Robert Browning: How to Know Him by William Lyon Phelps
page 58 of 384 (15%)
page 58 of 384 (15%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
classically and intelligibly.... One strip Cools your lip.... One
bottle Clears your throttle." In _Pacchiarotto_, he calls to critics: And, what with your rattling and tinkling, Who knows but you give me an inkling How music sounds, thanks to the jangle Of regular drum and triangle? Whereby, tap-tap, chink-chink, 'tis proven I break rule as bad as Beethoven. "That chord now--a groan or a grunt is't? Schumann's self was no worse contrapuntist. No ear! or if ear, so tough-gristled-- He thought that he sung while he whistled!" Browning felt that there was at times a certain virtue in mere roughness: that there were ideas, which, if expressed in harsh phrase, would make a deeper impression, and so be longer remembered. The opening stanza of _The Twins_ was meant to emphasise this point: Grand rough old Martin Luther Bloomed fables--flowers on furze, The better the uncouther: Do roses stick like burrs? Such a theory may help to explain the powerful line in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_: Irks care the cropfull bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast? Of course Browning's theory of poetry does not justify or explain |
|