SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF HER FAMILY
Robert Wiedeman Barrett. 
Browning
was the only child of the poet Robert Browning and his wife the poetess
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He was born at Casa Guidi in Florence, Italy. His
mother, who had miscarried three earlier pregnancies, described him as "so
fat and rosy and strong that almost I am sceptical of his being my child."
His nickname Pen derived from his infant attempts to pronounce his given name
Wiedeman (after his paternal grandmother's maiden name). As a cherished only
child, he was, some felt, over-protected. Visiting the Brownings, the novelist
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote of Pen:
I
never saw such a boy as this before; so slender, fragile, and spirit-like, –
not as if he were actually in ill health, but as if he had little or nothing to
do with human flesh and blood. His face is very pretty and most intelligent,
and exceedingly like his mother's. He is nine years old, and seems at once less
childlike and less manly than would befit that age. I should not quite like to
be the father of such a boy, and should fear to stake so much interest and
affection on him as he cannot fail to inspire. I wonder what is to become of
him, – whether he will ever grow to be a man, – whether it is desirable that he
should. His parents ought to turn their whole attention to making him robust
and earthly, and to giving him a thicker scabbard to sheathe his spirit in.
Browning
was educated "with anxious care" by his father and private tutors at
the Brownings' home in Florence, and, after his mother died in 1861, in London.
Robert was anxious that his son should attend a university, and sought the help
of Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, the leading Oxford academic of
the day. With Jowett's help, Pen's Greek and Latin were brought up to the
requisite standard, but Jowett was obliged to tell the poet that his son's
command of English left much to be desired. Balliol being clearly too demanding
for Pen, he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he much enjoyed the sporting
side of college life: he delighted in swimming, rowing, fencing, riding and
boxing. He did not, however, take to
academic study and left without taking a degree. Encouraged by Robert Browning's friend the
painter John Everett Millais, Browning studied painting and sculpture in
Antwerp and Paris. Among his teachers was Auguste Rodin; among his
fellow-students was John Singer Sargent. As a painter, Browning was proficient,
but his penchant for painting voluptuous female nudes did not enourage sales in
Victorian England. An example can be seen here. Despite this, he achieved
reasonable success, partly because of his father's continual efforts to promote
his work. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Grosvenor Gallery, the Paris
Salon and the Brussels Salon. The Times wrote that his works "showed
considerable ability and force. Some of them are still well
remembered…including busts of his father."
In
October 1887 Browning married an American heiress, Fannie Coddington
(1853–1935). They bought and restored Ca' Rezzonico, one of the great palaces
on the Grand Canal in Venice.
With
no need to earn an income from painting, Browning continued to paint for
pleasure for the rest of his life until failing eyesight finally prevented it.
In October 1889, Robert Browning visited his son and daughter-in-law at Ca'
Rezzonico. He wrote, "The Palazzo excites the wonder of everybody, so
great is Pen's cleverness … There was a desecrated chapel, which he has restored
in honour of his mother." During this stay, Robert became ill, and died
there in December 1889. Browning and Fannie took care of Robert's dependents,
including his sister Sarianna and old family servants, who came to live with
them in Venice.
Browning
and Fannie, who had no children, gradually drifted apart, although they never
divorced. Their marriage was not helped by the rumoured relationship between
Browning and a beautiful blonde Italian by the name of Ginevra, housekeeper at
Ca' Rezzonico who also modelled for Browning's paintings. Fannie eventually left
him. They later made an attempt to revive their marriage, but it was
short-lived. Browning sold Ca' Rezzonico in 1906 and thereafter divided his
time between two other homes in Italy, the Torre all' Antella, near Florence,
and Asolo, a location closely associated with is father, who set his poem "Pippa
Passes" there and wrote his last book, "Asolando" while living
there. Browning grew old contentedly, despite failing eyesight. In May 1912, a
street in Asolo was named Via Browning in honour of the poet's centenary, and
Browning, who was unwell, left his bed to attend the celebration. It was his
last public appearance; on 8 July he died of a heart attack at the age of 63.
He was given a splendid funeral and was buried in Asolo, but ten years later
Fannie had his body moved to Florence .
Browning
died intestate, and the collection of manuscripts and memorabilia of his
parents which he had carefully built up over many years was auctioned and
dispersed.
Robert
Browning
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Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England. His mother
was an accomplished pianist and a devout evangelical Christian. His father, who
worked as a bank clerk, was also an artist, scholar, antiquarian, and collector
of books and pictures. His rare book collection of more than 6,000 volumes
included works in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. Much of
Browning's education came from his well-read father. It is believed that he was
already proficient at reading and writing by the age of five. A bright and
anxious student, Browning learned Latin, Greek, and French by the time he was
fourteen. From fourteen to sixteen he was educated at home, attended to by
various tutors in music, drawing, dancing, and horsemanship. At the age of
twelve he wrote a volume of Byronic verse entitled Incondita, which his
parents attempted, unsuccessfully, to have published. In 1825, a cousin gave
Browning a collection of Shelley's poetry;
Browning was so taken with the book that he asked for the rest of Shelley's
works for his thirteenth birthday, and declared himself a vegetarian and an
atheist in emulation of the poet. Despite this early passion, he apparently
wrote no poems between the ages of thirteen and twenty. In 1828, Browning
enrolled at the University of London, but he soon left, anxious to read and
learn at his own pace. The random nature of his education later surfaced in his
writing, leading to criticism of his poems' obscurities.
In 1833, Browning anonymously published his first major published work, Pauline,
and in 1840 he published Sordello, which was widely regarded as a
failure. He also tried his hand at drama, but his plays, including Strafford,
which ran for five nights in 1837, and the Bells and Pomegranates
series, were for the most part unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, the techniques he developed through his dramatic
monologues—especially his use of diction, rhythm, and symbol—are regarded as
his most important contribution to poetry, influencing such major poets of the
twentieth century as Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Frost.
After reading Elizabeth
Barrett's Poems (1844) and corresponding with her for a few months,
Browning met her in 1845. They were married in 1846, against the wishes of
Barrett's father. The couple moved to Pisa and then Florence, where they
continued to write. They had a son, Robert "Pen" Browning, in 1849,
the same year his Collected Poems was published. Elizabeth inspired
Robert's collection of poems Men and Women (1855), which he dedicated to
her. Now regarded as one of Browning's best works, the book was received with
little notice at the time; its author was then primarily known as Elizabeth
Barrett's husband.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, and Robert and Pen Browning soon
moved to London. Browning went on to publish Dramatis Personae (1863),
and The Ring and the Book (1868). The latter, based on a
seventeenth-century Italian murder trial, received wide critical acclaim,
finally earning a twilight of reknown and respect in Browning's career. The
Browning Society was founded while he still lived, in 1881, and he was awarded
honorary degrees by Oxford University in 1882 and the University of Edinburgh
in 1884. Robert Browning died on the same day that his final volume of verse, Asolando,
was published, in 1889.