Browning's Heroines

Name: Browning's Heroines
Author: Ethel Colburn Mayne

by Ethel Colburn Mayne

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Language: en5,265 downloads on Project Gutenberg

Subjects

Browning, Robert, 1812-1889 -- Characters -- Women

In: Poetry·Essays, Letters & Speeches·British Literature

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #21247.

About this book

The work is a scholarly essay that treats Robert Browning’s female characters as a distinct field of study. It opens with a lively exchange about whether anything can be said of Browning’s heroines beyond the poet’s own verses, then moves into a series of reflections on the poet’s reputation, the shifting tastes of the late‑nineteenth‑century press, and the way Browning’s “magic casements” reveal rather than conceal his women. From that point the author launches into a detailed outline of the book’s structure, sections on girlhood, the great lady, the lover, the wife, and the troubles of love, each promising close readings of specific poems and characters such as “Count Gismond,” “The Last Duchess,” and “The Glove.” The introductory passage also sets the tone for a sustained argument that Browning’s heroines embody a unique blend of courage, individuality, and poetic vitality that merits its own critical attention.

The prose is unmistakably Victorian, marked by long, rhetorically layered sentences, frequent allusions to contemporary periodicals, and a tone that oscillates between earnest admiration and scholarly critique. Mayne’s voice is that of a learned admirer who is also keenly aware of the literary fashions of her day, employing a rich, sometimes ornamental diction that reflects the era’s academic style. Readers who enjoy close literary analysis, especially those interested in Victorian poetry, gender studies, or the historical reception of Browning, will find this book rewarding. It will also appeal to anyone who appreciates a thoughtful, historically grounded exploration of how a poet’s female figures can be read as both artistic creations and cultural signifiers.

Who appears in Browning's Heroines

Count GismondMedieval French count in polished chainmail, dark hair, noble bearing, gauntlet‑clad hand, solemn expression
The Last DuchessRenaissance Italian duchess, pale skin, dark hair, black velvet dress with pearl necklace, poised portrait pose

The opening · free to read

--regardless of all aptitude in the allusion, making it simply because it "burned up in his brain," just as days "struck fierce 'mid many a day struck calm" were always his days of excitement. . . . A hundred Browning verses sing themselves around my memories of the flat in Cromwell Road.

Misconceptions was swung forth with gesture that figured swaying branches:

"This is a spray the bird clung to. . . ."

You were to notice how the rhythms bent and tossed like boughs in that first stanza--and to notice, also, how regrettable the second stanza was. Nor shall I easily let slip the memory of Apparent Failure, thus recited. He would begin at the second verse, the "Doric little Morgue" verse. You were not to miss the great "phrase" in

"The three men who did most abhor Their lives in Paris yesterday. . . ."

--but you were to feel, scarce less keenly, the dire descent to bathos in "So killed themselves." It was almost the show-example, he would tell you, of Browning's chief defect--over-statement.

"How did it happen, my poor boy? You wanted to be Bonaparte, And have the Tuileries for toy, And could not, so it broke your heart. . . ."

How compassionately he would give that forth! "A screen of glass, you're thankful for"; "Be quiet, and unclench your fist"; "Poor men God made, and all for this!"--the phrases (how alert we were for the "phrase" in those days) would fall grave and vibrant from the voice with its subtle foreign colouring: you could always infuriate "H. H." by telling him he had a foreign accent.

Those were Browning days; and now these are, or soon shall be. Two or three years since, to quote him was, in the opinion of a Standard reviewer, to write yourself down a back-number, as they say. I preserve the cutting which damns with faint praise some thus antiquated short stories of 1910. Browning and Wagner were so obsolete! . . . How young that critic must have been--so young that he had never seen a star return. Quite differently they come back--or is it quite the same? Soon we shall be able to judge, for this star is returning, and--oh wonder!--is trailing clouds of glory of the very newest cut. The stars always do that, this watcher fancies, and certainly Browning, like the Jub-jub, was ages ahead of the fashion. His passport for to-day is dated up to the very hour--for though he could be so many other things besides, one of his achievements, for us, will prove to have been that he could be so "ugly." That would not have been reckoned among his glories in the Yellow Book-room; but the wheel shall come full circle--we shall be saying all this, one day, the other way round. For, as Browning consoles, encourages, and warns us by showing in Fifine,[x:1] each age believes--and should believe--that to it alone the secret of true art has been whispered.

ETHEL COLBURN MAYNE.

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