Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from An Examination of the Non-Dramatic Poems in Robert Brownings First and Second Periods, to Which Is Added a Bibliography: Being Part of a Thesis Presented to the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Leipzig for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
The following study does not pretend to be an exhaustive treatment of Browning. It is simply an attempt to discover those of his poems in which his dramatic method, which colors the great body of his work, is lacking, and from these to extract by careful examination his beliefs on the great questions of life. The theory of life which may be extracted and arranged from these does not completely correspond to Browning's for as I have shown in this study, he prefers as a rule to teach indirectly and by means of his dramatic method. But it has the advantage over all presentations which have yet been made of being grounded solely upon poems in which the poet gives direct utterance to his beliefs, and not upon a method of miscellaneous quotation from poems dramatic or otherwise. And I believe that while certain dramatic poems add detail and color to his beliefs, they contain no essential point that will not also be found in the poems I have examined. As it is over the religious and ethical beliefs of Browning that the bitterest controversy has occurred, I have examined these with great care and, I hope, impartially; but my work throughout has been that of the student of literature rather than of theology or philosophy, and my aim has been rather to ascertain the theory of life held by a poet who was also a pro found thinker, than to criticise the formulated systemof a theologian or philosopher, neither of which Browning was.
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