The Ring and the Book, published serially in 1868–9, is one of
the most daring and innovative poems in the English language. The
story is based on the trial of an Italian nobleman, Guido
Franceschini, for the murder of his wife Pompilia in Rome in 1698.
Browning’s discovery of the ‘old yellow book’, a bundle of
legal documents and letters relating to the trial, on a second-hand
market stall in Florence, sparked an imaginative engagement with
this sordid tale of domestic cruelty, adultery, and greed which
grew, through four years of arduous labour, into an epic peopled
not by gods and warriors but by concrete, recognisably human
beings. Fusing the technique of the dramatic monologue, the form he
had made his own, with the grandeur of classical epic and the vivid
realism of the modern novel, Browning created a unique hybrid form
that allowed him not only to bring to life an entire historical
period but also to reflect on the process of artistic creation
itself – the forging of the golden ‘ring’ of the poem from
the ‘pure crude fact’ of its historical original. This edition,
comprising volumes 5 and 6 in the acclaimed Longman Annotated
English Poets edition of Browning’s poems, does full justice to
the scope and depth of Browning’s achievement. The headnote in
volume 5 gives an authoritative account of the poem’s
composition, publication, sources, and reception, making use of
hitherto unpublished letters and textual material. In addition to
giving readers help, where needed, with historical and linguistic
comprehension, the notes track Browning’s formidable range of
allusion, from the most erudite to the most vulgar. The appendices
in volume 6 present a selection from the original sources, a list
of variants from extant proofs, and key passages from Browning’s
fascinating and revealing correspondence with one of the earliest
readers of the poem, Julia Wedgwood. The aim is to enable readers
not just to understand the poem as an object of study, but to take
pleasure in its abounding intellectual and emotional energies.
General
| Imprint: |
Taylor & Francis
|
| Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
| Series: |
Longman Annotated English Poets |
| Release date: |
September 2024 |
| First published: |
2022 |
| Editors: |
John Woolford
• Daniel Karlin
• Joseph Phelan
|
| Dimensions: |
216 x 138mm (L x W) |
| Format: |
Paperback
|
| Pages: |
732 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-1-03-216044-3 |
| Categories: |
Books
Promotions
|
| LSN: |
1-03-216044-6 |
| Barcode: |
9781032160443 |
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