nt to
assure the public that Browning had brains and, what was more unusual,
could put them to a good advantage.

Browning became then 'a detached and eccentric personality who had
arisen on the outskirts; the world began to be conscious of him at this
time.'

In 1840 our critic tells us 'Sordello' was published. It was a poem that
caused people to wonder whether it was really deep, or merely pure
nonsense, a distinction some people cannot ever discover in regard to
Browning.

Of this poem, its unique reception by the literary world lies in the
fact 'that it was fashionable to boast of not understanding,' which, as
I have said, was an indication that it might be termed extremely clever
or extremely stupid. It was not a poem, as has been held by some
critics, that was a piece of intellectual vanity. Browning was far too
great a man to stoop down to such mere banal conceit. The poem was a
very different thing. It was a creature created by the obscurity of
Browning's mind, which, as Chesterton thinks, was the natural reaction
for a genius, born in a villa street in South London.

What is the explanation of this poem? What is its meaning? Wherein lies
its soul? These are questions every lover of Browning has constantly to
ask. Our critic supplies an answer, an answer that is original, and is,
I think, true--the poem is an epic on 'the horror of great darkness,'
that darkness that strangely enough seems to attack the young more
frequently than the old.

That which is levelled against Browning, his obscurity, is a very
bulwark protecting a subtle and clear mind. This is specially so with a
poet who probably of all men so lives in his own poetic world that he
forgets his ideas, though clear to himself, are vague to the world
occupied with conventionalities.

The real difficulty of 'Sordello' lies in the fact that it is written
about an obscure piece of Italian history of which Browning happened to
have knowledge--the struggles of mediaeval Italy. This obscurity is not
studied, as in the case of academic distinction; it is natural. The
obscurity of many of the passages of St. John's Gospel is natural
because the mind of St. John dwelt on the 'depths,' as did Browning's
dwell on the grotesque. The result is the same. Each needs an
interpreter, each has an abundance of the richest philosophy, each has
an imprint of the Finger of God.

With all the controversy it has caused, 'Sordello' has had no great
influence on Brown