Men and Women and Other Poems

by Robert Browning

The diverse poems of Men and Women include captivating dramatic monologues, in which this idiosyncratic and talented poet relishes his characters' unwitting self-revelation. This edition also contains many of his earlier and later poems, such as "Johannes Agricola in Meditation," "My Last Duchess," and "Caliban on Setebos."

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Victorian

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1855

About the author

Robert Browning (1812-1889) was a British poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.

Browning began writing poetry at age 13. These poems were eventually collected, but were later destroyed by Browning himself. In 1833, Browning's "Pauline" was published and received a cool reception. Harold Bloom believes that John Stuart Mill's review of the poem pointed Browning in the direction of the dramatic monologue.

In 1845, Browning wrote a letter to the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, professing that he loved her poetry and her. In 1846, the couple eloped to Europe, eventually settling in Florence in 1847. They had a son Pen.

Upon Elizabeth Barrett Browning's death in 1861, Browning returned to London with his son. While in London, he published Dramatis Personae (1864) and The Ring and the Book (1869), both of which gained him critical priase and respect. His last book Asolando was published in 1889 when the poet was 77.

In 1889, Browning traveled to Italy to visit friends. He died in Venice on December 12 while visiting his sister.

Reviews

[Amanda]

The collection of Browning poems that one should read if he or she has not read Browning before. It really has all the good ones (not that any are particularly bad). I think my favorite is "Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha."

[Laura McNeal]

If you're a Browning scholar, you know why the book has the bland title "Men and Women." If not, you might like being told that Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert's wife, wrote in one of her sonnets (#26), "I lived with visions for my company/ Instead of men and women, years ago." At around the same time (1845 or 46), Robert wrote to Elizabeth in a letter, "You speak out, you--I only make men and women speak--". This difference between them is extremely important for understanding these 51 poems. Elizabeth was a woman (obviously) and, more importantly, an invalid for much of her life, so she nearly always spoke as herself in her poems, writing sincerely and subjectively as Elizabeth, while Robert, who traveled widely, created multiple narrative personas, writing as the Athenian merchant Cleon, the Italian Renaissance painter Fra Lippo Lippi, a hypocritical bishop, a 17th-century Italian Jew, a man who seduces his best friend's mistress, a wife who is imagining her husband courting and making love to someone else after she dies, a French abbot overseeing the burning of a heretic, and a lot of poets who are questioning the satisfaction to be found in writing poetry.

The beauty and flaw of Elizabeth's poetry is her unflagging earnestness; the genius in Robert's is his cryptic, tragic irony. I doubt that many people will read all 51 of the poems originally published as "Men and Women," and if you did, you might find yourself sputtering, as an anonymous reviewer did at the time, "It is really high time that this sort of thing should, if possible, be stopped. Here is another book of madness and mysticism—another melancholy specimen of power wantonly wasted, and talent deliberately perverted—another act of self-protestation before that demon of bad taste who now seems to hold in absolute possession the fashionable masters of our ideal literature." (Though in a way it would be cool if anyone did take the trouble to say that in 2024.) What I recommend for the person who is not besotted with Browning (as I am) is that you read a few mad, mystic specimens rather than the whole bag. These are the ones that, if you slow way down, and you look up the historical references you don't understand, will turn out to be well worth the time:

"Fra Lippo Lippi"
"An Epistle"
"How It Strikes a Contemporary"
"The Last Ride Together"
"Bishop Blougram's Apology"
"Andrea del Sarto"

If you hate looking things up (such as who Fra Lippo Lippi was, and who might have been the historical inspiration for Bishop Blougram), then read, at least, "The Last Ride Together," which is a perfect bookend for Keats's poem on the same subject, "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

And then ponder what it felt like to be Browning when, after writing this subtle, complicated, very long, Protean book of poems, which he believed would be more accessible to people and thus more popular, was widely panned. Ponder what he did next: published nothing for ten years. Ideally, ponder that while standing on his tomb in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey, reading this stanza from "The Last Ride Together":

What does it all mean, poet? Well,
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell
What we felt only; you express'd
You hold things beautiful the best,
And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.
'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then,
Have you yourself what 's best for men?
Are you—poor, sick, old ere your time—
Nearer one whit your own sublime
Than we who never have turn'd a rhyme?
Sing, riding 's a joy! For me, I ride.

[Andy]

I only read this because it contains "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," which is the poem that inspired King's epic Dark Tower series. That poem was one of very few bright spots in an otherwise dreary collection. I mostly felt bludgeoned by Browning's slavish commitment to rhythm and rhyme scheme, resulting in some very clumsy phrasing and word choice. Meh.

[Ronald]

great poetry

[David]

I have taught the same 10-12 Browning poems over several decades. It was interesting and useful to read some of the less famous texts.