Monthly Archives: February 2011

            What I found interesting in “Fra Lippo Lippi” is the poem’s connection to “Andrea Del Sarto”: specifically, Browning’s discussion of the soul in art.  He presents two similar ideas in both poems which, reveals Browning’s condescension towards the Church … Continue reading →

In Andrea Del Sarto, Browning presents a portrayal of the artist as one who is born an artist, one who is created in order to create, you might say. He presents the ideal of an artist as being more than … Continue reading →

Actual Title: The Flesh is the Soul In Fra Lippo Lippi Robert Browning explores a number of elements of art, but in particular he explores the way the church expected art to be both aesthetically and  conceptually. The artist in … Continue reading →

In his two poems “Fra Lippo Lippi” and “Andrea Del Sarto,” Browning meditates on the nature of defeat. Each poem contains an intelligent and talented speaker, who finds himself oppressed by either his external circumstances or his intrinsic shortcomings. The … Continue reading →

As noted in the reading guide, Robert Browning’s “Andrea del Sarto” and “Fra Lippo Lippi” were published together an 1855 collection entitled Men and Women, and the two are often also read together. The speaker in each poem is a … Continue reading →

The narrator in Robert Browning’s poem “Andrea Del Sarto” repeatedly references the hand, and his various references display the narrator’s layers of identity. The first few instances in the poem where the narrator mentions the hand is in reference to his lover, … Continue reading →

A major subject of Robert Browning’s poetry is art. In the poem, “Fra Lippo Lippi”, Browning presents a criticism of the church in general as well as the limitations the institution places on artistic expression. Lippi, a friar tells the … Continue reading →

In Browning’s Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess poems, love and violence are revealed to have an intimate relationship with one another. The speakers of both poems dominate their lovers and exhibit a consuming jealousy which ultimately leads to the … Continue reading →

In accordance with the topic of “madness” as found in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the poems My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover continue this trend of a character finding pleasure in hurting and killing another human being.  While the … Continue reading →

These poems both have a common theme: that of the improper and extraordinary possessiveness of men during the period. Both poems feature men who had deemed a woman their own, but could not have them. Porphyria’s Lover features a man … Continue reading →