4 h 9 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A dying bishop, a painter, a desperate horseman: what do people reveal when Browning lets them speak?
In Dramatic Romances, Robert Browning turns poems into little plays. Each speaker enters a vivid scene under pressure, revealing passion, pride, envy or faith. These are not plain personal confessions from the poet. They are voices to listen to closely, where what remains unsaid can matter as much as what reaches the ear.
The collection moves through different times and places. In How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, riders race with urgent news, and the verse beats like hooves. Elsewhere, a bishop and a painter bring other desires into view: wealth, beauty and a lasting name. Each voice gives those desires a different shape.
What you’ll discover
- Poems that become scenes Meet speakers whose words turn a short poem into a charged dramatic moment.
- The rush of hooves Feel the galloping ballad drive forward through repeated names, sounds and urgent rhythm.
- Desire behind the words Trace the hunger for wealth, beauty, home or a name that lasts.
- What speakers leave unsaid Listen for pride, envy and faith in the gaps between a speaker’s words.
- Verse with restless energy Discover how Browning’s unusual rhythms carry feeling and give each scene its pressure.
Who will love it
Readers who love voices, who enjoy a story told by someone with a secret, and who like poems that sound best read aloud, from ballads and folktales to lovers' quarrels and court intrigue.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Speakers who reveal themselves
- Courage, loyalty and the patriot
- Love, danger and the glove
- Tales, legends and the Pied Piper
- Scholars, heretics and faith under strain
- Sound, form and the dark tower
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Romanze drammatiche
A duke points to a portrait of his late wife, and the smile he describes tells us more than he means to.
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In short
Dramatic Romances is a gathering of Robert Browning's narrative and speaking poems, each one voiced by a character caught in a single charged moment. Browning, who died in 1889, wrote these pieces in the middle of the nineteenth century.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Speakers who reveal themselves
The central idea of the collection is the dramatic monologue. A speaker talks to a listener, and the poem lets us hear more than the speaker means to say. My Last Duchess is the clearest case. The Duke of Ferrara shows an envoy a painting of his former wife, and while he praises the artist Fra Pandolf, he lets slip what he disliked in her.
The duchess smiled at everyone, thanked men for small gifts, and ranked his old family name with a bough of cherries or a ride on a white mule. He says he chose never to stoop. He turns at once to the dowry talks for a new bride and points out a bronze of Neptune taming a sea horse.
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What is Dramatic Romances by Robert Browning about?
It is a collection of narrative and speaking poems in which soldiers, dukes, lovers, monks and travellers each tell their own story, from the tale of the Pied Piper to the dark tower of Childe Roland.
What is a dramatic monologue?
A dramatic monologue is a poem spoken by one character to a listener. My Last Duchess is the best known example, where the Duke of Ferrara reveals his nature while showing a portrait to an envoy.
Which poems are in Dramatic Romances?
The book includes My Last Duchess, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Porphyria's Lover, The Flight of the Duchess, A Grammarian's Funeral, In a Gondola, The Statue and the Bust, and Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.
The author
Robert Browning
1812–1889 · English poet and playwright
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright born in London in 1812. He wrote Dramatic Lyrics (1842), Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845), and The Ring and the Book (1868–1869). He lived in Italy with his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and later in London. He died in Venice in 1889.
More by Robert Browning
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