tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5563296616443251885.post3622031168631178223..comments2021-02-03T09:44:36.086-08:00Comments on My Barrett Browning Blog: February 14The Barrett Browning Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351063107274179812noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5563296616443251885.post-14026423623970873392013-03-31T14:18:44.438-07:002013-03-31T14:18:44.438-07:00I am pleased that you enjoyed my minor blog. One o...I am pleased that you enjoyed my minor blog. One of the reasons that I started it was that I thought EBB was funny and so few people seem to get this. She was the master of the tease. As nervous as she was, she was totally on the ball. 'Smart as a whip' as my grandmother would put it.<br /><br />Yes, Browning is difficult to comprehend. My theory on this is that he was constantly working things out in his mind. He wrote what his mind was grappling with and so seems to be taking several different positions in the same letter. I think he did this as he spoke as well. If you read "EBB & RB Interviews and Recollections" by Martin Garrett -- which is a collection of writings by people who knew the Brownings -- you will see Browning as a talker. He talked constantly and loudly. Some people liked this constant flow of information (obscure trivia) backed by nervous energy, and some found it very annoying. I think he did that on paper as well.<br /><br /><br />Try reading a letter or two at night and you will get into it fairly quickly. Her letters to Arabel start on day 6 (or there abouts) of the honeymoon and continue monthly for the next 15 years. You will really get a lesson in French and Italian history as well--whether you want it or not! The footnotes are great.<br /><br /><br />The Barrett Browning Bloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01351063107274179812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5563296616443251885.post-88070829707666987802013-03-23T12:47:30.073-07:002013-03-23T12:47:30.073-07:00I've been reading some of the Browning courtsh...I've been reading some of the Browning courtship letters on my ownsome and it was delightful to find this blog and read them again with your comments. (I don't think I have the fortitude to plough through EBB's Italian letters myself, but I am sort of interested so maybe I'll just have to steel myself.) I hope you don't mind if I put my thoughts on a few different posts into one comment:<br /><br /><i>I pick on Browning quite a bit because many professional biographers characterize him as so much more brilliant than Mrs. Browning. So I like to point out all the goofy things that he writes. </i><br /><br />I feel this way about RB too. Also I find his letters to be almost incomprehensible at times. However, there's a sort of insecurity or bitterness about him, which is interesting. EBB, though she claims to be more anxious, comes across as much more even-keeled. I think the incident where she teases him about getting her name wrong at their marriage and he runs down to check the Registry to make sure it was all right...sums it up.<br /><br />So too in this sequence: http://mybarrettbrowningblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/august-30-1846.html<br />I laughed when you were accusing RB of faking his illness and being drunk! I find RB abusing Prometheus in his rage to be hilarious, and I'm still curious what that 'light word spoken in jest' was. Then EBB gently reminds him of how much more she was suffering - I really feel for her, she was such a nice person to be worrying about her family when they were so senselessly opposed to her happiness.<br /><br /><i>"I begin to think that none are so bold as the timid, when they are fairly roused."</i><br /><br />She couldn't have written a more fitting last letter if she had planned it!<br /><br /><i>"When we first met, it was in your thought that I loved you only for your poetry .. I think you thought that:"</i><br /><br />Oh RB, wherever would she have got that idea?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com