The Browning Critics

Boyd Litzinger, K. L. Knickerbocker, Boyd Litzinger, K. L. Knickerbocker

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780813153360
• eBook ISBN:
  9780813186351
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The poetry of Robert Browning has been the subject of extensive literary criticism since his death in 1889. Two well-known Browning scholars here present the best of Browning criticism, bringing together from many sources representative evaluations of the poet and his poetry. The twenty-one essays here have been arranged chronologically so that the reader can follow the development of Browning studies and the fluctuations of his poetic reputation. They express varied points of view and are typical of the critical methods used by the Browning scholars. Included are essays by George Santayana, John J. Chapman, G. K. Chesterton, Paul Elmer More, William C. DeVane, Hoxie N. Fairchild, and Richard D. Altick.

In the introduction Mr. Litzinger and Mr. Knickerbocker review the broad spectrum of Browning criticism. The editors also provide a bibliographic guide to the rapidly growing body of Browning criticism, which supplements and brings up to date previous Browning bibliographies.

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

THIS BIBLIOGRAPHY has been compiled to provide the serious student of Robert Browning with a useful supplement to the excellent bibliography compiled and edited by Professors Broughton, Northup, and Pearsall, published in 1953 by the Cornell University Press. We have attempted to list everything which has been published on Browning since 1950, both the important and the incidental, feeling that those who will use such a compilation will prefer a surplusage to a shortage of material. Having been forced, nonetheless, to place some limitations upon ourselves, we have not provided (as the Cornell bibliographers have) bibliographical descriptions of books which have been published; nor have we listed reprints or later editions, except where these contain substantial new material. We have given a sampling of the reviews of the more important books treating Robert Browning. This bibliography indicates something of the breadth of present scholarly and critical interest in the poet; and if—as bibliographies often do—it stimulates still further interest in Browning, it will have served a useful purpose.

1951

Altick, Richard D. “The Private Life of Robert Browning,” Y ale Review, XLI (1951), 247-62.

Armytage, W. H. G. “Some New Letters of Robert Browning, 1871-1889,” Modern Language Quarterly, XII (1951), 155-58.

Brown, E. K. “The First Person in ‘Caliban upon Setebos,’ ” Modern Language Notes, LXVI (1951), 392-95.

Buckley, Jerome H. The Victorian Temper: A Study in Literary Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1951.

Dickson, Arthur. “Browning’s ‘Serenade at the Villa,’ ” Explicator, IX (1951), Item 57.

Fairchild, Hoxie N. “Browning’s Pomegranate Heart,” Modern Language Notes, LXVI (1951), 265-66.

———. “Browning’s ‘Whatever Is, Is Right,’ ” College English, XII (1951), 377-82.

Foster, J. T. “Browning’s ‘The Inn Album,’ ” Explicator, X (1951), Item 18.

Himelick, Raymond. “Bayard Taylor and Browning’s ‘Holy Vitus,’ ” South Atlantic Quarterly, L (1951), 542-51.

Howling, Robert Tunis. “Browning’s Theory of the Purpose of Art,” Susquehanna University Studies, IV (1951), 215-28.

Knickerbocker, Kenneth L., ed. Selected Poetry of Robert Browning. New York, 1951.

Lewis, Naomi. “Browning’s Poetry,” The New Statesman and Nation, XLI (1951), 161.

Lind, Sidney E. “James’s ‘The Private Life’ and Browning,” American Literature, XXIII (1951), 315-22.

McAleer, Edward C., ed. Dearest Isa: Robert Browning’s Letters to Isabella Blagden. Edited and with an Introduction. Austin, Texas, 1951.

———. “Isa Blagden to Kate Field,” Boston Public Library Quarterly, III (1951), 210-20.

Nowell-Smith, S., ed. Browning: Poetry and Prose. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1951.

“Poetry and Crime,” Times Literary Supplement, February 23, 1951, p. 117.

Rundle, James Urvin. “Burns’ ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’ and Browning’s ‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,’ ” Notes and Queries, CXCVI (1951), 252.

Super, R. H. “Review of New Letters of Robert Browning,” Modern Philology, XLIX (1951), 136-42. “Rejoinder,” Modern Philology, XLIX (1952), 275-77.

Thaler, Alwin. “Whittier and the English Poets,” New England Quarterly, XXIV (1951), 53-68.

Tillotson, Geoffrey. Criticism and the Nineteenth Century. London, 1951.

Wallace, Sarah A. “Robert Browning in London Society,” Modern Language Notes, LXVI (1951), 322-24.

Weber, Carl J. “Much Ado about Browning,” Colby Library Quarterly, III (1951), 44-45.

1952

Armytage, W. H. G. “Robert Browning and Mrs. Pattison: Some Unpublished Browning Letters,” University of Toronto Quarterly, XXI (1952), 179-92.

Bowman, W. P. “Browning Anecdote,” Modern Language Notes, LXVII (1952), 473-74.

Burrows, Leonard. Browning: An Introductory Essay. Perth, Australia, 1952.

Burtis, Mary Elizabeth. Moncure Conway, 1832-1907. New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1952.

Cohen, J. M. Robert Browning. London, 1952.

———. “Seeing Browning Plain,” Spectator, CLXXXIX (1952), 637-38.

Corrigan, Beatrice. “New Documents on Browning’s Roman Murder Case,” Studies in Philology, XLIX (1952), 520-33.

Coyle, William. “Molinos: ‘The Subject of the Day’ in The Ring and the Book,” PMLA, LXVII (1952), 308-14.

Greer, Louise. Browning and America. Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1952.

Harding, Joan O. H. “Charles Morgan and Browning,” Hibbert Journal, LI (1952), 55-62.

Jamieson, Paul F. “Browning’s ‘Pictor Ignotus, Florence, 15—,’ ” Explicator, XI (1952), Item 8.

Johnson, Edward Dudley Hume. The Alien Vision of Victorian Poetry: Sources of the Poetic Imagination in Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold. (Princeton Studies in English Series, No. 34.) Princeton, 1952.

Kenmare, Dallas. Ever A Fighter: A Modern Approach to the Work of Robert Browning. London, 1952.

Lowe, Robert L. “Scott, Browning, and Kipling,” Notes and Queries, CXCVII (1952), 103-104.

McLachlan, H. John. “A Browning Letter,” Times Literary Supplement, February 8, 1952, p. 109.

Miller, Betty. “Elizabeth Barrett and her Brother,” Cornhill Magazine, VIII (1952), 221-28.

———. Robert Browning: A Portrait. New York, 1952. Rev. by R. D. Altick, in New York Herald Tribune Book Review, Mar. 22, 1953, p. 3; by W. C. DeVane, Saturday Review, XXXVI (Mar. 7, 1953), 22; by J. M. Cohen, Spectator, CLXXXIX (Nov. 14, 1952), 637; by Eugene Davidson, Yale Review, XLII (1953), 613; by Francis Steegmuller, New York Times, Mar. 8, 1953, p. 6; in Times Literary Supplement, Nov. 14, 1952, p. 742.

Morgan, Charles, Rapporto tra arte e genio Considerazioni sull’ Andrea del Sarto di Browning. Rome, 1952.

Osgood, Charles Grosvenor. The Voice of England: A History of English Literature. New York, 1952.

Pearsall, Robert B. “Browning’s Texts in Galatians and Deuteronomy,” Modern Language Quarterly, XIII (1952), 256-58.

Purves, John. “New Letters of Robert Browning,” Times Literary Supplement, June 6, 1952, p. 377.

Stevenson, Lionel. “The Pertinacious Victorian Poets,” University of Toronto Quarterly, XXI (1952), 232-45.

Super, R. H. “A Grain of Truth about Wordsworth and Browning, Landor and Swinburne,” Modern Language Notes, LXXVII (1952), 419-21.

Weaver, Bennett. “A Primer Study in Browning’s Satire,” College English, XIV (1952), 76-81.

Willey, Dale H. “Moral Meanings in The Ring and the Book: Three Symbols and an Allegory,” Research Studies of the State College of Washington, XX (1952), 93-111.

1953

Boulton, J. A. “Browning: A Potential Revolutionary,” Essays in Criticism, III (1953), 165-76. See also comment by Elizabeth Nitchie, III, 475-76.

Bowra, C. M. “Dante and Sordello,” Comparative Literature, V (1953), 1-15.

Broughton, Leslie Nathan; Clark Sutherland Northup; and Robert Pearsall, comps. Robert Browning: A Bibliography, 1830-1950 (Cornell Studies in English Series, Vol. XXXIX). Ithaca, New York, 1953.

Charlton, H. B. “The Making of the Dramatic Lyric,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, XXXV (1953), 349-84.

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. “Browning and his Ideal,” A Handful of Authors. Ed. Dorothy Collins. New York, 1953.

Coombes, Henry. Literature and Criticism. London, 1953.

Duncan, Joseph E. “The Intellectual Kinship of John Donne and Robert Browning,” Studies in Philology, L (1953), 81-100.

Furnivall, F. J., ed. “Acquisitions,” Huntington Library Quarterly, XVI (1953), 437.

Gwynn, Frederic L. “Browning’s ‘Home Thoughts from the Sea,’ ” Explicator, XII (1953), Item 12.

Hogarth, Henry. “The Mystery o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• [1891] Henry Jones, The Heart and the Head
• [1895] George Saintsbury, Browning
• [1898] John J. Chapman, Robert Browning
• [1900] George Santayana, The Poetry of Barbarism
• [1903] Gilbert K. Chesterton Browning as a Literary Artist
• [1905] Paul Elmer More, Why Is Browning Popular?
• [1912] Dixon Scott The Homeliness of Browning: A Centenary Article
• [1927] Frances T. Russell His Saving Grace of Pessimism
• [1932] William C. DeVane The Harlot and the Thoughtful Young Man
• [1946] F. E. L. Priestley, Blougrams Apologetics
• [1947] William C. DeVane, The Virgin and the Dragon
• [1948] Donald Smalley Special Pleading in the Laboratory
• [1949] Hoxie N. Fairchild Browning the Simple-Hearted Casuist
• [1950] William O. Raymond, The Infinite Moment
• [1951] Richard D. Altick The Private Life of Robert Browning
• [1956] Kenneth L. Knickerbocker A Tentative Apology far Robert Browning
• [1956] Robert Langbaum The Ring and the Book: A Relativist Poem
• [1957] Roma A. King, Eve and the Virgin
• [1957] B. R. Jerman, Brownings Witless Duke
• [1959] Laurence Perrine, Brownings Shrewd Duke
• [1959] Robert Preyer A Reading of the Early Narratives
• [1964] Philip Drew Henry Jones on Browning’s Optimism
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index of Brownings Works
• General Index