The Victorian poet Robert Browning (1812 -1889) is perhaps most admired today for his inspired development of the dramatic monologue. In this compelling poetic form, he sought to reveal his subjects' true natures in their own, often self-justifying, accounts of their lives and affairs. A number of these vivid monologues, including the famed ""Fra Lippo Lippi,"" ""How It Strikes a Contemporary,"" and ""The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church,"" are included in this selection of forty-two poems.Here, too, are the famous ""My Last Duchess,"" dramatic lyrics such as ""Memorabilia"" and ""Love among the Ruins,"" and well-known shorter works: ""The Pied Piper of Hamelin,"" ""Home-Thoughts, from Abroad,"" ""Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,"" and more. Together these poems reveal Browning's rare gifts as both a lyric poet and a monologist of rare psychological insight and dramatic flair.
