Robert Browning's Asolando

Asolando, Robert Browning's final volume of poetry, has been overlooked by critics and readers, though at the time of its publication in 1889 it was deemed "changing" by reviewers. Richard Kennedy asserts that Asolando, published the day Browning died, was a fitting cap to this great poet's career and indeed is a more outstanding achievement than severa of his earlier works. In Robert Browning's ASOLANDO, Kennedy breaks new ground in Browning studies by fusing biography and critical commentary to provide the fullest single account of this poet's last years and his last volume of poems. Browning experienced a creative resurgence during the final years of his life, a period influenced by his association with the gracious American widow Katharine Bronson. After an introductory overview of those productive years, Kennedy provides critical commentary - sometimes descriptive, sometimes analytical, and often-times judgmental - on each of the poems, indicating how they are representative of Browning's ideas and practices. Chapters are devoted to Browning's personal poems, his love poems, and those on religion, philosophy, and art. A generous selection of the poems from Asolando is reprinted in the appendix, and photographs, sketches, and reproductions of artworks complement the text throughout, offering fresh insight into the last years of this great poet's life. Robert Browning's ASOLANDO fills a void in Browning studies, yet its lucid style and inviting critical manner make the book appealing to all readers who love poetry as well as to experts in Romantic and Victorian literature.