Publisher's Synopsis
In much of his poetry, Browning attempted to recreate old materials and charge them with the religious and moral beliefs of his own day. In his eyes, this was a near-sacred undertaking, but it was carried out in a society which was becoming increasingly secular. This book examines why he laboured so hard in his poetry to implement ideas about the divine necessity of cultural change, and the peculiar scepticism, historical paradox, and strange negativities that this gave rise to in his writing. The chapters take as their themes his most pronounced preoccupations - his position as a post-romantic writer, his use of the dramatic monologue, his theory of history, and his representations of love, sex and marriage.
