Product Description
Men and Women is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Robert Browning is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Robert Browning then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
The Second Edition of this substantial collection of Browning’s poetry again reprints the texts of the seventeen-volume “Fourth and complete edition” (Smith, Elder), of which all but the final volume were approved by Browning before his death.

The poems are ordered chronologically according to their first appearance in book form. Thirteen new poems are included in this edition, with Pauline now printed in its entirety. Annotations have been revised throughout to clarify Browning’s references and vocabulary.

“Criticism” retains the important contextual perspective of the First Edition. The twenty-three essays, nine of which are new, are divided into three sections: “Victorian Views,” “Modern Essays in Criticism,” and “Interpretations of Poems.”

A Chronology, Selected Bibliography, and Index of Titles and First Lines are also included.

Customer Reviews (4)

Binding of the Book
I like the contents of the book just fine.The print is easy to read, and the poems are laid out nicely.But the glued binding of this book is going to go quickly.The first time I opened the book I could feel its flimsiness.Soon, I am sure, I'm going to be left with nothing but chunks of book.

Are there not any books that are still stitched together?


Christiana Mollin

Browning as never before
"Grow old along with me!/ The best is yet to be ...." Great line--quoted recently and beautifully by Christopher Plummer in the popular movie "Must Love Dogs," but did you know it comes from the poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra"? This book discovers Browning as never before. Not only will you find the chestnuts you've heard over the years, but you will read them in context. Not only will you see the breadth and depth of this poet's work, but also find extraordinary essays on his technique and discussions of specific poems by Carlyle and James and Hopkins sitting right next to essays by Harold Bloom and other present-day luminaries. And to boot, you won't be overwhelmed by footnotes, but when you find one, it will be in plain English. This is a book to treasure.

Good introductory anthology.
This is as good as you'll find for a brief one-volume, in-print collection of some major Browning poems.Browning, as Pound himself made clear, is the forerunner of "modernism," his poetry capable of outdoing Pound's in difficulty because of the labyrinthian syntax in pursuit of meanings which for their originator, at least, were clear.Even "Sordello," the ultimate poem about the ultimately self-conscious troubador, was too much for Ezra, who couldn't get on with his Cantos until distancing himself from its difficulties.

With all due respects to the other reviewer, Browning is a "Christian" poet but no orthodox one.He believes in a dynamic Incarnation repeating itself throughout creation and in every moment of existence.Grace and redemption, however, are relatively foreign if not alien concepts to him--one of the reasons it's quite accurate to think of him as the most "optimistic" poet, if not author, in all English literature.Life is purposeful becoming: there's no need to mourn or forgive the past.

Also, any reader may read, or teacher teach, "My Last Duchess" without guilt.Though certain readers might find it easy or convenient to reduce the Duke to a two-dimensional character, to do so is to produce a willful or ignorant misrepresentation of him.His rhetoric alone is dazzling, complex, as obfuscating as it is revealing of his character.Moreover, the poem also has the characters of the Duchess and Envoy to evaluate, both of whom become complex in proportion to the maturity and perceptiveness of an ever-present 4th character--you, the reader (or "implied reader," as the Reader-Response crowd would designate him).

Lesson: Don't mess with Browning unless you're willing to become an active participant in the poetry which, admittedly, can involve considerable patience, time and work.Even Pound is easier, if only because he allows a reader more "wiggle room."

A good reference!
I am a fan of Robert Browning, and believe him to be one of the best Christian poets from the Victorian age.

In the introductions to poems that I've read, the editor James Loucks, perhaps to be "objective," fails to even make the slightest mention of Browning's Christianity, or how that could have affected the themes of his poems.

In Browning's earlier dramatic monologues such as "My Last Duchess," his characters are wholly villainous or otherwise two-dimensional.They don't have any redemptive qualities about them at all.However, in Browning's mature dramatic monologues, his characters have specks of redemptive qualities, and this makes them real, and even makes the characters human.

In "an Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician," Karshish meets Lazarus shortly before the fall of the Jewish Temple.

Loucks says that "the title refers to an imaginary encounter between an itinerant Arab . . . long after [Lazarus] was raised from the dead by Jesus.Since the conflict experienced by Karshish -- that of positivism opposed to the will to believe -- was shared by many of Browning's contemporaries, the poem has a modern resonance" (127).

He leads the reader to believe that Browning was trying to express and maybe even uplift the belief of unbelief, to praise his 'scientific' contemporaries, yet this is far from the case.

Browning, a Christian, in part shows how the Incarnation, God becoming Man, could strongly twang the beliefs that Karshish has of God -- that the body entraps the soul, and that the soul and body are wholly separate and cannot be mixed.

I will conclude with a quote from this poem where Karshish, in a redemptive moment, briefly opens his eyes to the power of the Incarnation:

The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?
So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too--
So, through the thunder comes a human voice
Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here!
Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!
Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,
But love I gave thee, with myself to love,
And thou must love me who have died for thee!" (lines 304-311) ... Read more

Product Description
Forty-two works revealing the Victorian poet’s great gifts as a poignant lyricist and a dramatist of great virtuosity. Collection includes a number of Browning’s famed dramatic monologues—"Fra Lippo Lippi," "How It Strikes a Contemporary" and "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church" among them—plus such memorable masterworks as "Love among the Ruins," "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," "Home Thoughts from Abroad" and "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister."
... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Great Collection, Incredible Value
Robert Browning is one of the most original, influential, and controversial English poets. Though particularly deft in blank verse, he mastered a wide array of forms and techniques, making him one of the language's most diverse poets in terms of form. One of his most striking aspects is how immediately different he is from his Victorian contemporaries whose formalism and tendency toward flowery lyricism made them the object of Modernist contempt. In stunning contrast, Browning is vibrant and effusive, positively overflowing with vigor and energy. Frequent use of traditional forms, and especially strict meter and rhyme adherence, ensure he could never be mistaken for later poets, but post-Victorian poetry's arc runs most clearly through him. His diction was revolutionary, sometimes aping actual speech with stunning success while remaining poetic in a way that, say, Alfred Tennyson would never have even considered. More often, he did the opposite - scaled verbal heights so fearsome that few would have even dared attempt them. In addition, he is England's most fearless rhymer and rivaled only by Edgar Allan Poe as the most fearless in the language. Subject matter was also of immense importance to Browning's uniqueness and influence. In contrast to most nineteenth century poets, who focused largely on personal matters and nature, he dealt with seemingly everything else, covering an astonishing variety of historical, artistic, philosophical, theological, and ethical ground. It is easy to exaggerate this aspect, because Browning wrote often and movingly about love, and some other poems may metaphorically deal with personal concerns. He was also notable for frequent humor use. That said, the aforementioned qualities are Browning's most recognizable and those that most strongly struck contemporaries and the many he has influenced.

Browning is of course most famous for dramatic monologues, a poetic form that had been used in English before but of which he became undisputed master. The techniques gives a story from a single character's point of view, forcing us to filter the truth through perspectives that are often self-interested, unreliable, or simply surreal. It is highly interesting - even fun - on the most basic level to decipher what is really going on, but psychological insight is the form's true strength. Browning traces thoughts and emotions so vividly that his characters seem truly alive in a way that is extremely rare in poetry. The sheer variety of his characters is also notable; he dramatizes a vast assemblage of historical figures and fictional personages across centuries and cultures - seemingly everyone but the Victorian Everyman. Even more intriguingly, many of his characters are psychopathic, evil, or otherwise unsavory, giving a fascinating peek into dark minds. As all this suggests, his work is extremely complex in a way that literature, and poetry particularly, almost never was until the Modernists. Browning's subjects and speakers first seem almost unbelievably out of step with contemporaries, and this was to a large extent deliberate. However, a closer look shows that some works - notably "Caliban upon Setebos" - allegorize contemporary concerns. More importantly, Browning gets at the heart and mind's elemental forces that are universal across history, digging deeply to reach the motivations and contradictions at humanity's core. This is one of the main reasons that his work stands up so much better than most Victorians'; what made him seem of another era then now makes him seem almost of ours - nay, of any.

As all this implies, Browning's work in many ways has far more affinity with prose than verse; his dramatic monologues especially recall Henry James. This is one of the reasons he was denied fame and success for several decades and the prime reason he has been hotly debated since achieving them. Oscar Wilde famously quipped that Browning used poetry as a medium for writing in prose, and many agree. Those who cherish consistent tone elevation, directness, and simplicity - particularly those who scoff at rhyme and meter that draws attention to itself - will most likely loathe Browning. Conversely, those who like diversity and experimentation in these areas, as exemplified by poets like John Donne, will almost certainly love him. Anyone even remotely interested in poetry must at any rate read the works and come to individual conclusions.

This collection is an excellent primer, with forty-two poems over 113 pages. Browning is in many ways hard to anthologize because some of his best and most well-known works are lengthy, but this has all of his best-known short works with the strange exception of "Rabbi Ben Ezra." The only excerpt from a longer work is the Pippa Passes song containing his most famous lines. Anyone unfamiliar or underfamiliar with Browning would thus do well to start here; the selection is quite generous and representative. Nearly every poem is great, and there are several masterpieces. It is important to keep in mind that this is only a sampler, and one of its virtues is that it leads one to more Browning. Needless to say, anyone wanting a more comprehensive book will need to look elsewhere. So may a few others. Like other Dover Thrift Editions, this is essentially bare bones; other than a short headnote, a table of contents, title and first line indices, and a (very) few text notes, there is no supplemental material. Browning's plethora of historical references, many of them obscure, makes notes necessary for most, and this thankfully differs from most Dovers in at least giving the bare minimum needed for basic comprehension. The packaging is also not of the highest quality. These limitations mean the book is not for all, but it is hard to beat as a basic introduction - especially considering the price, which is almost unbelievable in light of the stellar contents.

Grow old along with me
"Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made"

Browning is the poet of the dramatic monologue, the story told through the voice of a principal speaker, often an ironical one. Browning is an intellectual and moral poet whose work has a kind of toughness and strength. The poems in this small collection are among his most memorable and anthologized.
An excellent collection for coming to know one of the major Victorian English poets.

Cheap thrill!
Robert Browning is a treat, especially to read out loud.This book includes "My Last Duchess," of course, and some great poems like "The Bishop Ordering His Tomb" and "Fra Lippo Lippi."I like to think of Robert Browning as the first poet of the twentieth century since he really can't be put in a box with Tennyson or other popular poets of his own time.Also, he had a big influence on Ezra Pound who, in turn, had a big influence on many popular poets today.

Dover Thrift Editions are surprisingly well-constructed - they'll outlast, say, your Oxford World Classics paperbacks - and the poetry is usually very well selected.Oh...and they're cheap!

Not the easiest arrangment, but logical....
I have started to read a bit on Browning and decided to get an idea of his poetry.Given the price of this book, this was a good choice.

Browning covered a lot of ideas, and all are written very intelligently.Reading through this book though, may cause you to scratch your head.If you read it, enjoy each selection rather than try to read straight through.

This is what I mean by the arrangement; I poem on the killing of a loved one (Porphyria's Lover) precedes the Pied Piper of Hamelin.The jump in ideas can slow you down a bit.The arrangement is logical in that the editors printed the poems in groups according to the collection they were originally published in.These collections, in turn, are arranged in chronological order.This is good because you can watch Browning's work as time progresses.

There are 42 poems in this selection.It does include the great ones (I will abbreviate titles) like Andrea del Sarto, Caliban upon Setebos, Karshish, Childe Roland, My Last Duchess, Fra Lippo Lippi, The Bishop Orders His Tomb, Johannes Agricola, and others.

I would recommend this book for reflecting on the occasional work of a great poet.

Browning
Robert Browning's poetyr is more difficult than his contmeporaries, arnold and tennyson (the lower-cases are intentional) and much better.Reading "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" makes one wonder why Kafkawas so uplifting, yet the same poet also writes such charming verse forshildren as "The Pied Piper of Hamlin".A marvelous book! ... Read more

Product Description
Clyde Ryals's masterful account explores Browning's work from his earliest published poem, Pauline,to his last volume, Asolando.It is the first biographical study for 50 years to examine chronologically and at length his entire literary output, and the result is an assured biography which sets Browning firmly within the context of his poems and his times. Browning has always been regarded as a dramatic poet who stands at an objective distance from his writing.Professor Ryals, however, proposes a radically different view, and presents him as a writer who was both objective and subjective.He shows how each poem is indeed, as Browning termed it, a performance in which the poet plays a part - as producer, presenter, or actor, and sometimes all three.We discover the role each poetic performance played in Browning's own `self-fashioning' and learn how the principle of endless becoming stood at the very heart of his thought and practice as a poet. Clyde Ryals's knowledge both of Browning and of the nineteenth century is unequalled, and enables him to offer us a life of this major figure in English literature that is both meticulously researched and eminently readable, and makes an invaluable contribution to its subject. ... Read more

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According to the authors of this powerfully reasoned book, only a serious commitment to the Christian ideas of forgiveness and reconciliation can meet the needs of todaybs troubled world -- and the church must take the lead in this process. Partly a survey of existing attitudes and partly a how-to manual for developing an active bpublicb church, this book highlights the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation in both congregational life and society, and it traces out the intricacies of making it happen. After discussing common views of human nature and exploring the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation as found in Scripture and church tradition, Robert Browning and Roy Reed put forth an innovative four-pronged approach integrating recent scientific studies of forgiveness with bold, theologically grounded ministry proposals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A MUST TITLE
There are plentyof books on the shelves regarding forgiveness, in recent years some books have been added that deal with personal, societal, and tribal reconciliation.But the authors go one huge step deeper...they deal with the issue of moral courage.They are blunt.They speak to the issue that the western church has failed in its concern about the sin-structures around the world and a failed voice to speak up about them.

The book begins by looking at four focus groups that took an extensive written survey followed by a face-to-face focus group discussion with each of the denominations to find out what was meant by the answers.The four groups were Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist, United Methodist, and Pentecostal...a wide and fairly strong representation of what we would call the "western church."The written results were startling.They basically revealed that churches (pastors in particular) no longer speak to issues that might be offensive to the general church population (topics of sin, forgiveness, liturgy, etc.).What was even more startling were the direct quotes from the face-to-face meeting with the authors.People tended to excuse their sins, they felt God need not be involved, and they felt that they could participate in activities in the western world even in those activities had a detrimental affect on the peoples and nations around the world.In other words, people believed in forgiveness and reconciliation, but not much in their lives, in their communities, and in their church supported these beliefs.

The book has a subtitle of "Practical Theology."This is truly an understatement, it is not just about be practical, it also spoke with a air of indictment against the actions of believers who say they believe the words of Jesus and the principles of the Kingdom of God, but these principles were often missing in the practice, liturgy, and actions of churches.A superb book that speaks strongly to the church of the west.The only thing I would like to see is a similar volume that is dedicated to the forgiveness, reconciliation, and the moral courage to fight against abuse of women, genocide, mass killings, tribal warfare and more.Part 2 of this series needs to deal with the global implications. ... Read more

Product Description
An acclaimed biography of one of the great English poets, focusing on his marriage to beloved fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett and his life following her death.

Robert Browning spent flfteen years married to fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett. He was forty-nine when Elizabeth died, and it is her death that is the starting point of this new biography. The central drama of Browning’s life was the conflict between his need to put his marriage behind him and his overwhelming desire to cling to his wife’s memory and preserve the literary myth of their marriage. But this was also a time when the poetic inspiration that had for years eluded him began to flourish once more as Browning sought to live, and possibly love, again. Pamela Neville-Sington’s unique narrative method has produced an unusually insightful biography. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Juvenile Nonfiction / Poetry / General; Literary Criticism / Poetry; Poetry / General; Poetry / Inspirational ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The poet of dramatic monologue
This is the opening of one of Browning's most well- known poems "Rabbi Ben Ezra"
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith ' A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all,
nor be afraid!'

Browning is a poet of the inner life.His dramatic monologues are in the words of F.B. Pinion the editor of the Collins Edition of ' Dramatis Personae' centered on ' the thought- processes and mental outlook of his characters than in dramatic action" The
poems are rich in consideration of the moral and religious problems of his time. Lovers of poetry and students of human relationships can certainly be enriched by the reading of these poems.

one of the greats
Browning is one of the great poets. this selection contains poems such as 'the last dutchess', 'porphyria's lover' and 'childe roland to the dark tower came' which shows browning at his best. this selected poems only whetted my appetite for a complete version. ... Read more

Product Description
Suggesting that the poetry of Robert Browning is commonly misread, Harold Bloom sees Browning as the master of misprision. Take another look at Browning's poetry, including Cleon, Master Hugues of SaxeGotha, A Toccata of Galuppi's, Abt Vogler, and Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.

This title, Robert Browning, part of Chelsea House Publishers’ Modern Critical Views series, examines the major works of Robert Browning through full-length critical essays by expert literary critics. In addition, this title features a short biography on Robert Browning, a chronology of the author’s life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. ... Read more

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Longman Annotated English Poets introduces a new selected poems edition of Robert Browning’s work.

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Indulge Yourself with the best classic literature on Your PDA. Navigate easily to any novel from Table of Contents or search for the words or phrases. Author's biography and stories in the trial version.

Customer Reviews (2)

Masterpeice of English literature
Works of Robert Browning (70+ works). Incld. Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Romancesand Lyrics, Men and Women, Christmas Eve and other poems and letters. ... version. Published by MobileReference (mobi)

Browning is one of the great English language poets. Dramatic blank verse hasn't seen genius of this level since Milton wrote of the angelic Fall. Works of Robert Browning deserve recognition as the best-constructed poetic stories of history, and the pinnacle of 19th century authorship.

Browning as never before
Works of Robert Browning (70+ works). Incld. Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Romancesand Lyrics, Men and Women, Christmas Eve and other poems and letters. ... version. Published by MobileReference (mobi)

This is a very good anthology. Browning is the forerunner of "modernism" and a poet of the inner life. Lovers of poetry and students of human relationships can certainly be enriched by the reading of these poems. This is an ebook to treasure. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Yeah Right
While this IS "Dramatic Romances," it isn't formatted as such. This is poetry, not prose. Line stops are important. Don't waste your time with this garbage file.

Beautiful poetry
I read some Robert Browning in college, but I don't remember these.Excellent poetry all same. He writes in the vernacular, yet it maintains its profundity.I really appreciated notes at the end of each poem. However, there are some formatting issues. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1907.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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To speakers of modern Greek the Homeric poems of the 7th century BC are not written in a foreign language. The Greek language has enjoyed a continuous tradition from earliest times until now. This book traces its history from the immediately post-classical or Hellenistic period to the present day. The aim is both to analyse the changing structure of a language stabilised by a peculiarly long and continuous literary tradition, and to show how changing historical circumstances are reflected in its development. In particular the historical roots of modern Greek's internal bilingualism are traced. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent overview of the history of the Greek language
As someone who has studied both Homeric and Modern Greek, I found this book about the evolution of Greek fascinating. There is also an interesting chapter about the dialects of Modern Greek.

The book is written in an extremely readable style.I read through it in only a couple of days.There is a large bibliography at the back of the book and I intend to look up some of the references. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

More than just a poet
Deals with Robert Browning not simply as a poet, but rather as the exponent of a system of ideas on moral and religious subjects, which may fairly be called a philosophy. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the text that can both be accessed online and used to create new print copies. This book and thousands of others can be found in the digital collections of the University of Michigan Library. The University Library also understands and values the utility of print, and makes reprints available through its Scholarly Publishing Office. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A nice idea
This anthology is based on a nice idea. Instead of representing each of the Browning's separately it presents them together. Their life story and poetry are bound up with each other. And this volume shows to a degree their development together. ... Read more