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My Last Duchess and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions: Poetry) by [Robert Browning]

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Robert Browning

My Last Duchess and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions: Poetry) Kindle Edition

by Robert Browning (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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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.

Print length

129 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Dover Publications
Publication date

March 5, 2012
Reading age

14 years and up
File size

608 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Not Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert Browning (1812-1889) was born in Camberwell, London, the son of a clerk in the Bank of England. The strongest influence on his education were the books in his father's extensive library, particularly the writings of Byron and Shelley. His dramatic poem "Paracelsus," published in 1835, established his reputation and brought him the friendship of the actor-manager William Macready. When Macready's eldest son Willie was ill in bed, Browning wrote for the boy's entertainment the poem of The Pied Piper, a story he remembered from his own childhood. After its appearance in print in 1842, it became a children's classic, attracting new illustrators in every generation.
In 1846 Robert Browning married a fellow poet, Elizabeth Barrett, eloping with her to Italy where they lived until Elizabeth's death in 1861. He them returned to England to live with his only sister Sarianna, but later he went back to Italy, where he died at the Rezzonico Palace in Venice. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00A62Y7NS
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dover Publications; Revised ed. edition (March 5, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 5, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 608 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 129 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,905,558 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #500 in Tragic Dramas & Plays
- #1,126 in British Poetry
- #1,384 in Love & Erotic Poetry

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4.3 out of 5

25 global ratings

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3 star		11%
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the chieftain

Ahead of his Time

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 1, 2015

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I have loved Robert Browning's poetry ever since I first read it. Re-reading it almost 50 years after studying his work, I again realize how far ahead he was of his time. His ability to depict the human psyche (especially the abnormally dangerous and self-centered kind) is like watching a reality show in poetic form, and yet he still can be enormously uplifting. My favorite quote has always been "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

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Jeffrey Leeper

Not the easiest arrangment, but logical....

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 16, 2001

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.

10 people found this helpful

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Bernie

Good selection Great price

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 21, 2016

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This collection contains some of Browning's classic dramatic monologues at a great price.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 22, 2017

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Bill R. Moore

Great Collection, Incredible Value

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 21, 2010

Robert Browning is one of the most original, influential, and controversial English poets. Though particularly deft in blank verse, he mastered a wide array of forms and techniques, making him one of the language's most diverse poets in terms of form. One of his most striking aspects is how immediately different he is from his Victorian contemporaries whose formalism and tendency toward flowery lyricism made them the object of Modernist contempt. In stunning contrast, Browning is vibrant and effusive, positively overflowing with vigor and energy. Frequent use of traditional forms, and especially strict meter and rhyme adherence, ensure he could never be mistaken for later poets, but post-Victorian poetry's arc runs most clearly through him. His diction was revolutionary, sometimes aping actual speech with stunning success while remaining poetic in a way that, say, Alfred Tennyson would never have even considered. More often, he did the opposite - scaled verbal heights so fearsome that few would have even dared attempt them. In addition, he is England's most fearless rhymer and rivaled only by Edgar Allan Poe as the most fearless in the language. Subject matter was also of immense importance to Browning's uniqueness and influence. In contrast to most nineteenth century poets, who focused largely on personal matters and nature, he dealt with seemingly everything else, covering an astonishing variety of historical, artistic, philosophical, theological, and ethical ground. It is easy to exaggerate this aspect, because Browning wrote often and movingly about love, and some other poems may metaphorically deal with personal concerns. He was also notable for frequent humor use. That said, the aforementioned qualities are Browning's most recognizable and those that most strongly struck contemporaries and the many he has influenced.

Browning is of course most famous for dramatic monologues, a poetic form that had been used in English before but of which he became undisputed master. The techniques gives a story from a single character's point of view, forcing us to filter the truth through perspectives that are often self-interested, unreliable, or simply surreal. It is highly interesting - even fun - on the most basic level to decipher what is really going on, but psychological insight is the form's true strength. Browning traces thoughts and emotions so vividly that his characters seem truly alive in a way that is extremely rare in poetry. The sheer variety of his characters is also notable; he dramatizes a vast assemblage of historical figures and fictional personages across centuries and cultures - seemingly everyone but the Victorian Everyman. Even more intriguingly, many of his characters are psychopathic, evil, or otherwise unsavory, giving a fascinating peek into dark minds. As all this suggests, his work is extremely complex in a way that literature, and poetry particularly, almost never was until the Modernists. Browning's subjects and speakers first seem almost unbelievably out of step with contemporaries, and this was to a large extent deliberate. However, a closer look shows that some works - notably "Caliban upon Setebos" - allegorize contemporary concerns. More importantly, Browning gets at the heart and mind's elemental forces that are universal across history, digging deeply to reach the motivations and contradictions at humanity's core. This is one of the main reasons that his work stands up so much better than most Victorians'; what made him seem of another era then now makes him seem almost of ours - nay, of any.

As all this implies, Browning's work in many ways has far more affinity with prose than verse; his dramatic monologues especially recall Henry James. This is one of the reasons he was denied fame and success for several decades and the prime reason he has been hotly debated since achieving them. Oscar Wilde famously quipped that Browning used poetry as a medium for writing in prose, and many agree. Those who cherish consistent tone elevation, directness, and simplicity - particularly those who scoff at rhyme and meter that draws attention to itself - will most likely loathe Browning. Conversely, those who like diversity and experimentation in these areas, as exemplified by poets like John Donne, will almost certainly love him. Anyone even remotely interested in poetry must at any rate read the works and come to individual conclusions.

This collection is an excellent primer, with forty-two poems over 113 pages. Browning is in many ways hard to anthologize because some of his best and most well-known works are lengthy, but this has all of his best-known short works with the strange exception of "Rabbi Ben Ezra." The only excerpt from a longer work is the Pippa Passes song containing his most famous lines. Anyone unfamiliar or underfamiliar with Browning would thus do well to start here; the selection is quite generous and representative. Nearly every poem is great, and there are several masterpieces. It is important to keep in mind that this is only a sampler, and one of its virtues is that it leads one to more Browning. Needless to say, anyone wanting a more comprehensive book will need to look elsewhere. So may a few others. Like other Dover Thrift Editions, this is essentially bare bones; other than a short headnote, a table of contents, title and first line indices, and a (very) few text notes, there is no supplemental material. Browning's plethora of historical references, many of them obscure, makes notes necessary for most, and this thankfully differs from most Dovers in at least giving the bare minimum needed for basic comprehension. The packaging is also not of the highest quality. These limitations mean the book is not for all, but it is hard to beat as a basic introduction - especially considering the price, which is almost unbelievable in light of the stellar contents.

6 people found this helpful

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Katie

Cheap thrill!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 8, 2003

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!

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Theageddragon

Clear analysis

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 7, 2022

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Brief and clear. Would have liked a little more background but does what it says on the cover.

shirley Smart

Good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 3, 2022

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Good

juvenus

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 15, 2014

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Arrived on time as described, would use again.

Virginia

This is NOT a review of Browning's poetry. It ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 7, 2017

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This is NOT a review of Browning's poetry. It is a review of this Kindle edition which has many typos and is impossible to navigate. The table of contents and the index of first lines not only do not have links, they don't give any kind of page number, so to find a poem you must scroll through the entire collection.

paula bourner

good selection

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 2, 2013

Verified Purchase

This selection is well chosen & just the right size for reading in bed. You need to try & find 2 volume collections of some of the other great poets that will be easier to hold than the ones you have now.

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