Selections from Browning - Robert Morse Lovett

Part of Ginn and Company’s series of Standard English Classics, this compilation of poems from 19th century poet Robert Browning was edited and introduced by Robert Morss Lovett, Professor of English and eventually the Dean of the junior college at the University of Chicago. By no means meant to be a complete rendering of Browning’s works, Lovett focuses this text on the generally shorter poems of the early period of Browning’s career rather than the more long-form peoms of his later work (xxvii). Lovett celebrates Browning as an exemplary poet for his age, one who lives in the time he is given rather than dreaming constantly of a bygone age. Through his notes and explanations, a true love of Browning’s work shines through:  “All this marks Browning as a representative poet of the nineteenth century. Of all his contemporaries, except Whitman, he is the most completely sympathetic with the life of his time, most comprehensive in his interests, most democratic in his outlook. Other poets