Browning, Robert - John Woolford and Daniel Karlin (essay date 1996)

John Woolford and Daniel Karlin (essay date 1996)

SOURCE: "Genre and Style," in Robert Browning, Longman Group Limited, 1996, pp. 38–73.

[In the following essay, Woolford and Karlin study Browning's use of the genre of dramatic monologue as well as elements of the poet's style. The critics argue that Browning's primary concern in his usage of dramatic monologue is the creation of dramatic speakers and situations. Additionally, Woolford and Karlin maintain that the style Browning employs is a vocal onehis poetry is meant to be spoken aloud—and they define two distinct vocal styles in his poetrya voice that "says " and a voice that "sings."]

Genre

Dramatic method

'O lyric Love!' begins one of the most famous passages of Browning's poetry, his invocation of EBB [Elizabeth Barrett Browning] in The Ring and the Book. But it is an unusual moment.1 Browning is not a lyric poet. He never...

[The entire page is 14449 words long]

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