Robert Browning’s story is one of a journey from success to near obscurity to success again.  From this a lesson may be drawn.  Never give up, never surrender.  There is another lesson to which so many successful persons teach us.  There is nothing so successful as having found one’s own voice. We find that after all, some clichés are cliché because they are true.

Robert Browning’s mastery of dramatic monologue made him one of best and most renown voices of Victorian age poetry and drama.  His poems are known for their irony, dark humor, social commentary, historical settings and for challenging vocabulary and syntax.  Today, he is better known for such poems as Porphyria’s Lover, My Last Duchess, They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix, and The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

His dramatic monologues are appreciated for their ability to not only convey settings and action but are considered a breakthrough in character development.  Browning’s influence on Hardy, Kipling, Pound and Eliot is shown in their exploration of dramatic poetry and colloquial idiom. Oscar Wilde is said to have held Browning as second only to Shakespeare.  That’s quite a compliment.  Some of the best lines I’ve ever stolen have come from Shakespeare.

Sadly, Browning also has his critics.  He is perhaps too deeply intellectual to be read easily.  Because of this, some have put forth that while everyone wants to like Browning, it is difficult to do.  And then, there is that embrace of irrationality that makes it difficult for others.  All the same, I think it goes almost without saying there is a great deal to learn from this complex writer.

A Blot In the ‘Scutheon can be read in its entirety here:

http://www.bartleby.com/18/5/11.html

Or listened to in audiobook format here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-w-fhG6Z4w