Robert Browning

Browning's poetry is seen by the author as one of the most potent of the influences which in the nineteenth century helped to break down the shallow and mischievous distinction between the "sacred" and the "secular" and to set in its place the profounder division between man enslaved by apathy, routine and mechanical morality, and man lifted by the law of love into a service which is perfect freedom, into an approximation to God which is only the fullest realization of humanity. First published in 1905, this was a pioneering biographical and critical study of Browning which was one of the first to assess what were regarded as the difficulties of Browning's work and to elucidate his realism, joy, and interpretation of life. This title is cited and recommended by the Catalogue of the Lamont Library, Harvard College and the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature.