Rosemary Sprague

Not a deep exploration of Browning's life and work, but a loving one. Suitable for junior or youth readers, or adults just wanting a general overview. Well-written and engaging, popular rather than scholarly, but soundly based on extant material. Concentrates mostly on the courtship and marriage of Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, and their mutual admiration for each other's work.
It could be imagined as a novel by Jane Austen, or an episode of Masterpiece Theater.

Unfortunately, I don't really care for Browning's poetry, which I find labored and obscure.
I do like some of his more lyric poems (and all the bon mots in Bartlett's), but that's about it.

One major reason is that, in general, I dislike free verse where the line breaks and punctuation fight each other. If, when reading, you stop at the end of the visual line, the sentences make no sense; but, if you read on around to the punctuation marks, you might as well just write it out in prose.

Shakespeare mocked this style obliquely in Midsummer's Night Dream, in the Prologue to the Rustics' Play.… (mehr)