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Browning's Dramatic Lyrics (1842)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Extract
Familiarity must never lead us to overlook the strangeness of Browning's work. “That it is Mr. Browning's pleasure to be enigmatical, may now, we suppose, be considered as an accepted condition of his literary dealings with the public,” wrote the reviewer of the pamphlet entitled Dramatic Lyrics, in the Athenaeum for 22 April 1843. He went on to complain that the “general designation, ‘Bells and Pomegranates,’ as yet remains a mystery. Which of these poems are Bells, and which Pomegranates – or why any one of them is either – is one of those secrets which we may suppose ‘shall be unriddled by and bye.’ In the meantime, it is equally difficult to understand how the disjecta membra which compose No. III. should have found their way into a professed collection of ‘Dramatical Pieces.’…In any case … they are mere fragments, varying in length from half a dozen lines upwards – apparently thoughts jotted down for after use – or rejected from their places in longer pieces, and denoting foregone conclusions – but scarcely important enough to have formed the materials of an independent publication” (385).
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References
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