The Life of Robert Browning

aeo Only book published in the last 50 years that treats chronologically and at length the whole Browning corpus. aeo Questions the idea that Browning was an objective, dramatic poet, whose works are distinct and separate from himself. aeo Relates Browning the poet to Browning the man. . Clyde Ryals's masterful account explores Browning's work from Pauline, his earliest published poem, to Asolando, his last volume, and is the first biographical study in fifty years to treat chronologically and at length the entire Browning corpus. Robert Browning is customarily regarded as a dramatic poet whose works are separate and distinct from himself. This biography proposes a different view of the poet and his poems. Every one of his works is regarded in the same way that Browning himself regarded it; as a performance in which the author plays a part, as producer, presenter, or actor, or sometimes all three; and each is examined as part of a constantly revised script entitled Presenting Robert Browning . To Browning life is more than art, but art is teh best way of dealing with what life is all about.