The Life and Work of Robert Browning :: essays papers

The Life and Work of Robert cookRobert cook was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, which isnow a part of London. He had no real formal education so he was largelyself educated. His father was a smart sm whole-arm with an extensive library.His mother was kindly, religious minded woman, who loved music and her vivid son. He lived at his parents house almost until the time of hismarriage. He accompanied a boarding school near Camberwell and spent a belittled bit of his time traveling to places like Russia and Italy. Buthe preferable to have his education at home, where he was tutored inforeign languages, boxing, music, and horsemanship, and where he readomnivorously. At the age of 14 he first ascertained Percy Shelly worksand was strongly influenced by it. After reading Shelly, He make thedecision to be an atheist and a liberal. But in a few years he grew awayfrom atheism and the extreme phases of his liberalism. The things helearned from the books he read would largely in fluence his metrical compositions later inhis life.His earlier poetry was regarded with indifference and largelymisunderstood. It was not until the 1860s that he would at last gainpublicity and would even be compared with Alfred Lord Tennyson, othervery famous poet of the time. Some of his early poetry was influenced byhis comical education. The poet also had an anxious desire to avoidexposing himself explicitly to his readers. The first poem he wrotecalled Pauline, was written in 1883 at the age of twenty-one, just now he didnot sign it because of his fear of exposing himself to the public too much.Since Browning did not want to expose himself too personally, hedecided to try his stack at writing plays. He was encouraged by the flirtorW.C. Macready. Browning began work on his first play, Strafford, ahistorical tragedy. Unfortunately, the play merely lasted four nights whenit was first put on in London in 1837. For ten more years, the youngwriter would continue to struggle t o take in a play that would better holdthe attention of the audience, but they all remained failures. Not onlydid Browning profit from this otherwise disheartening experience, butwriting the dialogue for the characters helped him explore the dramaticdialogue. The dramatic dialogue, enabled him to, through fancifulspeakers, to avoid explicit autobiography and yet did not demand thatthese speakers act out the story with the speed or simplifications that astage action demands.