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BROWNING
Please note that some overlapping of references occurs as each
essay may be read as a separate entity
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reason for not jumping to this conclusion. Experiencing what Harold Bloom
describes as an anxiety of influence, (3) Browning obliterated almost all
traces of his Juvenilia work Incondita, and the only two poems to survive the
poets destructive hand The First- born of Egypt and The Dance of Death
betray a strongly Byronic tone, as I hope to demonstrate in the ensuing
paragraph.
The two surviving poems, which reveal Brownings early almost morbid
obsession with death and the death of the young in particular, contain echoes
of lines and word patterns found in Byrons The Destruction of
Semnacherib. This, like The First-born of Egypt is based on themes and
narratives in the Bible in which the Angel of Death appears as a central motif.
In both these poems the colors of gold and purple repeatedly suggest the
vainglorious aspirations of oriental despots before being thwarted by the
intervention of the Lord of Hosts. In themselves, this evidence and the
probability that Browning was strongly influenced by Byrons verse in his first
Period of artistic experimentation could well be dismissed as matters of mere
academic interest unless pertinent arguments can be adduced to support
the proposition that Byrons early encounter with Byrons verse through the
mediation of Isaac Nathan lent form and direction to indwelling propensities
that should in time pervade Brownings entire poetic work. I argue that this
was indeed the case for the reasons stated in the following paragraphs.
I begin by drawing attention to three entwined motifs in Hebrew Melodies,
which I term for the sake of convenience: Hebraism, the psychology of
anguish and music. (4) In My Soul Is Dark, a dramatic monologue in which
Saul implores the minstrel David to play his harp and so free him from a
mood of deep depression, all these strands come together, for here music
reveals its therapeutic power in assuaging the evil spirit that befell the first
king of Israel. In Brownings second version of Saul, in Men and Women, the
music produced by Davids harp leads to an act of spiritual apprehension that
transcends the power of song and music altogether. Music leads the aspiring
human spirit beyond, or rather higher, than a reality described by words, an
idea implied by the term a psalm of ascent. Very much the same notion
comes to the fore in line 52 in Abt Vogler that out three sounds he frame,
not a fourth sound, but a star. Even in so trivial a poem as The Pied Piper
of Hamelin the transcending powers of music are also implied by the fact
that this poems most lyrical passage demonstrates the effect the Pipers
music had on the lame child who witnessed its sound yet remained unable to
follow the Piper to a `promised land.
Some poems in Hebrew Melodies present the point of view of those
traumatised by deep mental anguish. Herod and Jephtha are haunted by their
remorse at having caused the death of either a beloved wife or a beloved
daughter. The psychological plight of these victims of mental affliction finds a
References
1) Herbert Everith Greene, "Browning's Knowledge of Music," PLMA, 62
(1947), 1098.
2) Thomas L. Ashton, Byrons Hebrew Melodies, Austin, 1972
3) Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence,New York, 1975.
4) Judith Berlin-Lieberman, Robert Browning and Hebraism, (Diss. Zurich;
Jerusalem: Ariel Press, 1934).
5) Bells and Pomegranates alludes to the garment worn by the chief priest
when entering the Holy of Holies. To the hem of this garment were attached
golden bells and ornaments representing pomegranates, which the Rabbis
took to imply that pleasure and singing were essential elements in divine
ministry.and poetic inspiration. (See:Brownings letter to Elizabeth Barratt of
October 18, 1845)
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B
Browning's "By the Fire-Side" and "How they Brought the Good
News from Ghent to Aix" in the Light of Word Theory, A critical
study of Browning's poetry
The following case studies may contribute to clarifying the basic approach I
apply to the study of poetic texts and provide evidence showing how the
problem of time impinges on Browning's poetry.
II. "How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix"
This poem, so well known to many English schoolchildren, furnishes an
example of a poem which rarely receives close critical attention, doubtless
because its riveting narrative excellence is so eminently satisfying in itself.
However, the following study of the poem will take account of verbal clues
that may deepen our perception of the poem's symbolic and allegorical
attributes that are not apparent if the poem is considered only at the
narrative or literal level.
At Level 1, three messengers, Joris, Dirck and the speaker, gallop on their
horses through the night and the following morning to "bring the news which
alone could save Aix from her fate" (line 46). The horses of Dirck and Joris die
from exhaustion on the journey but Roland, the speaker's horse, survives, all
rigours notwithstanding, and reaches Aix to be rewarded by the acclamation
of its jubilant inhabitants and by the riders' "last measure of wine" (line 58)- a
strange beverage for a horse, when one comes to think of it. Could "wine"
End Notes
1. George Santayana, "The Poetry of Barbarism", in Robert Browning / a
Collection of Critical Essays, ed. P. Drew (London, 1966), p. .21.
2. G.K. Chesterton, Robert Browning (London, 1916), p. 142.
3. Barbara Melchiori, Browning's Poetry of Reticence (London, 1968). Ibidem,
p.1.
4. C. Williard Smith, Browning's Star Imagery (New Jersey, 1941).
5. The ruined chapel was close to a mountain pass leading to Prato Fiorito.
6. Jurij Tynjanov, "The Meaning of the Word in Verse": in Readings in Russian
Poetics Formalist and Structuralist Views, ed. by Ladislav Mateijka and
Krystina Pomorska (Michigan Slavic Publications, Ann Arbor, 1978), pp. 136145.
7. Leon Trotsky, "The Formalist School of Poetry and Marxism" in Literature
and Revolution (Russian version published in 1924), tr. Rose Strumsky (Ann
Arbor: 1960).
8. F.R. G. Duckworth, Browning: Background and Conflict (Connecticut,
1966).
9. W. Whitla, The Central Truth: The Incarnation in Robert Browning's Poetry
(Toronto,1963).
10. Julian Scutts, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Der Rattenfnger von Hameln)
*************************************************************
A revised version from: "The motif of the Pied Piper in European Literature" in
Wascana Review, volume 20, No. 1, the University of Regina, Canada, pp. 5169
Browning's "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" has not received the attention and
respect it deserves. After Walter Bagehot's discussion of the poem in his
essay "Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning: or Pure, Ornate and Grotesque
Art in English Poetry," what is probably Browning's most popular work has
attracted little attention in critical circles.1 However, two articles in scholarly
journals published within the last twenty years have focused on the
underlying seriousness of the poem. In "Poet and Burgher: A Comic Variation
of a Serious Theme," published in Victorian Poetry (7,1969), Milton Millhauser
argues that The Pied Piper of Hamelin marks a turning- point in Browning's
early poetic career, since the theme of conflict between the poet, whom
M.Millhauser equates with the Piper, and the burghe (Hamelin represents
Victorian England) had merely been hinted at in Browning's earlier works.2
The author of the article also stresses the importance of the parallel
treatment of the visions experienced and described by the surviving rat and
the lame boy who is left behind. Since these visions are Browning's
inventions, they are particularly significant elements in the poem's economy.
Parallelism is also discernible in the uncanny resemblance between the
rapacious rats and the greedy elders of Hamelin identified as "the rich,"
There is an allusion to the saying of Jesus that it is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven.
M.Millhauser discerns a less explicit Biblical reference in the words "prime
pottage," which connote Esau's renunciation of his birthright for the sake of a
tasty meal, and by extension, the preference of a material good over a
spiritual benefit. Had M. Millhauser pursued this line of enquiry further, yet
greater discoveries might have awaited him, but he is restrained from doing
so by his belief that the poem is based on a story of "trivial" and "innocent"
origins!
In ''Browning's 'Pied Piper of Hamelin': Two Levels of Meaning", Wolfgang
Franke shares M.Millhauser's view that "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" poses a
profound critique of Victorian society and its antipathy to artistic
values.3Franke, however, sets the poem in its historical and social context
and in so doing refers to such specific issues as the massive emigration from
Britain and the passing of the Copyright Act in 1842. Though their approaches
differ, Millhauser and Franke reach similar conclusions about the poem's
underlying seriousness and concern with social and cultural issues. Franke's
historical-contextual approach and Millhauser's method of examining the
poem with reference to its structure and other intrinsic features provide a
sound basis for further research and study. Methods, however, are subject to
adaptation and revision. When defining the context of the poem, we have not
only the general historical background of the early Victorian era to consider
but also the poem's relationship to Browning's other works, to his
philosophical and religious attitudes and, not least, to the tradition
constituted by all works that take the motif of the Pied Piper as their theme.
Browning composed "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" on the approach of his
thirtieth birthday, an important psychological threshold in his experience. In
earlier years Browning had contended with three periods of crisis, each of
which has a bearing on "The Pied Piper of Hamelin."
During early adolescence, when the first of these crises occurred, Browning
was acutely aware of the transient nature of human existence and at the
same time he was hypersensitive to criticism, especially of his poetry. Thus it
was that Browning destroyed all traces of his first volume of poetry,
Incondita, with the exception of two poems which were accidentally
preserved, "The First-Born of Egypt" and "The Dance of Death." These poems
attest to the young Browning's anguished sense of mortality and obsessive
concern with the vulnerability of youth to the ravages of death and
pestilence. As noted above, the story of the Pied Piper is closely linked with
the Dance of Death in medieval tradition and with the loss of children. The
humorous, ludic quality of Browning's "Pied Piper" belies its concern with
deadly serious matters; humour often serves as a defence mechanism (cf.
Goethe's "Der Rattenfnger"). Browning's second crisis, this time of an
intellectual nature, resulted from the clash of rival ideologies. After reading
generally assume? Relevant to this question is the problem of Browning's socalled "reticence."
In her monograph entitled Browning's Poetry of Reticence, Barbara Melchiori
argues that Browning's "reticence," his compulsive desire to conceal or
camouflage meaning, resulted from a tension between "his wish to jealously
guard his own thoughts and feelings, and the pressing necessity he was
under to reveal them." 4 It is also possible that Browning derived a certain
pleasure from making his readers work hard to probe beneath the surface
meanings of his poetry. Barbara Melchiori advises readers of Browning to pay
special attention to individual words, for these may provide clues or pointers
to deeper levels of meaning. As we have noted, Millhauser applied such a
method when considering the implications of the word "pottage" in "The Pied
Piper of Hamelin." This technique applies to verbal clues that we shall shortly
consider. With earlier discussions of the poem and Browning's situation in
1842 in mind, we shall go on to examine particular motifs and individual
words in the poem itself.
In the final lines of The Pied Piper of Hamelin a reference is made to ''Willy,"
whom the speaker enjoins to keep his promises, especially to pipers.
Browning gave the script of his poem to the convalescent son of William
Macready Senior, the theatre manager who had staged a number of
Browning's plays. It is probable that the moral of the story was addressed to
Willy's father, as the formerly cordial relations between Browning and the
stage manager had soured. The deterioration in their relations was itself
symptomatic of a more general estrangement Browning felt between himself
and his social environment in London and beyond. To make matters worse,
one of Browning's closest friends, Alfred Dommett, emigrated to New Zealand
in April 1842 and Browning himself considered leaving the country. Browning,
on the point of reaching his thirtieth birthday without having secured for
himself financial independence or unequivocal literary fame, doubtless
infused his poem with feelings of resentment. We should beware however of
unreservedly equating the Piper with Browning's self-image as "the poet.''
The Piper is depicted in the poem as one capable of transcending distance
and time and compelling all creatures to obey his will. There is nothing in the
poem to suggest that the Piper is a poet or even a singing minstrel. He is a
musician (in "Abt Vogler" the view is expressed that among artists, the
musician is closest to God). Whereas in Blake's Introduction the Piper is a
musician, a singer and a poet, Browning's Piper shows little inclination to
bridge the arts. However, through his music he makes poets of others. The
only truly lyrical section of the poem is the utterance of the lame boy as he
describes his feelings on hearing the Piper's music. In the following lines he
echoes the millennial vision of Isaiah's prophecy that Nature shall attain a
state of peace and harmony:
The operative word in this passage is ''new." The vision the Piper's music
induces in the lame child's mind is of a new creation. It is prophetic, that is,
oriented to the future, with no trace of nostalgic regret at the passing of a
lost paradise. For Browning, the terms "poet" and "prophet'' were virtually
synonymous, a point stressed in Judith Berlin-Lieberman's dissertation
Browning and Hebraism (Jerusalem, 1934).5 The reason that the lame child
could not follow the Piper beyond Koppelberg Hill lay in his physical disability
(in Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, two other children stayed behind, one of whom
was blind). To Browning anything which could be classed as an imperfection
implied a positive possibility. According to his "Theory of the Imperfect," that
which falls short of perfection admits the possibility of further development
towards perfection." 6 For this reason Browning was a Pre-Raphaelite in the
realm of art, preferring those "naive" Italian painters who depicted Man as he
is rather than as he should be according to a perfect aesthetic model.
Browning's "Theory of the Imperfect" also found expression in his manner of
treating his heroes, Sordello, Paracelsus and Saint John the Divine, as those
who experience their greatest visionary insights when their sense of human
frailty is greatest, at the point of death. Underlying the motif of the vision
before death is the paradigm of Moses surveying the Promised Land which he
may not physically enter. This vision of Moses is, in fact, the sub ject of
Browning's poems "Pisgah Sights 1 & 11." It is not death but his physical
handicap which prevents the lame child from entering a domain comparable
to the Promised Land. It is surely significant that the words "promised" and
"land" are found in close proximity in the lines:
If the Piper's music brought out the Iyricist in the lame child, it brought out
the satirist in the surviving rat. The rat poetically describes the best of all
possible worlds to one who is totally consumerist in attitude. The quest for
the gratification afforded by material things ends in death, while the quest for
a spiritual good is not subject to death's power. Another contrast in
Browning's treatment of the rats and the children is evident. The children are
led to the brink of the Weser, the "deep and wide" river symbolic of death,
before he changes direction. For a terrible moment the children's parents fear
that their children will suffer the fate of the rats. The Weser is thus the divide
between life and death, like the waters of the Red Sea, or like water in the
symbology of baptism where the Old Adam perishes and the New Adam rises
to enter a life of the spirit. 7 Since the origins of the Pied Piper legend lie in
medieval religious mysticism, it is not surprising that Browning found it a
suitable vehicle for his own religious vision.
As the poem's subtitle states," The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is "a Child's Story."
This subtitle implies more than the poem's suitability as reading material for
children. Since the poem contains a reference to the passage in the New
Testament which describes the rich man's difficult path to Heaven, the
subtitle may recall other words in the New Testament which state that those
seeking the Kingdom of God must "become as little children.'' If, as A.
Dickson's research indicates, Browning had read any of the early Latin or
German versions of the tale, he would have noted the traditional association
of Koppelberg with Calvary.8 If he had, it is strange that Browning's poem
should include a reference to the moral teachings of Jesus but none at all to
the Crucifixion. It seems to me that Browning, in a manner quite typical of
him, did plant a number of veiled allusions to Calvary in his poem. The
following quotations from the text illustrate his method:
It is plausible that the word "cross" not only denotes the action of traversing
but also connotes the Cross as a religious symbol. A study of Browning's
contextualization of "cross" in "By the Fire-side" provides evidence that, in
one instance at least, Browning plays on the double meaning of the word by
juxtaposing an appearance of the word in the substantive form (denoting a
cross on a church altar) with three appearances of the word as a declined
verb. 9 The Piper's words "put me in a passion" (183) may be considered in a
similar light.
End Notes
1. "Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning: or Pure, Ornate and Grotesque Art
in English Poetry," in: The Works and Life of Walter Bageshot, Volume IV, ed.
Mrs. Russel Barrington (London, 1915).
2. Milton Millhauser, "Poet and Burgher: A Comic Variation on a Serious
Theme,' Victorian Poetry, 7 (1969), I63-168.
3. For a discussion of the sociological context in which Browning wrote "The
Pied Piper," see Wolfgang Franke, "Browning's 'Pied Piper of Hamelin': Two
Levels of Meaning," Ariel, 2 (1971), 90- 97. 14 Barbara Melchiori, Browning's
Poetry of Reticence (London: Oliver & Boyd, 1968), p.1.
4. Barbara Melchiori, Browning's Poetry of Reticence, London; Oliver & Boyd,
1968.
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D
How Robert Browning and Dylan Thomas Treated the
Motif of the Pied Piper
From the Introduction of a lengthy Study entitled:
EDEN OR THE PROMISED LAND, - A STUDY INTO THE PROBLEM OF TIME AND
THE ASSOCIATED THEMES OF CHILDHOOD AND MUSIC IN THE POETIC WORKS
OF ROBERT BROWNING AND DYLAN THOMAS[0]
by Susan Scutts (ShoshanaTtita) and Julian Scutts
Perhaps the first question to arise from the title is quite simply why Dylan
Thomas and Robert Browning should be closely associated in the first place.
Could Dylan Thomas not be more aptly associated with poets like Shelley or
Wordsworth, especially when one considers that the latter initiated the poetry
of recollected childhood?
In general terms, the clearest critical insights are gained when one can
compare and contrast two poets with equal facility. The more closely two
poets resemble each other, the more difficult it becomes to contrast them;
conversely, the more dissimilar they are, the more difficult it becomes to
compare them.. As in the field of science, one has to ascertain constants
before attempting to establish variables.
What then do Dylan Thomas and Robert Browning share in common? First,
both came from nonconformist (Congregational) backgrounds in which the
mother exerted a dominant formative influence. Both felt a profound love of
music, and not surprisingly, musical motifs pervade their poetry. both
suffered a crisis of identity and self-confidence in youth and early manhood.
David Holbrook and betty Miller in their respective psychological analyses
point to similar fundamental problems attributable to what they consider a
maladjusted mother-child relationship.
Once a basis for comparison has been established, a discussion of
dissimilarities becomes all the more significant, and there are, to be sure,
striking dissimilarities that set them apart. One pint of contrast is seen in
their divergent attitudes to the past, particularly to their own childhood
experience. While Dylan Thomas drew on his childhood memories and
experience as a source of poetic inspiration, Browning's obliteration of almost
all traces of his boyhood verse was - in marked contrast - symptomatic of his
desire to negate the relevance of his childhood past to his poetry; he was
oriented to the future, to a vision that awaited fulfillment. In this respect
Browning typified his age and its spirit of buoyant optimism. This found
expression in the idea of general progress so clearly evident in William Ewart
Gladstone`s words;-
Above all things, men and women, believe me, the world grows better
from century to century, because God reigns supreme from generation
to generation. Let pessimism be absent from our minds, and let
optimism throw its glory over all our lives henceforth and forever. [1]
1.
"We boast our proof that at least the Jew
"Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew.
"Thy face took never so deep a shade
"But we fought them in it, God our aid!
"A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band,
"South, east, and on to the Pleasant Land!"
These lines conclude "Holy Cross Day", a poem which Robert Browning
included in Men and Women (1855).[2]
2.
I know the legend
Of Adam and Eve is never for a second
Silent in my service
Over the dead infants
Over the one
Child who was priest and servants,
Word, singers, and tongue
in the cinder of the little skull, .[3]
87-
In view of their attitude to music and "childhood", both Robert Browning and
Dylan Thomas may be regarded as heirs of the Romantic movement, though
they themselves were not Romantics according to any strict definition.
While all Romantic poets attached the highest importance to the intuition and
the imagination, few would dispute that it was Wordsworth who initiated the
most fundamental reassessment of the value and relevance of childhood
experience as a major source of inspiration. However, while only Wordsworth
went so far as to draw on personal childhood experience as a major source of
inspiration and poetic raw material, other Romantics, particularly Blake and
Byron, followed Wordsworth in imbuing the child figure with profound
symbolic significance. The child became a symbol of so much that the
Romantics greatly valued in human nature, not only intuition and the
imagination but also innocence, for the Romantics a moral state untainted by
the corrupting influence of society and the adult world.
Blake went further to establish a far-reaching cross-connection between the
figure of the child and the theme of music in full recognition of their mutual
affinity as powerful symbols appealing to the romantic imagination. Such a
cross-connection is immediately evident in the first stanza of Blake's
"Introduction" to The Songs of Innocence.
[5]
The following lines from Fern Hill will serve as a starting point for an initial
comparison of the two poems:
Robert Browning. .Other parallels between Fern Hill and Brownings The
Pied Piper of Hamelin follow under the seven headings listed below:
1.
In both Fern Hill and the lame childs account of what the Pied Pipers music
conjured up in his mind there is an evocation of an Edenic or millennial vision
of harmony in nature as sublimely expressed in Isaiah 11, 5-9. A similar
vision of harmony is evoked by images found in Fern Hill such in the words
the calves/ Sang to my green horn, the cock on his shoulder: it was all/
Shining, it was Adam and maiden or the spellbound horses (spellbound
offering particularly strong evidence of an affinity between the poems under
consideration). In The Pied Piper of Hamelin the lame childs vision portrays
a new world rather than a lost Eden in the words;
2.
The Pied Pipers coat is described as half of yellow and half of red, while in
Fern Hill the words green and golden occur twice and green and
golden occur four times and twice respectively.. An association of red and
green is implied by the line and fire green as grass.[9]
3.
4.
An ambivalent Treatment of time in Fern Hill and the Pied
Piper, who personifies Time
In both poems the figure of time or the Pied Piper respectively has a rather
sinister as well as benign aspect. An association of the Pied Piper with time is
suggested by such lines as Starting up at the Trump of Dooms Tone (68),
And Piper and dancers were gone for ever (268) and from the very fact that
the Piper can cover great distances in no time at all. In other works, notably
in Pippa Passes and The Flight of the Duchess, Browning associates time
with persons and their movements or actions. Brownings typically jocular
and lighthearted tone should not beguile the reader into assuming that many
subjects he treats are not themselves profound. This is not to deny that at
one level of meaning The Pied Piper of Hamelin cannot be enjoyed by
young readers as an entertaining story. In due I shall argue that The Pied
Piper of Hamelin can be interpreted at a profound level at which its affinities
with Fern Hill will readily emerge.
5.
The childless land in Fern Hill finds a parallel in Hamelin as seen through
the lame child. The desolation of Hamelin as conveyed by Brownings poem is
similar in quality to the image of a town in Keatss Ode on a Grecian Ode,
namely:
6.
Water Symbolism
7.
genre pioneered by lord Byron. It appears in all its essentials in The Pied
Piper of Hamelin and other poems belonging to Bells and Pomegranates.
While not ignoring later achievements, the primary aim of this study will be to
compare the earlier portion of each poets career to the point where the
achieved his characteristic style. This study will endeavour to show that in
the case of either poet concern with the problem of time lies at the heart f
their poetry, particularly during their formative periods that were attended by
emotional turmoil and inner crisis. If it can be shown that the motifs of Eden
and the Promised Land (and the associate themes of childhood and music)
constitute sustained metaphors which reveal the poets fundamental attitude
to the problem of time and strategy each poet employed to contend with it,
an effective criterion for contrasting the poets and their works will result.
This method may also provide a key to an understanding of the relationship
between poetry and the poets life in Brownings case no easy task, for he,
unlike Dylan Thomas, denies any direct insight into his own creative
processes, concealing often deliberately connections between his poetry and
the inner and outer events in his life.
The following sections will discuss these aspects in closer detail, referring in
turn to Robert Browning and Dylan Thomas. Reference will also be made to
the poets historical and social backgrounds, as no poet or poetry exists in
vacuo. The problem of time, or the various guises in which it presented itself,
was influenced not only by personal factors and influences affecting the poets
but also by the spirit of the age in which they lived.
End Notes
[1] See E. von Khnelt-Leddihn, Liberty or Equality (London, 1952), p.12.
[2]). All quotations of Brownings poetry, with the exception of his Juvenilia
works, are taken from the centenary edition of Works, ed. F.G. Kenyon, 10
vol. (New York, 1966).
[3]). Dylan Thomas first had this poem published in May 1944 in "Our Time.
All quotations of Dylan Thomass poetry are from The Poems, ed. Daniel Jones
(London, 1971).
[4]). Ibidem, p.264.
[5] William Blake, Songs of Innocence: Introduction in: Blake, Complete
Writings, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London, 1966).
[6] Milton Millhauser, Poet and Burgher: a Comic Variation of a Serious
Theme, Victorian Poetry, 7 (1969), p.167
[7] T.S.Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent, in The Sacred Wood
(London, 1972), p.47.
[8] Fern hill, 5th stanza, 6-8.
[9] Ibid. 3rd stanza, 4
[10] Arthur Dickson, Brownings Source for the Pied Piper of Hamelin,
Studies in Philology, Vol. XXIII (1926),331-332.
[11] The Complete Works of Robert Browning, ed. Roma A. King,jr. (Ohio,
1971),Vol. III, p. 165-166.