounted for. It contains almost the only facts of a biographical nature which can be fitly introduced into the present work. HIS CHOICE AND TREATMENT OF SUBJECT. VERSIFICATION. Mr. Browning's choice of subject is determined by his belief that individual feeling and motive are the only true life: hence the only true material of dramatic art. He rejects no incident which admits of development on the side of feeling and motive. He accepts none which cannot be so developed. His range of subject covers, therefore, a great deal that is painful, but nothing that is simply repulsive: because the poetry of human life, that is of individual experience, is absent from |
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