Browning’s Lyrics: An Exploration by Eleanor Cook (review)

386 LETTERS IN CANADA Eleanor Cook, Browning's Lyrics: An Exploration. University of Toronto Press, xvi, 31.7, $:15.00 The final chapter of Professor Cook's study of Browning's lyrics begins with a sentence which explains why she has chosen to examine Browning's lyric poems in the context of his poetry as a whole : The best source of enlightenment for Browning poetry is more Browning poetry' (p 30:1). Her study clearly illustrates the validity and the usefulness of such an approach. The vitality and precision with which she treats individual poems within the larger framework of the Canon, an ambitious undertaking not previously attempted, has moved me, as I suspect it will others, to turn to a rereading of the lyrics with a deeper understanding of their complexity and quality. Although this study suffers from some defects of style and method, it does stimulate the reader to return to the poetry. And that, finally, is sufficient testimony to its success. Browning's Lyrics is, as its subtitle indicates, An Exploration. The author does not attempt to impose patterns or structures on the Canon, nor does she approach the poetry with a particular thesis to elucidate. She concentrates on a detailed analysis of the themes and imagery of the lyric poems, and relates these poems both to one another and to the longer poems in their chronological context. This dual focus, continually informed by references to the :1845- 6 Browning-Barrett correspondence, leads also to an analysis of certain groups of images which recur in Browning's poetry. The study begins with a discussion of lyric poets and lyric impulses in Pauline, Paracelsus, and Sordello, works through the poetic experiments of Bells and Pomegranates, and concentrates chiefly on the lyric poems in Men and Women and Dramatis Personae. Professor Cook concludes with a brief discussion of gold imagery, primarily in The Ring and the Book, and a treatment of the later lyrics in Pacchiarotto and Asolando. One could choose a number of significant aspects of this work to single out for particular attention, but lack of space requires selectivity; I find the author's presentation of the 'enclosure' image especially rewarding, and her thorough discussions of such specific poems as 'Love Among the Ruins: 'By the Fireside: and 'James Lee's Wife' offer genuinely Original inSights. The nature of Professor Cook's undertaking presents difficulties which, since they are not entirely surmounted, tend to detract somewhat from her achievement. The book perhaps attempts to do too much, dealing with the lyrics, patterns of imagery, the longer poems and, in order to help 'elaborate something of the relationship between Browning the man and Browning the poet' (p 30:1), with the successive use of certain images in Browning's letters. This multiplicity of concern leads to what might be termed a problem in the display of materials. The unjustified margins, the numerous quotations set in the text and run in upon each other, the l1UMANJ.Ut.~ 307 parenthetical and bracketed statements, and the overuse of colon and semi-colon constructions leave the reader with a sense of disjointedness and fragmentation. This problem might, in part, be less noticeable had the author managed to offset the complexity and variability of her materials by a more judicious introduction of quotations, as well as by creating a coherent flow in her own prose. However, as the following quotation, which is not atypical, indicates, the prolix nature of the materials has led to a rather prolix methoc! of presentation: But the Women and Roses speaker is ready to accept any woman and none will leave the magic circle. The Pauline passage describing similar frustration uses similar diction: 'dazzled by my wealth' (880), 'all so floated, nought was fixed and firm' (882). Compare, in Women and Roses, 'a dazzling drift.' '... go / Floating the women,' 'how shall I fix you?' So also does Aprile: '... dazzled by shapes, ... / Shapes clustered there to rule thee, not obey ... bright to thy despair? / Didst thou ne'er gaze on each by turns, and ne'er / Resolve to single out one ... those spells '" that charmed so long / Thine eyes, float fast, confuse thee, bear thee off, / As whirling snow...