Résumé
Résumé de Poèmes choisis de Browning
Go deeper: the whole of Poèmes choisis de Browning
About 3 h 30 min to read.À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
You will enjoy this book if you like poems that tell stories, voices that speak right to your ear, vivid portraits, love songs, and big questions about faith and art.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Picture a duke walking a visitor through his palace. He stops at a painted wall, draws back a curtain, and says, that is my last duchess. Within minutes you know what became of her, and the duke never says it plainly.
This is Browning's Shorter Poems, a selection of about fifty poems by Robert Browning, who lived from 1812 to 1889. It holds galloping tales, love songs, portraits of painters and bishops, and meditations on faith. Notes at the end explain names and history.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Italy was the poet's true universityFree
- 2Story poems that run on speed and courage
- 3Love lyrics find wonder in small things
- 4Soldiers, patriots and exiles speak their minds
- 5Dramatic monologues let villains speak for themselves
- 6Poems about artists and music ask what lasts
- 7Faith, doubt and endurance run through the long poems
- 8Read these poems aloud and hear the poet himself
Point clé 1 sur 8
Italy was the poet's true university
Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, London, in 1812. His father was a clerk at the Bank of England who loved books, history and legend. His mother loved music and had a deep religious feeling. Both gifts return in the poems.
Browning's formal schooling was thin. He went from a private academy to a tutor at home, then to the University of London for two years. When people asked whether he had gone to Oxford or Cambridge, he answered that Italy was his university. That is why so many poems are set in Italian towns, from Ferrara to Venice.
In his teens he wrote in the manner of Pope and Byron. Then he found Shelley, who became his model of what a poet could be. In 1846 he married the poet Elizabeth Barrett, and they lived in Italy until her death in 1861. Following his death on December 12, 1889, in Venice, he was laid to rest at Westminster Abbey in Poets' Corner.
A life of study, travel and friendship stands behind the poems, and it explains their range.
That’s 1 of 8 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Go deeper: the whole of Poèmes choisis de Browning
About 3 h 30 min to read.Questions about Poèmes choisis de Browning
What are Browning's shorter poems about?
They cover a wide range. There are stories such as The Pied Piper of Hamelin, love songs such as Evelyn Hope, portraits such as My Last Duchess, and poems about art, music, freedom, faith and the courage to face death.
What is a dramatic monologue?
It is a poem spoken by one character to a silent listener. The speaker, such as the Duke in My Last Duchess, reveals his own nature without the poet commenting, and the reader works out the rest.
Is The Pied Piper of Hamelin a true story?
It rests on an old legend found in many forms, which Browning wrote in 1842 for the sick son of a friend. The poem gives a date in the fourteenth century, but historians treat the tale as folklore.
What is the main message of these poems?
Browning holds that striving matters more than easy success, that love and faith give life its meaning, and that people reveal themselves by how they speak. Hope and courage in the face of failure run throughout.
Cite this edition
Browning, Robert. Browning's Shorter Poems. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/brownings-shorter-poems.
Browning, R. (2026). Browning's shorter poems. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/brownings-shorter-poems
Browning, Robert. Browning's Shorter Poems. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/brownings-shorter-poems.
@book{browning2026brownings,
author = {Browning, Robert},
title = {Browning's Shorter Poems},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/brownings-shorter-poems}
}
