Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book

Adam Roberts (Royal Holloway, University of London)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Grace Moore (University of Otago)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1868 - 1869

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Epic
Poetry (any)

Resources

In a street-market in Florence, June 1860, Browning came across a collection of legal papers relating to the trial of a Roman nobleman in 1698 for the murder of his wife and in-laws. In 1864 Browning began working on an ambitious attempt to turn this factual material into a blank-verse epic poem. It was eventually published in four monthly instalments between November 1868 and February 1869.

Each of the twelve books of this epic construction is a dramatic monologue in which a different speaker gives his or her perspective on the events at the heart. The first book, titled “The Ring and the Book” is spoken by somebody very like Browning, who summarises the situation; an embittered minor aristocrat Guido Franceschini married P…

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1095 words

Citation: Roberts, Adam. "The Ring and the Book". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 March 2001 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7591, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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