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Robert Browning (1812 - 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, and in particular the dramatic monologue, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. Table of Contents: - Introduction: - Robert Browning by G. K. Chesterton - Plays: - Paracelsus - Strafford - Bells and Pomegranates No. I: Pippa Passes - Bells and Pomegranates No. II: King Victor and King Charles - Bells and Pomegranates No. IV: The Return of the Druses - Bells and Pomegranates No. V: A Blot in the ‘scutcheon - Bells and Pomegranates No. VI: Colombe’s Birthday - Bells and Pomegranates No. VIII: Luria and a Soul’s Tragedy - Herakles - The Agamemnon of Aeschylus - Pippa Passes is a verse drama, which was dedicated to Thomas Noon Talfourd, who had recently attained fame as the author of the tragedy Ion. The author described the work as the first of a series of dramatic pieces. - King Victor and King Charles was the second play written by Robert Browning for the stage. The subject of the play is the strange incident in 1730-32 in the Kingdom of Sardinia in which the elderly king, Victor Amadeus II, first abdicated in favour of his son Charles Emmanuel III, and then after months of ever-increasing complaints unexpectedly demanded to be restored. He was imprisoned until his death a year later. Browning’s treatment is based on 18th century sources which cast Victor as deliberately deceptive, but he goes further to create a secret history in which Charles is exonerated from all charges of cruelty. The play is in four acts and has only four main characters: Victor, Charles, Charles’s wife Polyxena, and the minister D'Ormea.
