Book Description

Excerpt from Browning's Ancient Classical Sources Browning's discernible borrowings from Greek and Latin range from quotation and translation to reminiscence and imitation; they sometimes contain allusions to the sources, but generally they do not; they sometimes represent commingled sources, ancient and modern; they sometimes appear to come from works so little drawn upon by the poet that on the slender basis of one or two suspected borrowings it is unsafe to infer that he was familiar with them. The vigorous assimilation to which he subjected his classical materials at once increases the interest and diminishes the assurance of attempts to add to the body of sources already determined. In general, however, attributions may be securely established - not the less so through the mere increasing of the number of analogies considered. A view of the entire available evidence of Browning's direct indebtedness to the Classics is sometimes as illuminating with regard to a single detail as it is with regard to the total relationship between the poet and his Classics. In connection with Balaustion's Adventure and Aristophanes' Apology, a sharp distinction is to be drawn between what comes from ancient sources directly and what comes primarily from Browning's immediate predecessors and contemporaries in classical interpretation. August Wilhelm Schlegel is Balaustion's "critic-friend of Syracuse," whose criticism is so repugnant to her in Balaustion's Adventure. 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.