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Robert Browning,"Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"

BIOGRAPHY

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[from The Norton Introduction to Literature]

(1812–1889)

Born in London, Robert Browning attended London University but was largely self-educated, learning Latin, Greek, French, and Italian by the time he was fourteen. He was an accomplished but little-known poet and playwright when he began courting the already famous poet Elizabeth Barrett. After they eloped to Italy in 1846, the Brownings enjoyed a period of happiness during which they produced most of their best-known work. Following Elizabeth's death in 1861, Robert returned to England with their son and for the rest of his life enjoyed great literary and social success. His major collections are Men and Women (1855), dedicated to his wife, and Dramatis Personae (1864), which contains some of his finest dramatic monologues. Lionized as one of England's greatest poets by the time of his death, Browning is buried in the Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.

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