e his quest in a
world where romance and formality are not married together.

So I shall find out some snug corner,
Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight,
Turn myself round and bid the world Good Night;
And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing
Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)
To a world where will be no further throwing
Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI

_IMAGINATIVE REPRESENTATIONS_

All poems might be called "imaginative representations." But the class
of poems in Browning's work to which I give that name stands apart. It
includes such poems as _Cleon, Caliban on Setebos, Fra Lippo Lippi_, the
_Epistle of Karshish_, and they isolate themselves, not only in
Browning's poetry, but in English poetry. They have some resemblance in
aim and method to the monologues of Tennyson, such as the _Northern
Farmer_ or _Rizpah_, but their aim is much wider than Tennyson's, and
their method far more elaborate and complex.

What do they represent? To answer this is to define within what limits I
give them the name of "imaginative representations." They are not only
separate studies of individual men as they breathed and spoke; face,
form, tricks of body recorded; intelligence, character, temper of mind,
spiritual aspiration made clear--Tennyson did that; they are also
studies of these individual men--Cleon, Karshish and the rest--as
general types, representative images, of the age in which they lived; or
of the school of art to which they belonged; or of the crisis in
theology, religion, art, or the social movement which took place while
the men they paint were alive, and which these men led, on formed, or
followed. That is their main element, and it defines them.

They are not dramatic. Their action and ideas are confined to one
person, and their circumstance and scenery to one time and place. But
Browning, unlike Tennyson, filled the background of the stage on which
he placed his single figure with a multitude of objects, or animals, or
natural scenery, or figures standing round or in motion; and these give
additional vitality and interest to the representation. Again, they are
short, as short as a soliloquy or a letter or a conversation in a
street. Shortness belongs to this form of poetic work--a form to which
Browning gave a singular intensity. It follows that they must not be
argumentative bey