WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.620 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are cracking 00:00:02.620 --> 00:00:07.240 open a file on a figure who, on paper, is listed 00:00:07.240 --> 00:00:10.300 as a Victorian poet. But if you actually look 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:13.259 at the mechanics of his mind, how he constructed 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:16.219 a scene, how he understood motives, and specifically 00:00:16.219 --> 00:00:19.339 how he dealt with the criminal element of the 00:00:19.339 --> 00:00:23.219 human soul, he feels much more like a modern 00:00:23.219 --> 00:00:26.320 psychological thriller writer. We are talking 00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:29.359 about... Robert Browning. It is a great comparison 00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:31.320 because when people hear Victorian poet, the 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:33.880 immediate mental image is, you know, usually 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:36.140 stiff collars, heavy curtains and rhyming couplets 00:00:36.140 --> 00:00:39.399 about flowers or noble knights. Very proper. 00:00:39.679 --> 00:00:41.719 Very proper. But Browning, he was effectively 00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:44.280 the David Fincher or the Vince Gilligan of the 00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:46.359 19th century. He was obsessed with the darker, 00:00:46.420 --> 00:00:49.079 grittier corners of the human psyche. He wasn't 00:00:49.079 --> 00:00:51.039 interested in the perfect hero. Not at all. He 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:53.079 didn't want to write about the ideal. He wanted 00:00:53.079 --> 00:00:55.759 to write about the broken. And I know for a lot 00:00:55.759 --> 00:00:58.530 of people. The name Robert Browning summons up 00:00:58.530 --> 00:01:01.329 these like traumatic flashbacks of high school 00:01:01.329 --> 00:01:03.670 English or college lit surveys. Oh, definitely. 00:01:03.729 --> 00:01:07.409 You know, the feeling struggling through dense, 00:01:07.590 --> 00:01:10.370 impenetrable verses, trying to figure out what 00:01:10.370 --> 00:01:12.909 on earth he was talking about and just wondering 00:01:12.909 --> 00:01:15.569 why he couldn't say it plainly. Right. Just tell 00:01:15.569 --> 00:01:18.530 me what you mean. Exactly. But the reality of 00:01:18.530 --> 00:01:22.209 his life and his actual artistic intent is so 00:01:22.209 --> 00:01:26.299 much. wilder and frankly more accessible than 00:01:26.299 --> 00:01:28.659 the textbooks let on. I think the reason he feels 00:01:28.659 --> 00:01:31.280 so distinct even today is that he wasn't content 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:34.480 with just writing pretty poetry. He wasn't you 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:36.180 know looking at a sunset and writing about how 00:01:36.180 --> 00:01:38.319 beautiful the colors were. He was looking at 00:01:38.319 --> 00:01:41.159 a person usually a very flawed sometimes dangerous 00:01:41.159 --> 00:01:43.900 often sociopathic person and trying to figure 00:01:43.900 --> 00:01:46.480 out exactly how their mind worked to justify 00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:48.959 their actions. He's the guy who decided the poetry 00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:51.079 could effectively be a murder mystery. Exactly. 00:01:51.689 --> 00:01:53.870 He realized that the most interesting story isn't 00:01:53.870 --> 00:01:57.109 the crime itself. It's the why. It's the justification 00:01:57.109 --> 00:01:59.930 for the crime inside the criminal's head. Okay, 00:01:59.989 --> 00:02:02.450 so to kick things off and to frame this conversation, 00:02:02.650 --> 00:02:05.010 I want to bring in a quote from none other than 00:02:05.010 --> 00:02:07.569 Oscar Wilde. You know you're doing something 00:02:07.569 --> 00:02:09.969 interesting when Oscar Wilde has a hot take on 00:02:09.969 --> 00:02:12.569 you. That's a very good sign. He usually saves 00:02:12.569 --> 00:02:15.409 his best lines for himself. He really did. So 00:02:15.409 --> 00:02:18.009 in The Critic is Artist, Wilde said that Browning 00:02:18.009 --> 00:02:21.319 wasn't just a poet. He was a... creator of character 00:02:21.319 --> 00:02:24.000 who ranked right next to Shakespeare. Which is, 00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:26.699 I mean, that is massive praise coming from Wilde. 00:02:26.740 --> 00:02:29.400 He did not hand out compliments lightly. Not 00:02:29.400 --> 00:02:33.240 at all. But Wilde went further. He said, if Shakespeare 00:02:33.240 --> 00:02:36.780 could sing with myriad lips, Browning could stammer 00:02:36.780 --> 00:02:39.060 through a thousand mouths. Stammer through a 00:02:39.060 --> 00:02:42.400 thousand mouths. I love that line. Me too. And 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:44.900 I want to pause on that word stammer, because 00:02:44.900 --> 00:02:48.039 in most contexts, saying a writer stammers is 00:02:48.039 --> 00:02:50.039 an insult. It implies they can't get the words 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:52.280 out. Right, that they're clumsy or inarticulate. 00:02:52.419 --> 00:02:54.840 But in this context, though, it is the highest 00:02:54.840 --> 00:02:57.300 form of compliment. That is the key to unlocking 00:02:57.300 --> 00:03:00.039 Browning. How so? Wilde isn't saying Browning 00:03:00.039 --> 00:03:02.280 was inarticulate. He's saying that Browning captured 00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:04.979 the way people actually think and speak. I mean, 00:03:04.979 --> 00:03:06.599 think about it. When you're lying or when you're 00:03:06.599 --> 00:03:08.719 nervous or trying to justify something you know 00:03:08.719 --> 00:03:10.960 is wrong. You don't speak in perfect sentences. 00:03:11.550 --> 00:03:14.389 You don't speak in perfect flowing sonnets. You 00:03:14.389 --> 00:03:20.009 hesitate. You backtrack. You pause. You stammer. 00:03:20.009 --> 00:03:21.909 You spin. You try to find the angle that makes 00:03:21.909 --> 00:03:24.430 you look good. You spin. And Browning was the 00:03:24.430 --> 00:03:27.330 first person to really capture that spin in poetry. 00:03:27.629 --> 00:03:30.449 He created characters who were messy, real, and 00:03:30.449 --> 00:03:33.569 often totally unreliable narrators. So before 00:03:33.569 --> 00:03:36.050 Browning, poetry was all about capital T truth. 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:38.259 For the most part, yeah. It was about beauty 00:03:38.259 --> 00:03:41.259 or God or nature. Browning comes along and introduces 00:03:41.259 --> 00:03:43.960 the idea that truth is subjective and depends 00:03:43.960 --> 00:03:46.580 entirely on who is doing the talking. So our 00:03:46.580 --> 00:03:48.780 mission for this deep dive is to unpack this 00:03:48.780 --> 00:03:51.919 man. We want to see how a guy who is accused 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:54.430 of being willfully obscure. And oh, we have some 00:03:54.430 --> 00:03:56.370 truly savage stories about that later. Oh, they 00:03:56.370 --> 00:03:58.409 are brutal. How he became this literary sage. 00:03:58.509 --> 00:04:00.330 We're going to look at how he invented the dramatic 00:04:00.330 --> 00:04:03.169 monologue, which is basically a fancy term for 00:04:03.169 --> 00:04:05.110 letting a villain talk until they incriminate 00:04:05.110 --> 00:04:07.229 themselves. And we cannot forget the life he 00:04:07.229 --> 00:04:09.469 lived. This isn't a story of a guy sitting in 00:04:09.469 --> 00:04:11.789 a room alone for 80 years staring at a wall. 00:04:11.930 --> 00:04:14.409 Not even close. This involves one of history's 00:04:14.409 --> 00:04:17.470 great romances, a secret marriage, a midnight 00:04:17.470 --> 00:04:20.329 escape to Italy to flee a tyrannical father. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:23.579 and even a physical altercation with a famous 00:04:23.579 --> 00:04:26.360 spiritual medium. Oh, the spiritualist beatdown 00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:28.160 is definitely my favorite part of the research 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:30.800 pile. It's so good. It's rare you get a major 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:33.680 poet getting into a shoving match with a ghost 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:36.519 summoner. So we've got a lot of source material 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:40.379 here, biographical details, publication histories, 00:04:40.620 --> 00:04:44.819 some very, very harsh critical reviews and anecdotes 00:04:44.819 --> 00:04:47.540 about his life in London and Italy. So let's 00:04:47.540 --> 00:04:49.399 rewind to the beginning. Let's go to Camberwell, 00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:53.139 England in... 1812. 1812. It's a turbulent time 00:04:53.139 --> 00:04:55.879 in Europe. The Napoleonic Wars are raging. The 00:04:55.879 --> 00:04:58.279 world is shifting. But in the Browning household 00:04:58.279 --> 00:05:01.860 in Camberwell, things were quiet. But culturally, 00:05:02.100 --> 00:05:04.019 they were incredibly dense. Culturally dense. 00:05:04.100 --> 00:05:05.860 I like that. It's a polite way of saying his 00:05:05.860 --> 00:05:07.899 dad was a hoarder. A collector. Let's call him 00:05:07.899 --> 00:05:09.839 a literary collector. Okay. Okay. Okay. A collector. 00:05:09.939 --> 00:05:12.579 So Robert Browning is born to a bank clerk. His 00:05:12.579 --> 00:05:14.639 dad works for the Bank of England, making about 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:17.079 150 pounds a year. Which is a decent middle class 00:05:17.079 --> 00:05:19.800 wage for the time. They aren't starving, but 00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:21.939 they aren't. wealthy aristocrats by any stretch. 00:05:22.160 --> 00:05:25.439 But here's the kicker. His dad has a personal 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:28.300 library of six thousand books. Just pause and 00:05:28.300 --> 00:05:30.540 think about the logistics of that. Right. Six 00:05:30.540 --> 00:05:33.160 thousand books in a private home in the early 00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:36.649 19th century. Books were not cheap paperbacks 00:05:36.649 --> 00:05:38.589 you grab at the airport. They were expensive 00:05:38.589 --> 00:05:41.170 objects. They were heavy. They took up space. 00:05:41.550 --> 00:05:44.230 It's an obsession. It's a total obsession. To 00:05:44.230 --> 00:05:47.470 amass 6 ,000 volumes on a bank clerk's salary 00:05:47.470 --> 00:05:51.269 implies this man valued knowledge above all else. 00:05:51.509 --> 00:05:54.149 And these weren't just the standard bestsellers 00:05:54.149 --> 00:05:56.670 of the day. These were rare books, eclectic topics, 00:05:56.829 --> 00:05:59.269 history, languages, obscure treatises on magic 00:05:59.269 --> 00:06:01.410 and alchemy. It sounds like the Internet before 00:06:01.410 --> 00:06:04.129 the Internet. Just a repository of random, incredible... 00:06:04.170 --> 00:06:06.269 information. That is a great way to view it. 00:06:06.290 --> 00:06:08.930 It was an analog database and young Robert had 00:06:08.930 --> 00:06:11.769 a library card with no limits. And his dad wasn't 00:06:11.769 --> 00:06:13.889 just some boring number cruncher who liked reading. 00:06:14.129 --> 00:06:16.850 He was a man of principle. The notes mentioned 00:06:16.850 --> 00:06:18.449 he had actually been sent to the West Indies 00:06:18.449 --> 00:06:20.970 to work on a sugar plantation in St. Kitts. Yeah, 00:06:21.029 --> 00:06:23.209 his family had money there. But he gave it up. 00:06:23.350 --> 00:06:25.529 This is a crucial piece of the puzzle regarding 00:06:25.529 --> 00:06:29.550 Browning's moral formation. Robert's father was 00:06:29.550 --> 00:06:31.870 an abolitionist. He went to the Caribbean as 00:06:31.870 --> 00:06:34.029 a young man expecting to take over the family 00:06:34.029 --> 00:06:36.930 business. But he witnessed a slave revolt and 00:06:36.930 --> 00:06:39.629 saw the brutality of the plantation system firsthand. 00:06:39.949 --> 00:06:41.889 And he just couldn't do it. He couldn't stomach 00:06:41.889 --> 00:06:44.350 it. He essentially walked away from a fortune 00:06:44.350 --> 00:06:47.209 because he refused to profit from slavery. He 00:06:47.209 --> 00:06:49.550 came back to England to work as a clerk for a 00:06:49.550 --> 00:06:52.649 modest wage rather than be a wealthy planter. 00:06:52.730 --> 00:06:56.189 Wow. That sets a pretty high bar for the household. 00:06:56.389 --> 00:06:59.050 You have this father who sacrificed wealth for 00:06:59.050 --> 00:07:01.670 principle and who values knowledge above almost 00:07:01.670 --> 00:07:03.769 anything else. It creates an atmosphere where 00:07:03.769 --> 00:07:05.930 integrity and intellect are the two most important 00:07:05.930 --> 00:07:08.370 currencies. Precisely. And then you have Robert's 00:07:08.370 --> 00:07:11.410 mother, who was a talented musician and a devout 00:07:11.410 --> 00:07:14.490 nonconformist Christian. Robert was incredibly 00:07:14.490 --> 00:07:17.350 close to her. Some biographers even say he was 00:07:17.350 --> 00:07:20.290 a bit of a mama's boy well into adulthood. So 00:07:20.290 --> 00:07:22.300 you have this boy, Robert. growing up in this 00:07:22.300 --> 00:07:24.379 hothouse environment, and the sources say he 00:07:24.379 --> 00:07:26.720 was essentially unschooled. Which, to modern 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:29.860 ears, sounds like he was uneducated or illiterate. 00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:31.899 But in Browning's case, it's actually the opposite, 00:07:32.060 --> 00:07:34.000 right? Exactly. He tried a couple of private 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:36.259 schools, but he hated them. Yeah. He had what 00:07:36.259 --> 00:07:38.779 he called an insuperable dislike of school life. 00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:41.800 The regimentation, the dullying, the rote learning, 00:07:41.939 --> 00:07:43.920 it didn't work for his brain. So he just went 00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:46.220 home. He was tutored in that library. It's like 00:07:46.220 --> 00:07:48.319 the ultimate homeschooling experience, but on 00:07:48.319 --> 00:07:51.160 steroids. He didn't follow a curriculum. He just 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:53.540 devoured those 6 ,000 books. And the result is 00:07:53.540 --> 00:07:56.519 kind of terrifying. By age 14, he's fluent in 00:07:56.519 --> 00:08:00.259 French, Greek, Italian, and Latin. 14. 14. But 00:08:00.259 --> 00:08:02.519 more importantly, it creates a very specific 00:08:02.519 --> 00:08:05.480 kind of intellect. When you go to a university, 00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:08.560 Oxford or Cambridge, you are taught how to think 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:11.500 in a certain structured way. You read the canon 00:08:11.500 --> 00:08:13.860 in a specific order. You learn to write in a 00:08:13.860 --> 00:08:16.060 specific style. There's a path. There's a path. 00:08:16.199 --> 00:08:18.079 Browning didn't have that. He was trained by 00:08:18.079 --> 00:08:21.040 his own random, intense curiosity. It's like 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:23.750 he was building a puzzle. But he had pieces from 00:08:23.750 --> 00:08:26.250 five different boxes. He's reading a medical 00:08:26.250 --> 00:08:29.110 textbook from 1600, then a history of the popes, 00:08:29.110 --> 00:08:31.670 then a book on biology, and mixing it all together 00:08:31.670 --> 00:08:34.590 in his head. Exactly. It meant his vocabulary 00:08:34.590 --> 00:08:38.269 was eclectic and, to many, overwhelming. He made 00:08:38.269 --> 00:08:40.470 connections that other people wouldn't make because 00:08:40.470 --> 00:08:42.590 they hadn't read those obscure texts that he 00:08:42.590 --> 00:08:45.570 found on his dad's shelf. This explains so much 00:08:45.570 --> 00:08:48.149 about why his poetry later became so difficult 00:08:48.149 --> 00:08:51.230 for the average reader. He assumed everyone had 00:08:51.230 --> 00:08:54.330 read the same 6 ,000 weird books he had. He was 00:08:54.330 --> 00:08:56.169 operating on a different set of references. And 00:08:56.169 --> 00:08:58.049 he started writing early. He wrote a whole book 00:08:58.049 --> 00:09:00.850 of poetry at age 12, which he later destroyed 00:09:00.850 --> 00:09:02.429 because he couldn't find a publisher. Which is 00:09:02.429 --> 00:09:04.950 honestly very relatable content for any writer. 00:09:05.029 --> 00:09:07.759 So true. But then, like every moody, intelligent 00:09:07.759 --> 00:09:11.340 teenager in the 19th century, he discovered Shelley. 00:09:11.419 --> 00:09:14.080 Perceive as Shelley, the ultimate romantic rebel. 00:09:14.200 --> 00:09:17.740 If you were a distinct, angsty teen in the 1820s, 00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:20.539 Shelley was your idol. He was the rock star. 00:09:20.779 --> 00:09:24.320 And Browning goes all in. He adopts atheism and 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:26.899 vegetarianism just to be like Shelley. It's the 00:09:26.899 --> 00:09:29.419 19th century equivalent of dyeing your hair black 00:09:29.419 --> 00:09:31.500 and wearing eyeliner because you like a band. 00:09:31.820 --> 00:09:34.440 It totally is. It was a phase. but an intense 00:09:34.440 --> 00:09:36.940 one. It's that teenage need to define yourself 00:09:36.940 --> 00:09:39.639 against your parents. His mother was deeply religious, 00:09:39.779 --> 00:09:42.340 so of course he becomes an atheist. His family 00:09:42.340 --> 00:09:44.080 eats roast beef, so he becomes a vegetarian. 00:09:44.580 --> 00:09:47.360 He wanted to be a radical. And this phase gets 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:50.029 noticed. John Stuart Mill, the great philosopher, 00:09:50.210 --> 00:09:52.590 actually read some of Browning's early work, 00:09:52.710 --> 00:09:55.429 specifically a poem called Pauline, which was 00:09:55.429 --> 00:09:57.789 heavily influenced by this Shelley phase. And 00:09:57.789 --> 00:10:00.490 Mill's comment was brutal. What did the great 00:10:00.490 --> 00:10:02.649 philosopher say? He wrote in the margins that 00:10:02.649 --> 00:10:05.269 the author suffered from an intense and morbid 00:10:05.269 --> 00:10:08.970 self -consciousness. Ouch. That is not what you 00:10:08.970 --> 00:10:10.570 want John Stuart Mill saying about your diary. 00:10:11.110 --> 00:10:14.110 Morbid self -consciousness. It's harsh, but probably 00:10:14.110 --> 00:10:16.289 accurate. Browning was trying to figure out who 00:10:16.289 --> 00:10:19.009 he was. He was incredibly bright, overeducated 00:10:19.009 --> 00:10:21.090 in this unconventional way, and trying to channel 00:10:21.090 --> 00:10:24.509 all that intensity into poetry. He was unschooled, 00:10:24.509 --> 00:10:26.950 as we said, but he did briefly attend University 00:10:26.950 --> 00:10:29.789 College London at 16, but left after a year. 00:10:29.990 --> 00:10:33.370 Why didn't he go to Oxford or Cambridge? I mean, 00:10:33.370 --> 00:10:36.090 if he was this genius, surely that was the path. 00:10:36.509 --> 00:10:39.090 He couldn't. His parents were nonconformists, 00:10:39.129 --> 00:10:41.529 meaning they were Protestants but not members 00:10:41.529 --> 00:10:43.889 of the Church of England. At that time, Oxford 00:10:43.889 --> 00:10:46.649 and Cambridge were only open to Anglicans. Ah, 00:10:46.789 --> 00:10:49.690 right. So he's an outsider by default. He's smart 00:10:49.690 --> 00:10:51.929 enough for Oxford, but he's locked out by the 00:10:51.929 --> 00:10:54.129 religious rules of the time. So he's living at 00:10:54.129 --> 00:10:56.750 home until he's 34, dependent on his parents, 00:10:56.909 --> 00:11:00.049 refusing a real job, and just writing poetry. 00:11:00.330 --> 00:11:03.090 It sounds like a recipe for a failure to launch. 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:05.799 And that's exactly what it looked like for a 00:11:05.799 --> 00:11:07.539 long time. He had this incredible foundation, 00:11:07.559 --> 00:11:09.580 but he had to learn how to communicate it to 00:11:09.580 --> 00:11:11.740 the world. For a long time, he was just shouting 00:11:11.740 --> 00:11:13.779 into the void. And that brings us perfectly to 00:11:13.779 --> 00:11:16.480 the crash. Yeah. Because usually in these biographies, 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:18.879 you hear about the struggle and then the big 00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:21.860 break. Browning had a mini break. and then a 00:11:21.860 --> 00:11:23.960 massive face plant that nearly ended his career 00:11:23.960 --> 00:11:25.899 before it began. That's a very fair assessment. 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:30.139 His first big poem, Paracelsus, came out in 1835. 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:33.399 It was about a 16th century alchemist. And it 00:11:33.399 --> 00:11:36.159 actually did well. People liked it. Yeah. Dickens, 00:11:36.179 --> 00:11:38.899 Wordsworth, Tennyson, they all saw this and thought, 00:11:38.980 --> 00:11:41.100 okay, this kid has something. He was the new 00:11:41.100 --> 00:11:43.639 it boy for a hot second. He was invited to the 00:11:43.639 --> 00:11:46.120 dinners. He was meeting the literary lions. He'd 00:11:46.120 --> 00:11:48.620 arrived. He thought he'd arrived. But then comes 00:11:48.620 --> 00:11:52.940 1840. and the publication of Sordello. The name 00:11:52.940 --> 00:11:55.799 alone makes Victorian literature students shudder. 00:11:55.940 --> 00:11:58.759 Let's unpack this disaster. What was Sordello? 00:11:59.220 --> 00:12:02.600 Well, on paper, it sounds epic. It's a long poem 00:12:02.600 --> 00:12:05.320 set during the wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:08.379 in medieval Italy. Okay. Complicated, but interesting. 00:12:08.639 --> 00:12:11.100 It's about a troubadour. A poet named Sordello, 00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:13.299 who is actually mentioned briefly in Dante's 00:12:13.299 --> 00:12:16.120 Divine Comedy. Browning went to Italy to research 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:18.679 it. He wanted to write this massive historical 00:12:18.679 --> 00:12:20.860 narrative about the role of the poet in society 00:12:20.860 --> 00:12:23.259 and the conflict between the contemplative life 00:12:23.259 --> 00:12:25.620 and the active life. That sounds ambitious, but 00:12:25.620 --> 00:12:28.039 not necessarily disastrous. The problem was the 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:30.740 execution. It was impenetrable. It was dense. 00:12:30.860 --> 00:12:34.159 The references were obscure. The syntax was knotted. 00:12:34.299 --> 00:12:36.679 He assumed the reader knew as much about medieval 00:12:36.679 --> 00:12:39.700 Italian politics as he did. Back to the 6 ,000 00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:42.639 books problem. Exactly. He skipped transitions. 00:12:42.700 --> 00:12:44.980 He jumped between thoughts. It was like reading 00:12:44.980 --> 00:12:47.820 the raw output of his brain without any editing 00:12:47.820 --> 00:12:50.299 for the reader's benefit. And the reaction wasn't 00:12:50.299 --> 00:12:54.419 just, this is bad. It was, what is this? The 00:12:54.419 --> 00:12:57.500 anecdotes from the sources are absolutely savage. 00:12:57.720 --> 00:12:59.700 We have to talk about Tennyson's reaction because 00:12:59.700 --> 00:13:02.759 it perfectly encapsulates the confusion. Alfred 00:13:02.759 --> 00:13:05.620 Lord Tennyson, arguably the greatest poet of 00:13:05.620 --> 00:13:08.200 the age and a friend of Browning's. A friend. 00:13:08.750 --> 00:13:11.470 A friend. He tried to read it. He later claimed 00:13:11.470 --> 00:13:13.850 that he only understood two lines in the entire 00:13:13.850 --> 00:13:17.289 poem. The first line and the last line. And what 00:13:17.289 --> 00:13:19.769 were they? The first line was, who will may hear 00:13:19.769 --> 00:13:22.350 Sordello's story told? And the last line was, 00:13:22.470 --> 00:13:25.169 who would has heard Sordello's story told? Simple 00:13:25.169 --> 00:13:26.850 enough. I'm going to tell you a story and I told 00:13:26.850 --> 00:13:29.110 you a story. Except Tennyson added, and they 00:13:29.110 --> 00:13:31.409 were both lies. Oh, that's cool. He meant he 00:13:31.409 --> 00:13:33.070 didn't hear the story told because he couldn't 00:13:33.070 --> 00:13:35.309 understand a word of the middle. That is brutal. 00:13:35.789 --> 00:13:38.350 But my favorite is Jane Walsh Carlyle. She was 00:13:38.350 --> 00:13:40.309 the wife of Thomas Carlyle, the famous historian. 00:13:40.570 --> 00:13:42.830 She read the whole thing, which shows incredible 00:13:42.830 --> 00:13:46.269 fortitude. A true hero. And her review was that 00:13:46.269 --> 00:13:48.309 she couldn't tell whether Sordello was a book, 00:13:48.429 --> 00:13:52.090 a city, or a man. It's funny now, but it was 00:13:52.090 --> 00:13:54.210 devastating for Browning. This wasn't just a 00:13:54.210 --> 00:13:57.190 bad review. It destroyed his reputation. He became 00:13:57.190 --> 00:14:00.350 known for wanton carelessness and obscurity. 00:14:00.860 --> 00:14:03.080 He went from being the promising young genius 00:14:03.080 --> 00:14:05.840 to the guy who writes nonsense. It took his career 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:08.860 over a decade to recover from Sordello. People 00:14:08.860 --> 00:14:11.139 literally stopped buying his books. Yeah, his 00:14:11.139 --> 00:14:13.200 publisher told him they'd only print his next 00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:15.659 works if he paid for the printing costs himself. 00:14:16.259 --> 00:14:18.519 Imagine that feeling. You're the smartest guy 00:14:18.519 --> 00:14:20.639 in the room. Literally, you have the 6 ,000 books 00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:22.899 in your head, but you can't get the ideas out 00:14:22.899 --> 00:14:25.379 in a way that people understand. You're transmitting 00:14:25.379 --> 00:14:27.320 on a frequency nobody else can hear. And that 00:14:27.320 --> 00:14:30.600 failure is crucial. It forced him to pivot. He 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:32.539 realized he couldn't just dump his brain onto 00:14:32.539 --> 00:14:35.740 the page. He needed a vehicle. He needed a way 00:14:35.740 --> 00:14:38.320 to package his complexity that engaged the reader 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:40.779 rather than pushing them away. He needed to find 00:14:40.779 --> 00:14:42.980 a way to make the obscurity part of the character, 00:14:43.139 --> 00:14:46.299 not the author. But before he found that artistic 00:14:46.299 --> 00:14:49.039 vehicle, he found an escape route from his life 00:14:49.039 --> 00:14:51.620 in London. A literal escape route. The Great 00:14:51.620 --> 00:14:55.960 Escape. We are moving to Section 3. Romance and 00:14:55.960 --> 00:14:59.529 Italy. Because while the critics were dunking 00:14:59.529 --> 00:15:02.429 on Sordello, something else was happening. In 00:15:02.429 --> 00:15:06.070 1845, Robert reads a collection of poems by Elizabeth 00:15:06.070 --> 00:15:09.090 Barrett, and he decides to write her a letter. 00:15:09.309 --> 00:15:11.450 We have to understand the power dynamic here 00:15:11.450 --> 00:15:14.419 to really appreciate the audacity of this. Today, 00:15:14.559 --> 00:15:17.480 we often think of them as a pair, or maybe we 00:15:17.480 --> 00:15:19.860 even think of Robert as the more famous one because 00:15:19.860 --> 00:15:22.740 My Last Duchess is in every anthology. Right. 00:15:22.779 --> 00:15:26.139 But in 1845, she was the star. She was the celebrity. 00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:28.500 Absolutely. She was six years older than him. 00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:31.220 She was semi -invalid, largely confined to her 00:15:31.220 --> 00:15:33.100 room in her father's house on Wimpole Street 00:15:33.100 --> 00:15:36.159 due to a spinal injury and chronic illness. But 00:15:36.159 --> 00:15:39.200 her poetry was incredibly popular. She was a 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:42.159 household name. A household name. A serious contender 00:15:42.159 --> 00:15:45.639 for Poet Laureate later on. Robert was the difficult, 00:15:45.899 --> 00:15:49.100 obscure guy who wrote that unreadable poem about 00:15:49.100 --> 00:15:51.299 the Italian troubadour. So he writes her a letter. 00:15:51.399 --> 00:15:53.340 I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss 00:15:53.340 --> 00:15:55.039 Barrett. And then later in the same letter, I 00:15:55.039 --> 00:15:57.000 love you too. Which is a bold move for a fan 00:15:57.000 --> 00:15:59.340 letter. This is a very bold move. Great poems. 00:15:59.399 --> 00:16:03.309 Also, I love you. It was incredibly bold. But 00:16:03.309 --> 00:16:06.389 it worked. It struck a chord. It started a correspondence 00:16:06.389 --> 00:16:09.350 that is now legendary. They wrote hundreds of 00:16:09.350 --> 00:16:11.970 letters. They discussed poetry, philosophy, religion, 00:16:12.149 --> 00:16:14.769 and eventually their feelings. They fell in love 00:16:14.769 --> 00:16:17.429 through words before they really spent time together. 00:16:17.610 --> 00:16:19.629 But there was a major obstacle. A huge one. The 00:16:19.629 --> 00:16:22.409 villain. Every good story needs a villain. Enter 00:16:22.409 --> 00:16:26.950 Mr. Barrett. Elizabeth's father. He was tyrannical 00:16:26.950 --> 00:16:30.049 is the word often used. He had forbidden any 00:16:30.049 --> 00:16:32.429 of his children from marrying. Any of them. any 00:16:32.429 --> 00:16:34.889 of them he threatened to disinherit them if they 00:16:34.889 --> 00:16:37.549 did he wanted to keep them especially elizabeth 00:16:37.549 --> 00:16:40.289 under his control he treated his family almost 00:16:40.289 --> 00:16:42.750 like property there is a lot of speculation about 00:16:42.750 --> 00:16:45.230 why he was this way controlling possessive perhaps 00:16:45.230 --> 00:16:47.730 afraid of losing his authority but the effect 00:16:47.730 --> 00:16:50.850 was that wimpole street was a prison so this 00:16:50.850 --> 00:16:53.009 wasn't just a courtship it was a conspiracy it 00:16:53.009 --> 00:16:55.470 was they had to meet in secret robert would come 00:16:55.470 --> 00:16:57.740 to the house while the father was away They got 00:16:57.740 --> 00:17:00.600 married in secret in September 1846, and then 00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:04.079 a week later, they ran. They fled to Italy, first 00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:07.180 Pisa, then Florence. They settled in Casaguiti, 00:17:07.220 --> 00:17:09.519 and this move changed everything for Browning. 00:17:09.660 --> 00:17:12.920 He later said, Italy was my university. Which 00:17:12.920 --> 00:17:15.619 is a great line, considering he barely went to 00:17:15.619 --> 00:17:18.480 a real university. But what he meant was that 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:21.019 after years of learning from books in his father's 00:17:21.019 --> 00:17:24.299 library, he was now learning from life. From 00:17:24.299 --> 00:17:26.859 the world. From the world. He was seeing the 00:17:26.859 --> 00:17:29.839 art, the architecture, the messy history, the 00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:32.759 people on the street. Italy is vibrant, chaotic, 00:17:32.940 --> 00:17:35.819 and sensory. It pulled him out of his head and 00:17:35.819 --> 00:17:38.099 into the world. He wasn't just reading about 00:17:38.099 --> 00:17:40.680 gulfs and ghibellines anymore. He was walking 00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:42.319 the streets where they fought. And they were 00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:44.680 happy, right? This wasn't a tragic, brooding 00:17:44.680 --> 00:17:46.839 romance where they made each other miserable. 00:17:47.039 --> 00:17:48.920 By all accounts, it was a very happy marriage. 00:17:49.099 --> 00:17:51.460 They had a son, Robert Weidman Barrett Browning, 00:17:51.480 --> 00:17:53.910 known as Penn. They had 15 children. years together, 00:17:54.130 --> 00:17:56.569 but the professional dynamic remained interesting. 00:17:56.930 --> 00:17:58.769 Elizabeth was still the breadwinner. She was 00:17:58.769 --> 00:18:00.829 the star. She was the one receiving visitors 00:18:00.829 --> 00:18:03.529 and praise. Robert was often dismissed by critics 00:18:03.529 --> 00:18:05.769 back in England. Some even attacked him for deserting 00:18:05.769 --> 00:18:07.950 England, calling him a runaway. There's such 00:18:07.950 --> 00:18:10.670 an irony there. You have Robert, the guy writing 00:18:10.670 --> 00:18:13.450 these dark, twisted psychological poems, living 00:18:13.450 --> 00:18:16.509 this sunny rom -com life in Italy. Exactly. And 00:18:16.509 --> 00:18:18.269 you have Elizabeth, who wrote these beautiful, 00:18:18.289 --> 00:18:21.430 sweet sonnets from the Portuguese, who came from 00:18:21.430 --> 00:18:24.240 this dark... abusive family situation. It's a 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:27.420 fascinating contrast. But that happiness and 00:18:27.420 --> 00:18:30.039 that distance from the London critics gave Robert 00:18:30.039 --> 00:18:32.680 the space to refine his new style. He started 00:18:32.680 --> 00:18:34.680 working on the poems that would eventually make 00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:37.059 up the collection Men and Women. This is where 00:18:37.059 --> 00:18:38.980 he perfects it. This is where he perfects the 00:18:38.980 --> 00:18:41.200 dramatic monologue. This is where he takes the 00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:43.640 failure of Sordello and turns it into a new art 00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:45.799 form. Okay, let's unpack this. This is section 00:18:45.799 --> 00:18:49.019 four, the innovation. The dramatic monologue. 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:51.160 This is the thing that makes Browning, Browning. 00:18:51.259 --> 00:18:53.539 Yeah. What exactly is it and how is it different 00:18:53.539 --> 00:18:57.359 from just talking? Or a soliloquy. The key distinction 00:18:57.359 --> 00:18:59.740 is between a soliloquy and a dramatic monologue. 00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:03.059 In a Shakespearean soliloquy, like Hamlet's To 00:19:03.059 --> 00:19:06.240 Be or Not To Be, or Macbeth's Is This a Dagger, 00:19:06.339 --> 00:19:08.619 which I see before me, the character is usually 00:19:08.619 --> 00:19:11.339 alone. They are speaking to the audience or themselves, 00:19:11.559 --> 00:19:13.660 and crucially, they are generally telling the 00:19:13.660 --> 00:19:15.920 truth about their feelings. They are revealing 00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:19.099 their inner self honestly. Right. Hamlet isn't 00:19:19.099 --> 00:19:21.140 lying to us. He's confused. He's existential. 00:19:21.460 --> 00:19:24.160 But he's honest with the audience. Exactly. But 00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:27.079 in a Browning dramatic monologue, the speaker 00:19:27.079 --> 00:19:29.380 is talking to a specific person in the scene, 00:19:29.559 --> 00:19:32.880 a silent listener. And crucially. the speaker 00:19:32.880 --> 00:19:35.279 is not telling the truth. Or not full truth. 00:19:35.420 --> 00:19:37.440 Or not the whole truth. Or at least they aren't 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:39.960 trying to reveal their true nature. They're usually 00:19:39.960 --> 00:19:42.640 trying to justify themselves, rationalize a crime, 00:19:42.799 --> 00:19:45.460 impress someone, or seduce someone. But in doing 00:19:45.460 --> 00:19:48.039 so, they inadvertently give themselves away. 00:19:48.420 --> 00:19:50.799 I love this description from the notes. The meaning 00:19:50.799 --> 00:19:53.220 is not what the speaker voluntarily reveals, 00:19:53.460 --> 00:19:56.920 but what he inadvertently gives away. It's like 00:19:56.920 --> 00:19:59.559 watching a suspect in an interrogation room who 00:19:59.559 --> 00:20:01.980 thinks they're talking their way out of it. But 00:20:01.980 --> 00:20:05.059 every word is digging the hole deeper. That is 00:20:05.059 --> 00:20:07.279 the perfect analogy. And the best example, the 00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:09.240 one everyone should read, is My Last Duchess. 00:20:09.319 --> 00:20:11.720 Oh, it's a classic. Set the scene for us. So 00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:15.079 the speaker is the Duke of Ferrara, an Italian 00:20:15.079 --> 00:20:18.019 Renaissance nobleman. He's talking to an emissary 00:20:18.019 --> 00:20:20.980 who has come to arrange his next marriage. His 00:20:20.980 --> 00:20:23.450 next marriage. Important detail. Very important. 00:20:23.769 --> 00:20:26.769 He takes this emissary upstairs to show him a 00:20:26.769 --> 00:20:29.769 painting of his previous wife, his last duchess, 00:20:29.789 --> 00:20:32.829 which is kept behind a curtain that only he is 00:20:32.829 --> 00:20:35.049 allowed to open. That's red flag number one. 00:20:35.690 --> 00:20:38.250 I keep my dead wife's picture behind a curtain 00:20:38.250 --> 00:20:41.490 and I control who sees her. Exactly. It's about 00:20:41.490 --> 00:20:43.490 control. And as he talks about the painting, 00:20:43.589 --> 00:20:45.910 he starts complaining about her. But listen to 00:20:45.910 --> 00:20:47.930 what he complains about. He says she was too 00:20:47.930 --> 00:20:51.250 easily pleased. She smiled at everyone. The horror. 00:20:51.880 --> 00:20:54.900 The horror. She treated the Duke's gift of a 00:20:54.900 --> 00:20:57.700 900 years old name the same way she treated a 00:20:57.700 --> 00:20:59.599 sunset or a bow of cherry as someone brought 00:20:59.599 --> 00:21:01.519 her from the orchard. He was jealous that she 00:21:01.519 --> 00:21:03.519 was happy. He was jealous that he couldn't control 00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:05.680 her happiness. He wanted to be the only source 00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:09.059 of joy in her life. He felt that her appreciating 00:21:09.059 --> 00:21:11.900 a sunset, something free and natural, was an 00:21:11.900 --> 00:21:15.259 insult to his expensive heritage. It's pathological 00:21:15.259 --> 00:21:18.319 narcissism. And then he drops the hammer. He 00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:22.029 says, I gave commands. Then all smiles stop together. 00:21:22.230 --> 00:21:25.589 Chills. Every time. I gave commands, then all 00:21:25.589 --> 00:21:28.730 smiles stop together. He implies he had her killed, 00:21:28.829 --> 00:21:31.190 but he says it so casually while discussing art. 00:21:31.329 --> 00:21:33.930 And notice the context. He is telling this to 00:21:33.930 --> 00:21:36.630 the guy arranging his next marriage. He is effectively 00:21:36.630 --> 00:21:39.829 giving a warning. My next wife better not be 00:21:39.829 --> 00:21:42.089 like the last one. This is what happens if you 00:21:42.089 --> 00:21:44.890 smile at the mailman. Pretty much. And then he 00:21:44.890 --> 00:21:46.750 immediately moves on to discussing the dowry 00:21:46.750 --> 00:21:49.890 and points out a statue of Neptune taming a seahorse. 00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:53.019 The symbolism is blatant. He wants to be Neptune 00:21:53.019 --> 00:21:55.900 taming the woman. The listener, the emissary, 00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:58.299 and the reader are left horrified. But the Duke 00:21:58.299 --> 00:22:00.519 thinks he's just being a sophisticated art collector. 00:22:00.779 --> 00:22:04.000 That is the genius of it. You, the reader, have 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:06.339 to do the work. Browning doesn't say the Duke 00:22:06.339 --> 00:22:09.059 is a bad man. He lets the Duke speak and you 00:22:09.059 --> 00:22:11.200 figure it out. Precisely. It turns the reader 00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:13.130 into a detective. You have to read between the 00:22:13.130 --> 00:22:14.569 lines. He does it with other characters, too. 00:22:15.309 --> 00:22:16.950 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister is another 00:22:16.950 --> 00:22:19.289 great one. It's a monk watching a fellow monk 00:22:19.289 --> 00:22:21.670 gardening. And the speaker just hates this other 00:22:21.670 --> 00:22:24.170 monk. He's growling, oh, my heart's abhorrence. 00:22:24.289 --> 00:22:26.410 He hates him for such petty reasons, right? Like 00:22:26.410 --> 00:22:29.470 how he places his knife and fork. Yes. He criticizes 00:22:29.470 --> 00:22:31.670 the other monk, Brother Lawrence, for being too 00:22:31.670 --> 00:22:33.950 simple, for talking about his melons, for how 00:22:33.950 --> 00:22:37.029 he drinks his water. But as the poem goes on, 00:22:37.150 --> 00:22:39.829 we realize the speaker is actually the sinful 00:22:39.829 --> 00:22:43.000 one. He's projecting. Totally. He's full of lust. 00:22:43.079 --> 00:22:45.700 He's watching women washing clothes nearby. He's 00:22:45.700 --> 00:22:48.160 full of envy and he's full of rage. He's planning 00:22:48.160 --> 00:22:50.400 to trip the other monk up or trick him into heresy. 00:22:50.519 --> 00:22:52.740 He's projecting all his own dauntless onto this 00:22:52.740 --> 00:22:55.400 innocent gardener. It's a study in hypocrisy. 00:22:55.500 --> 00:22:57.619 And then there's Porphyria's lover. This one 00:22:57.619 --> 00:22:59.759 is, well, it's straight up criminal minds. It's 00:22:59.759 --> 00:23:01.440 darker than the others. It is. It starts with 00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:04.240 a storm. A woman, Porphyria, comes in from the 00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:06.319 rain to visit her lover. She lights the fire. 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:08.900 She's being affectionate. And the lover, the 00:23:08.900 --> 00:23:12.809 speaker. realizes that in this moment, she worships 00:23:12.809 --> 00:23:15.869 him perfectly. She is his. She is his. She has 00:23:15.869 --> 00:23:18.609 defied societal rules. She's likely from a higher 00:23:18.609 --> 00:23:21.470 class to come see him. And he thinks, she is 00:23:21.470 --> 00:23:24.849 mine. Fair, perfectly pure, and good. So to preserve 00:23:24.849 --> 00:23:26.910 that moment forever, to stop her from ever leaving 00:23:26.910 --> 00:23:28.930 or changing her mind. He wants to freeze time. 00:23:29.539 --> 00:23:32.079 Exactly. So he strangles her. With her own hair. 00:23:32.220 --> 00:23:34.099 With her own hair. And then, and this is the 00:23:34.099 --> 00:23:35.799 part that really disturbs people, he opens her 00:23:35.799 --> 00:23:38.920 eyes, unwinds the hair, and props her head up 00:23:38.920 --> 00:23:40.980 on his shoulder. He sits there with the corpse. 00:23:41.279 --> 00:23:45.619 And he says this chilling line. No pain felt 00:23:45.619 --> 00:23:50.119 she. I am quite sure she felt no pain. He's rationalizing 00:23:50.119 --> 00:23:53.150 the murder as an act of love. As a kindness. 00:23:53.250 --> 00:23:55.750 It's the ultimate act of possession. And the 00:23:55.750 --> 00:23:57.730 poem ends with him sitting there with the body 00:23:57.730 --> 00:24:00.710 saying, and yet God has not said a word. Like 00:24:00.710 --> 00:24:03.069 he's waiting for lightning to strike. And because 00:24:03.069 --> 00:24:06.089 it hasn't, he thinks he's justified. It's deeply 00:24:06.089 --> 00:24:08.130 disturbing. But again, it's about that psychological 00:24:08.130 --> 00:24:11.430 deep dive. Browning isn't endorsing this violence. 00:24:11.690 --> 00:24:14.670 He's exploring the twisted logic of a mind that 00:24:14.670 --> 00:24:16.750 thinks killing someone is a way to keep them. 00:24:16.930 --> 00:24:18.769 He's showing us the danger of possessiveness 00:24:18.769 --> 00:24:21.089 taken to its absolute extreme. Why does this 00:24:21.089 --> 00:24:23.650 matter so much? I mean, obviously there are great 00:24:23.650 --> 00:24:26.049 creepy poems, but you mentioned earlier that 00:24:26.049 --> 00:24:28.769 this bridged the gap to modern literature. Browning 00:24:28.769 --> 00:24:31.869 shifted the focus of poetry. The Romantics, Shelley, 00:24:32.170 --> 00:24:36.230 Wordsworth, Keats were often focused on the sublime. 00:24:36.670 --> 00:24:40.589 on nature, on big abstract emotions. Browning 00:24:40.589 --> 00:24:44.009 focused on the psychological. He influenced T 00:24:44.009 --> 00:24:46.769 .S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and even modern novelists. 00:24:46.930 --> 00:24:50.309 The unreliable narrator. The idea of the unreliable 00:24:50.309 --> 00:24:52.849 narrator, which is so huge in fiction today, 00:24:53.089 --> 00:24:55.569 think of Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, or 00:24:55.569 --> 00:24:58.589 even Lolita, owes a huge debt to Browning's dramatic 00:24:58.589 --> 00:25:01.349 monologues. He taught writers that a character's 00:25:01.349 --> 00:25:03.390 voice could be a puzzle to be solved, not just 00:25:03.390 --> 00:25:05.390 a way to convey information. It's interesting 00:25:05.390 --> 00:25:08.130 that he was so good at spotting fakes, liars, 00:25:08.130 --> 00:25:10.029 and manipulators in his poetry because that leads 00:25:10.029 --> 00:25:12.519 us directly to section five, the spirit. foot 00:25:12.519 --> 00:25:15.200 incident. Oh, this is a wild story. This is where 00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:17.799 Browning the skeptic meets the 19th century craze 00:25:17.799 --> 00:25:21.299 for spiritualism. So in the 1850s, spiritualism, 00:25:21.319 --> 00:25:23.839 talking to the dead, seances, mediums, table 00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:26.380 turning was huge. It was the Marvel movie franchise 00:25:26.380 --> 00:25:29.160 of the Victorian era. Everyone was into it. It 00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:31.720 was a mix of parlor game and religion. And Elizabeth 00:25:31.720 --> 00:25:34.160 Barrett Browning was a believer. She really wanted 00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:36.960 it to be true. She found comfort in the idea 00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:39.920 of the spirit world. Robert, on the other hand, 00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:42.519 was a rationalist. He hated it. He thought it 00:25:42.519 --> 00:25:45.460 was all manipulation and fraud, preying on grieving 00:25:45.460 --> 00:25:48.380 people. Enter Daniel Dungless Holm. He was the 00:25:48.380 --> 00:25:51.420 superstar medium of the day. He was. He was the 00:25:51.420 --> 00:25:54.380 Uri Geller of the 1850s. He claimed he could 00:25:54.380 --> 00:25:57.799 levitate, handle hot coals, summon spirits, play 00:25:57.799 --> 00:26:00.079 accordions without touching them. So the Brownings 00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:03.619 go to a seance with him. Yes. In July 1855, in 00:26:03.619 --> 00:26:06.420 Ealing. The lights are low. The tension is high. 00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:09.559 And things get weird. During the seance, a wreath 00:26:09.559 --> 00:26:11.880 of clematis flowers floats off the table and 00:26:11.880 --> 00:26:14.400 lands on Elizabeth's head. She is deeply moved. 00:26:14.940 --> 00:26:17.619 Then a spirit face materializes above the table. 00:26:17.920 --> 00:26:20.240 Home claims it is the spirit of Robert's son, 00:26:20.500 --> 00:26:22.759 who died in infancy. Oh, he's playing on their 00:26:22.759 --> 00:26:25.640 emotions, trying to hook them. He is. The tension 00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:28.279 in the room must have been palpable. Elizabeth 00:26:28.279 --> 00:26:32.000 is likely in tears. Robert is simmering. And 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:34.220 he's simmering because he knew two things. One, 00:26:34.380 --> 00:26:36.940 he thought home was a fraud. And two, and this 00:26:36.940 --> 00:26:39.420 is the kicker, Browning never lost a son in infancy. 00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:42.420 Wait, really? Really. They had Penn, who was 00:26:42.420 --> 00:26:45.240 alive and well. They hadn't lost an infant. So 00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:47.819 home was not only faking it, he was bad at his 00:26:47.819 --> 00:26:50.319 research, he was cold reading, and he missed 00:26:50.319 --> 00:26:53.079 badly. So what does Robert do? Does he politely 00:26:53.079 --> 00:26:57.710 cough and correct him? No. He lunges. he seizes 00:26:57.710 --> 00:27:00.569 the spirit face he physically grabs the ghost 00:27:00.569 --> 00:27:02.869 he grabs it and it turns out to be daniel douglas 00:27:02.869 --> 00:27:06.609 holmes barefoot no yes he grabbed the guy's foot 00:27:06.609 --> 00:27:09.109 i've got your spirit face right here pal that 00:27:09.109 --> 00:27:12.430 is incredible so home had slipped his shoe off 00:27:12.430 --> 00:27:15.210 under the table And was waggling his foot around 00:27:15.210 --> 00:27:18.049 in the dark. It was a double fraud. A fake face 00:27:18.049 --> 00:27:20.569 that was actually a foot. And a fake dead son. 00:27:21.049 --> 00:27:23.130 Browning was furious. He essentially kicked home 00:27:23.130 --> 00:27:24.809 out of the house. And he wrote an angry letter 00:27:24.809 --> 00:27:26.609 to the Times calling the whole thing a cheat 00:27:26.609 --> 00:27:29.130 and imposture. He did. But he didn't stop there. 00:27:29.210 --> 00:27:31.349 He wrote a poem about it because that is how 00:27:31.349 --> 00:27:34.650 poets exact revenge. Of course. He wrote Mr. 00:27:34.930 --> 00:27:38.990 Sludge, the medium. It's a scathing satire where 00:27:38.990 --> 00:27:41.839 medium confesses to being a cheat. It starts 00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:44.079 with lines like, now don't, sir. Don't expose 00:27:44.079 --> 00:27:48.380 me. Just this once. It's Browning using his dramatic 00:27:48.380 --> 00:27:51.059 monologue technique to dissect the mind of a 00:27:51.059 --> 00:27:53.599 con artist who rationalizes his lies by saying, 00:27:53.640 --> 00:27:55.519 well, the people want to be fooled. I'm just 00:27:55.519 --> 00:27:57.099 giving them what they want. I wonder how that 00:27:57.099 --> 00:27:58.740 went over at the dinner table with Elizabeth. 00:27:59.099 --> 00:28:01.380 It was a sore spot. Elizabeth remained convinced 00:28:01.380 --> 00:28:03.740 that some phenomena were genuine, despite the 00:28:03.740 --> 00:28:06.680 home incident. She wanted to believe in the afterlife 00:28:06.680 --> 00:28:09.079 in a tangible way. It was a constant source of 00:28:09.079 --> 00:28:11.380 disagreement. But it highlights Browning's character. 00:28:11.700 --> 00:28:14.799 He hated manipulation. He hated people using 00:28:14.799 --> 00:28:17.160 emotions to control others. Which ironically 00:28:17.160 --> 00:28:19.700 is exactly what the villains in his poems do. 00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:22.400 Exactly. He despised it in real life, so he explored 00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:25.400 it in his art. So Elizabeth passes away in 1861. 00:28:25.740 --> 00:28:27.980 Robert is devastated. He takes their son, Penn, 00:28:28.259 --> 00:28:30.380 and moves back to London. He's now a widower. 00:28:30.500 --> 00:28:32.920 He's in his 50s. And let's be honest, his reputation 00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:34.960 is still recovering from the Sordello disaster 00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:38.019 years ago. He is well known, but he isn't loved 00:28:38.019 --> 00:28:40.869 by the public yet. He needs a win. And he gets 00:28:40.869 --> 00:28:43.150 the biggest win of his life. This is Section 00:28:43.150 --> 00:28:45.849 6, the masterpiece, the ring in the book. This 00:28:45.849 --> 00:28:49.029 thing is massive. A monster. It is. Published 00:28:49.029 --> 00:28:53.190 between 1868 and 1869, it's over 20 ,000 lines 00:28:53.190 --> 00:28:56.430 long. To give you context, that is twice as long 00:28:56.430 --> 00:28:59.609 as Milton's Paradise Lost. It came out in four 00:28:59.609 --> 00:29:02.009 volumes. And the premise is basically a true 00:29:02.009 --> 00:29:03.829 crime documentary. That's a great way to put 00:29:03.829 --> 00:29:06.599 it. Browning found an old yellow book in a flea 00:29:06.599 --> 00:29:09.359 market in Florence. It wasn't a novel. It was 00:29:09.359 --> 00:29:11.759 a collection of legal documents about a Roman 00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:14.539 murder case from the 1690s. So this is a real 00:29:14.539 --> 00:29:17.940 case. A real case. It was a mesmerizingly sordid 00:29:17.940 --> 00:29:20.779 tale of a nobleman, Count Guido Franceschini, 00:29:20.940 --> 00:29:23.599 who murders his wife, Pompilia, and her parents 00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:25.779 because he thinks she cheated on him with a priest, 00:29:25.900 --> 00:29:28.940 Caponsacci. Classic tabloid stuff. Adultery, 00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:32.470 murder. priests, noblemen. But Browning doesn't 00:29:32.470 --> 00:29:34.410 just tell the story from start to finish. No, 00:29:34.509 --> 00:29:37.210 he applies his dramatic monologue technique on 00:29:37.210 --> 00:29:40.630 an epic scale. The poem consists of 12 books. 00:29:40.930 --> 00:29:43.130 Essentially, it tells the same story 10 different 00:29:43.130 --> 00:29:45.049 times from different perspectives. So you get 00:29:45.049 --> 00:29:46.829 the husband's side, the wife's side, the priest's 00:29:46.829 --> 00:29:50.470 side. The witnesses, the lawyers, the pope. Everyone 00:29:50.470 --> 00:29:52.529 tells the story, but the truth shifts depending 00:29:52.529 --> 00:29:55.259 on who is speaking. The husband paints himself 00:29:55.259 --> 00:29:57.740 as a victim of a loose woman and a gold -digging 00:29:57.740 --> 00:30:00.940 family. The wife paints herself as a victim of 00:30:00.940 --> 00:30:04.180 a cruel, abusive tyrant. The lawyers spin the 00:30:04.180 --> 00:30:06.640 law to fit their arguments. It's a tour de force 00:30:06.640 --> 00:30:08.960 of relativity. It sounds like the movie Rashomon, 00:30:09.140 --> 00:30:12.700 but written 80 years earlier. Exactly. It forces 00:30:12.700 --> 00:30:15.180 the reader to sift through all these biases to 00:30:15.180 --> 00:30:17.859 find the moral center. Browning is showing us 00:30:17.859 --> 00:30:21.019 that truth is often fragmented. You can't just 00:30:21.019 --> 00:30:23.599 take one person's word for it. You have to synthesize 00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:26.380 the truth from all the lies. It sounds exhausting, 00:30:26.500 --> 00:30:28.539 but in a good way. Like you're on the jury for 00:30:28.539 --> 00:30:30.819 a very complicated trial. And the public loved 00:30:30.819 --> 00:30:33.920 it. They ate it up. Finally, after 40 years of 00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:36.740 writing, Browning got the renown he craved. He 00:30:36.740 --> 00:30:38.900 wasn't just the obscure poet anymore. He was 00:30:38.900 --> 00:30:42.299 a sage, a philosopher poet. The Robert Browning 00:30:42.299 --> 00:30:44.539 Society was formed while he was still alive to 00:30:44.539 --> 00:30:46.799 study his work. Which was rare. Usually you have 00:30:46.799 --> 00:30:49.220 to die to get a society dedicated to you. It 00:30:49.220 --> 00:30:51.720 was almost unheard of. He finally made it. He 00:30:51.720 --> 00:30:54.759 became a Victorian institution. But even institutions 00:30:54.759 --> 00:30:57.480 are mortal. And that brings us to Section 7, 00:30:57.579 --> 00:31:01.220 which I find really moving. The voice from beyond 00:31:01.220 --> 00:31:03.480 the grave. This is a fascinating bit of history. 00:31:03.619 --> 00:31:06.359 We are so used to recorded audio now. We're recording 00:31:06.359 --> 00:31:08.259 this right now. People send voice notes. But 00:31:08.259 --> 00:31:11.420 in 1889, capturing a human voice was science 00:31:11.420 --> 00:31:15.609 fiction. The date is April 7, 1889. a dinner 00:31:15.609 --> 00:31:18.710 party at the home of Rudolph Lehman, and a representative 00:31:18.710 --> 00:31:21.190 of Thomas Edison is there. George Geroad. He 00:31:21.190 --> 00:31:23.269 brings a phonograph and a white wax cylinder. 00:31:23.829 --> 00:31:26.750 He asks Browning to speak into it. Browning is 00:31:26.750 --> 00:31:29.490 old now. He's 77 years old. And Browning, the 00:31:29.490 --> 00:31:32.130 great poet, decides to recite one of his most 00:31:32.130 --> 00:31:35.289 famous fast -paced poems. How they brought the 00:31:35.289 --> 00:31:37.589 good news from Ghent to X. He starts reciting, 00:31:37.670 --> 00:31:40.369 I sprang to the stirrup and Joris, and he's getting 00:31:40.369 --> 00:31:42.589 into the rhythm of the galloping horses. But 00:31:42.589 --> 00:31:44.809 then... He forgets the words. He stumbles. He 00:31:44.809 --> 00:31:46.849 stops. On the recording, which still exists, 00:31:46.890 --> 00:31:48.730 you can find it online, you can hear him say, 00:31:48.869 --> 00:31:51.289 I'm terribly sorry, but I can't remember my own 00:31:51.289 --> 00:31:53.450 verses. And he laughs about it. He laughs and 00:31:53.450 --> 00:31:56.849 asks others to help him. That is so human. The 00:31:56.849 --> 00:31:59.029 man who wrote millions of words, the man with 00:31:59.029 --> 00:32:01.630 the 6 ,000 book library in his head, blanks on 00:32:01.630 --> 00:32:04.660 his own hit single. It's charming. But it's also 00:32:04.660 --> 00:32:07.380 poignant. He died later that year, in December 00:32:07.380 --> 00:32:10.539 1889 in Venice. When that recording was played 00:32:10.539 --> 00:32:12.299 a year later on the anniversary of his death, 00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:14.319 people said it was the first time a voice had 00:32:14.319 --> 00:32:17.940 been heard from beyond the grave. It's one of 00:32:17.940 --> 00:32:20.019 the oldest surviving recordings of a notable 00:32:20.019 --> 00:32:22.759 person in the UK. It's a ghostly connection to 00:32:22.759 --> 00:32:24.660 a man who spent his life trying to capture the 00:32:24.660 --> 00:32:27.440 voices of others. Now let's jump to the present. 00:32:27.579 --> 00:32:31.279 Section 8. Pop culture and modern legacy. Because 00:32:31.279 --> 00:32:34.140 Browning isn't just dusty history. He pops up 00:32:34.140 --> 00:32:36.240 in some very weird places in our modern media 00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:38.460 diet. He really does. Let's start with Stephen 00:32:38.460 --> 00:32:41.099 King. If you are a fan of the Dark Tower series, 00:32:41.259 --> 00:32:43.599 which is this massive, sprawling fantasy epic 00:32:43.599 --> 00:32:45.579 that ties all of King's books together, you have 00:32:45.579 --> 00:32:47.700 to know that the entire thing is inspired by 00:32:47.700 --> 00:32:49.839 Browning's poem, Child Roll Into the Dark Tower 00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:52.099 Came. Which itself is a very weird nightmare 00:32:52.099 --> 00:32:54.920 logic poem. It is. It's about a knight traversing 00:32:54.920 --> 00:32:57.859 a wasteland to reach a mysterious tower. It's 00:32:57.859 --> 00:33:00.640 surreal, apocalyptic, filled with grotesque imagery. 00:33:01.180 --> 00:33:03.579 And King just ran with that. He took that imagery, 00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:07.140 the bleak landscape, the tower as a focal point 00:33:07.140 --> 00:33:09.619 of destiny, and built a multi -book universe 00:33:09.619 --> 00:33:12.680 around it. The vibe of the Dark Tower is pure 00:33:12.680 --> 00:33:15.480 browning. And then there's anime. Neon Genesis 00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:18.269 Evangelion. If you know, you know. The slogan 00:33:18.269 --> 00:33:20.809 for NRV, the secret organization in the show, 00:33:20.930 --> 00:33:23.769 is gods in his heaven all's right with the world. 00:33:23.990 --> 00:33:26.009 Which is a line from Browning's Pippa Passes. 00:33:26.069 --> 00:33:29.089 It is, although people often misuse that quote 00:33:29.089 --> 00:33:31.990 to mean everything is great. In the poem, it's 00:33:31.990 --> 00:33:34.890 spoken by an innocent girl, Pippa, and the irony 00:33:34.890 --> 00:33:37.329 is that she walks past scenes of terrible crime 00:33:37.329 --> 00:33:39.869 and corruption while singing it. So is ironic. 00:33:40.329 --> 00:33:42.549 Deeply ironic. And in the anime, it takes on 00:33:42.549 --> 00:33:45.569 a similarly ironic, almost sinister tone. It's 00:33:45.569 --> 00:33:47.829 about how the world appears orderly from above, 00:33:47.990 --> 00:33:50.569 but is chaos on the ground. And we can't forget 00:33:50.569 --> 00:33:52.569 the romance, the Barretts of Wimpole Street. 00:33:52.990 --> 00:33:55.890 The play and the film solidified the Robert and 00:33:55.890 --> 00:33:58.670 Elizabeth story as the ultimate literary love 00:33:58.670 --> 00:34:01.269 story. It made them celebrities in the 20th century 00:34:01.269 --> 00:34:03.210 in a way that perhaps overshadowed the poetry 00:34:03.210 --> 00:34:05.730 for a while. People knew the love story before 00:34:05.730 --> 00:34:08.289 they knew the verses. And A .S. Byatt's possession. 00:34:08.590 --> 00:34:11.250 A brilliant novel. The Victorian poet in that 00:34:11.250 --> 00:34:14.309 book, Randolph Henry Ashe, is loosely based on 00:34:14.309 --> 00:34:16.989 Browning. It captures that scholarly, passionate, 00:34:17.309 --> 00:34:19.530 slightly rough -around -the -edges quality he 00:34:19.530 --> 00:34:22.559 had. It shows how his presence still looms. over 00:34:22.559 --> 00:34:24.860 literary scholarship. So bring it all together 00:34:24.860 --> 00:34:27.440 for us. Why does he endure? Why do we still care 00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:30.260 about a guy who wrote difficult poems 150 years 00:34:30.260 --> 00:34:32.539 ago? I think Harold Bloom put it best. He said, 00:34:32.579 --> 00:34:35.599 Browning unfolds a multi -personed literary and 00:34:35.599 --> 00:34:39.199 human self. Basically, Browning challenges you. 00:34:39.320 --> 00:34:41.920 He doesn't hand you the answer. He forces you 00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:44.739 to engage, to judge, to think critically. You're 00:34:44.739 --> 00:34:46.800 an active participant. You're active, not passive. 00:34:47.369 --> 00:34:48.949 When you read a Browning monologue, you have 00:34:48.949 --> 00:34:51.530 to figure out who is lying, who is crazy, and 00:34:51.530 --> 00:34:53.849 where the truth hides. That is a very modern 00:34:53.849 --> 00:34:55.690 experience. We live in a world of information 00:34:55.690 --> 00:34:58.570 overload and unreliable narrators. Browning was 00:34:58.570 --> 00:35:00.550 the first one to really gamify that in poetry. 00:35:00.849 --> 00:35:04.099 He makes you do the work, so the aha. Moment 00:35:04.099 --> 00:35:06.739 feels earned. Exactly. He respects the reader's 00:35:06.739 --> 00:35:08.559 intelligence. He assumes you are smart enough 00:35:08.559 --> 00:35:11.719 to figure it out. So to recap, we went from the 00:35:11.719 --> 00:35:14.619 boy in the library of 6 ,000 books to the morbidly 00:35:14.619 --> 00:35:16.800 self -conscious teenager to the misunderstood 00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:19.820 failure of Sordello, then the romantic hero stealing 00:35:19.820 --> 00:35:22.119 Elizabeth away to Italy, and finally the master 00:35:22.119 --> 00:35:24.719 of psychology who taught us that everyone's the 00:35:24.719 --> 00:35:27.400 hero of their own story, even the murderers. 00:35:27.840 --> 00:35:30.280 A man who believed, as he wrote in Andrea del 00:35:30.280 --> 00:35:33.079 Sarto, that a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 00:35:33.179 --> 00:35:36.039 or what's a heaven for? He always reached for 00:35:36.039 --> 00:35:38.820 more complexity, more truth, more depth. And 00:35:38.820 --> 00:35:41.119 here is a final provocative thought for you to 00:35:41.119 --> 00:35:44.840 chew on. Browning was a master of masks. He spoke 00:35:44.840 --> 00:35:47.199 through hundreds of characters, dukes, murderers, 00:35:47.199 --> 00:35:49.760 bishops, mediums, to avoid speaking directly 00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:53.449 as himself. He found truth through fiction. In 00:35:53.449 --> 00:35:55.369 our modern world, we are obsessed with speaking 00:35:55.369 --> 00:35:57.530 our truth and curating our personas on social 00:35:57.530 --> 00:36:00.030 media. We think we are being authentic, but we 00:36:00.030 --> 00:36:02.190 are often performing. That's a great point. We 00:36:02.190 --> 00:36:04.250 are all rating our own dramatic monologues on 00:36:04.250 --> 00:36:06.929 Instagram or LinkedIn. We are presenting a version 00:36:06.929 --> 00:36:10.429 of ourselves. So, is Browning's method admitting 00:36:10.429 --> 00:36:12.949 that you are wearing a mask and revealing the 00:36:12.949 --> 00:36:15.769 truth through a character actually more honest 00:36:15.769 --> 00:36:18.889 than our modern obsession with being real? Maybe 00:36:18.889 --> 00:36:20.769 fiction is the only way to tell the whole truth. 00:36:21.179 --> 00:36:22.860 That is something to think about. Perhaps the 00:36:22.860 --> 00:36:24.980 mask allows us to say things the face never could. 00:36:25.460 --> 00:36:27.480 If you want to dip your toe into Browning's world, 00:36:27.639 --> 00:36:30.199 don't be intimidated. Go read My Last Duchess. 00:36:30.199 --> 00:36:33.039 It's short, it's creepy, and it's a masterclass. 00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:36.519 Read it and play detective. Ask yourself, what 00:36:36.519 --> 00:36:38.539 is this guy not telling me? You won't regret 00:36:38.539 --> 00:36:41.159 it. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive into 00:36:41.159 --> 00:36:42.840 the mind of Robert Browning. We'll see you next 00:36:42.840 --> 00:36:43.059 time.