My Last Duchess and Other Poems
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Book Overview
The Victorian poet Robert Browning (1812 -1889) is perhaps most admired today for his inspired development of the dramatic monologue. In this compelling poetic form, he sought to reveal his subjects' true natures in their own, often self-justifying, accounts of their lives and affairs. A number of these vivid monologues, including the famed "Fra Lippo Lippi," "How It Strikes a Contemporary," and "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church," are included in this selection of forty-two poems. Here, too, are the famous "My Last Duchess," dramatic lyrics such as "Memorabilia" and "Love among the Ruins," and well-known shorter works: "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad," "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister," and more. Together these poems reveal Browning's rare gifts as both a lyric poet and a monologist of rare psychological insight and dramatic flair.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0486277836
ISBN13:9780486277837
Release Date:December 1993
Publisher:Dover Publications
Length:128 Pages
Weight:0.27 lbs.
Dimensions:0.3" x 5.3" x 8.4"
Age Range:14 years and up
Grade Range:Grade 9 and higher
Customer Reviews
4 ratings
Grow old along with me
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
"Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made" Browning is the poet of the dramatic monologue, the story told through the voice of a principal speaker, often an ironical one. Browning is an intellectual and moral poet whose work has a kind of toughness and strength. The poems in this small collection are among his most memorable and anthologized. An excellent collection for coming to know one of the major Victorian English poets.
Cheap thrill!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
Robert Browning is a treat, especially to read out loud. This book includes "My Last Duchess," of course, and some great poems like "The Bishop Ordering His Tomb" and "Fra Lippo Lippi." I like to think of Robert Browning as the first poet of the twentieth century since he really can't be put in a box with Tennyson or other popular poets of his own time. Also, he had a big influence on Ezra Pound who, in turn, had a big influence on many popular poets today. Dover Thrift Editions are surprisingly well-constructed - they'll outlast, say, your Oxford World Classics paperbacks - and the poetry is usually very well selected. Oh...and they're cheap!
Not the easiest arrangment, but logical....
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
I have started to read a bit on Browning and decided to get an idea of his poetry. Given the price of this book, this was a good choice.Browning covered a lot of ideas, and all are written very intelligently. Reading through this book though, may cause you to scratch your head. If you read it, enjoy each selection rather than try to read straight through.This is what I mean by the arrangement; I poem on the killing of a loved one (Porphyria's Lover) precedes the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The jump in ideas can slow you down a bit. The arrangement is logical in that the editors printed the poems in groups according to the collection they were originally published in. These collections, in turn, are arranged in chronological order. This is good because you can watch Browning's work as time progresses.There are 42 poems in this selection. It does include the great ones (I will abbreviate titles) like Andrea del Sarto, Caliban upon Setebos, Karshish, Childe Roland, My Last Duchess, Fra Lippo Lippi, The Bishop Orders His Tomb, Johannes Agricola, and others.I would recommend this book for reflecting on the occasional work of a great poet.
Browning
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
Robert Browning's poetyr is more difficult than his contmeporaries, arnold and tennyson (the lower-cases are intentional) and much better. Reading "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" makes one wonder why Kafka was so uplifting, yet the same poet also writes such charming verse for shildren as "The Pied Piper of Hamlin". A marvelous book!
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