Growth

God plants us where we grow,

It is not that because a bud is born at a wild briar’s end, full in the wild beast’s way,

We ought to pluck and put it out of reach on the oak tree-top.[1]

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[1] This is an excerpt from the lengthy Pompilia in The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning. He was born in 1812 in Camberwell, South London, the son of Robert Browning, a wealthy clerk in the Bank of England, and Sarah Anna Wiedemann, of German-Scottish origin. Young Robert received scant formal education. However, his father encouraged him to read and he had access to his large (6,000 volumes) library. In his teens, Browning discovered Shelley, adopting the author’s confessionalist style in poetry. At 16, he was sent to study at newly established London University, but he disliked it and soon returned home. His parents supported his decision to withdraw and supported him financially as he attempted to make a living as a poet.

Browning began publishing poems in his early twenties, but they attracted little attention.  In 1834 he traveled to Russia. The following year, his poem Paracelsus made an impact. In 1837 he began to write verse drama for the stage. The following year, he made his first trip to Italy. As his reputation began to grow, Browning met Carlyle (see footnote 21), Dickens (see footnote 130), and Tennyson, and formed several important friendships.

In 1840, Browning’s Sordello drew hostile reviews which shadowed his reputation for the next 20 years. Between 1841 and 1846 his works appeared under the title Bells and Pomegranates. In 1846 Browning married the poet Elizabeth Barrett and settled with her in Florence. He produced comparatively little poetry during the next 15 years, but enjoyed a happy married life in their home, “Casa Guidi.” In 1861, Elizabeth died. Browning left Florence for London with his son Robert Barrett Browning. Here he wrote his greatest poem, The Ring and the Book (1869), a 21,000 line hymn to Elizabeth. It was based on the proceedings of a 1698 murder trial in Rome; Browning had bought the documents from a flea market in Florence. It was very well received, and Browning was back on the literary scene.

In the 1870s Browning published several works, including The Inn Album and a translation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. The Browning Society was founded in 1881, an indication of his status as a sage and celebrity. Browning died in 1889 at his son’s house in Venice at his son’s house. Various difficulties made the poet’s requested burial in Florence impossible, and his body was returned to England to be interred in Westminster Abbey.  (Source: classicauthors.net; kirjasto.sci.fi.)