Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Lovecraft's Treatment of Robert Browning

He called Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, written in 1855, his "hideous poem". Furthermore he says,

Naturally it is impossible in a brief sketch to trace out all the classic modern uses of the terror element. The ingredient must of necessity enter into all work both prose and verse treating broadly of life; and we are therefore not surprised to find a share in such writers as the poet Browning, whose “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came ” is instinct with hideous menace.

In contrast is Joseph Conrad, mentioned right after,

who often wrote of the dark secrets within the sea, and of the daemoniac driving power of Fate as influencing the lives of lonely and maniacally resolute men. Its trail is one of infinite ramifications; but we must here confine ourselves to its appearance in a relatively unmixed state, where it determines and dominates the work of art containing it.

Remember that Robert Browning, 1812 to 1889, was a poet famous of the Victorian era. 

Taken from Supernatural Horror in Literature

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