Book Description

Excerpt from Browning and Whitman: A Study in Democracy The volume now given to the public is an expansion of a paper read before the London Browning Society at their meeting of May 27th of the present year. The purpose of the paper was to point out the essential democracy of Robert Browning. The intent of the present work is to suggest the need of an exegesis of modern prophetical literature. And the endeavour is therefore made in the case of Browning and Whitman to identify life and literature. The result will be, for a few readers, not incurious. It is found that some poems which prove well in lecture-rooms and parlours prove not at all in the open air, in the streets and workshops, in contact with the varied life of man. The thoughts which prompt the several essays may be stated as follows: God is a living will, who is realised by men and women in their practical activities and creations. To realise the will of God, by whatever institutional means of State or church or school, is the purport of democracy. Democracy cares supremely for the soul; this, before all laws, forms, institutions, policies, economics, is the one thing worthy of conserving. For the purposes of world-profession, art can no longer be separated from life. Art is the union of the real and the ideal, it is matter receiving spirit, it is spirit taking form. Art is a witness of ideality; at the same time it shows the possibility of the realisation of highest thought. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.