Robert Browning's "Home Thoughts from Abroad"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Arts, Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2021

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him among the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax. His career began well, but shrank for a time. The long poems Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) were acclaimed, but in 1840 Sordellowas seen as wilfully obscure. His renown took over a decade to return, by which time he had moved from Shelleyan forms to a more personal style. In 1846 Browning married the older poet Elizabeth Barrett and went to live in Italy. By her death in 1861 he had published the collection Men and Women (1855). His Dramatis Personae (1864) and book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868-1869) made him a leading British poet. He continued to write prolifically, but his reputation today rests mainly on his middle period. By his death in 1889, he was seen as a sage and philosopher-poet who had fed into Victorian social and political discourse. Societies for studying his work formed in his lifetime and survived in Britain and the United States into the 20th century. - Bio via Wikipedia.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to the Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Tuesday, April 20th, 2021.
0:07.4	Today's poem is by an English poet from the Victorian period, who lived from 1812 to 1889. His name is
0:15.5	Robert Browning, and he is, for many people, considered one of the greatest of the English poets, particularly of that era.
0:24.5	He's probably a poet that we should share more of his poems with you.
0:29.7	So today we're going to share a, you know, a good old spring-themed poem.
0:34.9	It's called Home Thoughts from Abroad. And I'll go ahead and read it and then offer a few
0:41.1	thoughts as usual and then read it one more time. This is how it goes. Oh, to be in England now that
0:51.5	April's there. And to ever wakes in England sees some morning unaware that the lowest boughs and the brushwood
1:02.3	sheaf round the elm tree of bowl are in tiny leaf, while the Chaffich sings on the orchard bow in
1:10.8	England now.
1:13.7	And after April, when May follows and the white throat builds and all the swallows,
1:21.4	hark where my blossomed pear tree in the head leans to the field
1:24.9	and scatters on the clover blossoms and dewdrops at the bent sprays edge that's the wise thrush he sings each song twice over lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
1:48.3	all will be gay when noontide wakes and new the buttercups.
1:52.7	The little children's dower far brighter than this gaudy melon flower.
2:03.8	Home thoughts from abroad. this gaudy melon flower. Home Thoughts from Abroad was written by Browning in 1845 while he was visiting Italy and was
2:10.8	published in dramatic romances and lyrics.
2:14.8	If you take a look at this poem on Poetry Foundation or wherever you, you know, you look it up,
2:19.7	say in a Browning anthology, for example, you will note that this is a two stanza poem.
2:25.2	The first stanza is eight lines with an A-B-A-B-C-C-D-D rhyme scheme.
2:39.6	It's got a sort of melancholy, nostalgic, longing sort of vibe about it.
2:46.0	He's ready to be home. He's longing for a place that he knows very well. And of course,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Goldberry Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Goldberry Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.