Chapter VI
Browning’s three great dramatic poems; “The Ring and the Book” his finest work; its uniqueness; Carlyle’s criticism of it; Poetry versus Tour-de-Force; “The Ring and the Book” begun in 1866; analysis of the poem; kinship of “The Ring and the Book” and “Aurora Leigh”; explanation of title; the idea taken from a parchment volume Browning picked up in Florence; the poem planned at Casa Guidi; “O Lyric Love,” etc.; description and analysis of “The Ring and the Book,” with quotations; compared as a poem with “The Inn Album,” “Pauline,” “Asolando,” “Men and Women,” etc.; imaginary volumes, to be entitled “Transcripts from Life” and “Flowers o’ the Vine”; Browning’s greatest period; Browning’s primary importance. Page 113.