The Life and Work of Robert Browning Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, which is He had no real formal education so he was largelyself educated. His father was a smart man with an extensive library.His mother was kindly, religious minded woman, who loved music and herbrilliant son. He lived at his parents house almost until the time of hismarriage. He attended a boarding school near Camberwell and spent alittle bit of his time traveling to places like Russia and Italy. Buthe preferred to have his education at home, where he was tutored inforeign languages, boxing, music, and horsemanship, and where he read"omnivorously." At the age of 14 he first discovered Percy Shelly worksand was strongly influenced by it. After reading Shelly, He made thedecision to be an atheist and a liberal. But in a few years he grew awayfrom atheism and the extreme phases of his liberalism. The things helearned from the books he read would largely influence his poems later inhis life.His earlier poetry was regarded with indifference and largelymisunderstood. It was not until the 1860's that he would at last gainpublicity and would even be compared with Alfred Lord Tennyson, anothervery famous poet of the time. Some of his early poetry was influenced byhis unusual education. The poet also had an anxious desire to avoidexposing himself explicitly to his readers. The first poem he wrotecalled Pauline, was written in 1883 at the age of twenty-one, but he didnot sign it because of his fear of exposing himself to the public too much.Since Browning did not want to expose himself too personally, hedecided to try his hand at writing plays. He was encouraged by the actorW.C. Macready. Browning began work on his first play, Strafford, ahistorical tragedy. Unfortunately, the play only lasted four nights whenit was first put on in London in 1837. For ten more years, the youngwriter would continue to struggle to produce a...
