The Complete Works of Robert Browning, Volume XIV: With Variant Readings and Annotations

This volume records a transition in Robert Browning’s career. With The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (1877), Browning ended his experiments with classical sources, creating his transcript - not quite a translation - of the Greek original and providing an intriguing explanation for his approach. La Saisiaz , the deeply personal expression of Browning’s shock at the sudden death of a friend, was published in 1878 with The Two Poets of Croisic , an extended ironic meditation on literary fame. Browning’s collection of six poems under the title Dramatic Idyls (1879) marks the poet’s return to the dramatic forms he perfected in Men and Women and Dramatis Personae , and a revival of his interest in the psychology of motives. As in all volumes in this authoritative series, a complete record of Browning’s textual variants is provided, as well as extensive explanatory notes.