Robert Browning Appendix B: The Ring and the Book

In this blog, I will be summarizing and analyzing three different texts from the “Appendix B: “Initial Responses to the Poem” section of Robert Browning’s “The Ring and the Book”. These texts include: “Carlyle in Old Age” by Thomas Carlyle, “Quarterly Reviews 126” by John Rickards Mozley, and “Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review 91” by John R. deC. Wise. All three of these reviews talk about Robert Browning and how much they dislike his poetry. I chose to go with three critiques that didn’t like his poetry because all of the other reviews I’ve done so far have mostly been positive reviews and this give it a little switch.

Summary:

Like I stated above, all three of these texts are going to be about Browning’s poem, but instead of agreeing with Browning and liking his poetry we have three critiques who have opposite views of his poem. We first start off with Carlyle… and Carlyle doesn’t like Browning’s poem. He states: “It is full of talent, energy, and effort: but actually without Backbone or Basis of Common-Sense. I think it among the absurdest books ever written by a gifted man” (788). Here we can see how much he doesn’t like this poem of Browning’s, but then when he talks to Browning in person he tells him that it’s a wonderful book, and one of the most wonderful poems ever written (789). He does tell Browning that it was one of the strangest and most preposterous in its construction, but after he said that to him, Carlyle states: “He did not seem to be pleased with my speech, and he bade me good morning” (789). Then we shift gears over to Mozlely who also disagrees with Browning’s poem. In his review, he states: “nothing in it is put forward to take the popular ear, nothing without the manifest search after truth, and the conviction that the sentiments put forward are needful to be known and weighed” (790). Mozley keeps talking and talking about Browning in a negative setting and doesn’t even mention one nice thing about Browning’s poem. The last review was from Wise’s view. He too doesn’t like Browning’s poem and he clearly states that in the very first sentence: “The expectations which were raised by the first volume have not been fulfilled” (790). I didn’t think that was a great way to start off the review, because there was just nothing positive about it. His review was a lot like Mozley’s in the way that there was just nothing nice mentioned about Browning’s poem.

Analysis:

I mentioned above that I chose three negative reviews because most of my other reviews have been positive. I thought it was very interesting to write about ALL negative reviews just because I feel like it’s a different way of writing. Here I don’t really agree with what these critics have to say and I don’t really think it was fair to critique him that much in a negative way. Robert Browning is a great poet, and I really enjoy reading his poems especially part of this one. I do sometimes think that Browning’s poems are “unorganized”, but that doesn’t make him a “bad” author/poet. And I really disliked how Carlyle didn’t like his poem, but when talking to him in person he basically lied and told him he loved it. I mean I understand he probably didn’t want to hurt is feelings about the poem, but if this review is already out there then why would he lie to Robert?