Browning Re-Viewed: Review Essays, 1980-1995

As the most innovative of major Victorian poets, Robert Browning has been at the controversial center of each period of change in critical thinking, his texts have been second only to Shakespeare’s in attracting disagreement over the principles of literary editing. ‘Browning Re-viewed’ offers a record of the scholarly reception of Robert Browning during the vital period, 1980-1995, in which literary studies experienced a double upheaval: spurred by the new theoretical premises of the field and by new theories of textual editing. The volume assembles a large number of reviews, including annual reviews and review essays, covering over a hundred books and articles as well as over twenty volumes of new scholarly editions. It provides the most detailed record and summary of Browning’s reception during this period. A convenient index of references to individual works by poems, and a second, topic index, make this also a useful research tool, extending and updating the essays on Browning in two MLA bibliographies, ‘The Victorian Poets: A Guide to Research’.