Robert Browning: Religion and Doubt

Question 1

What factors increased the prominence of religious conflicts in novels in the 1840s?

Answer 1

Oxford Movement, well-publicized conversions to Catholicism

Question 2

What was Tractarianism?

Answer 2

The belief in Catholic doctrinal authority as absolute and support for John Henry Newman’s ‘Tracts for the Times’ (1833-41)

Question 3

James Eli Adams on the subgenre of historical fiction concerning early Christianity which essentially mirrored contemporary religious controversy

Answer 3

“In every instance the setting licensed often gruesome violence … and hints at the powerfully masochistic energies undergirding mid-Victorian religious discipline.”

Question 4

Which decade in Victorian history saw widespread crises of intellectual faith?

Answer 4

1860s

Question 5

Andrew Dickson White’s phrase summarising competing religious and scientific views.

Answer 5

“the warfare of science with theology”

Question 6

Josef L. Altholz on the closed-mindedness of Victorian clergymen

Answer 6

“A closed mind had become, as much as the black coat, part of the professional equipment of a clergyman.”

Question 7

James Eli Adams on the outlooks of evangelicals (specifically Wilberforce)

Answer 7

Saw life as ‘an arena of constant moral struggle’.

Question 8

Hilary Fraser on religion and art

Answer 8

Victorian art was ‘a proliferation of religio-aesethetic theories designed to reconcile the claims of Christianity and beauty, morality and art.’

Question 9

Kirstie Blair on the poetic perception of religious worship

Answer 9

‘religious worship and devotion in all its forms was frequently read as poetry’

Question 10

Robert Browning’s explicit positioning of Sordello as a Shelleyan counterpart

Answer 10

‘Sordello only cared to know/ About men as a means whereby he’d show/ Himself, and men had much or little worth/ According as they kept in or drew forth/ That self’.

Question 11

Robert Browning in an interview with W.G. Kingsland

Answer 11

In his monologues, ‘all the incidents are imaginary’

Question 12

What was German Higher Criticism concerned with?

Answer 12

Using historical-critical methods of criticism on Biblical manuscripts

Question 13

Alfred Domett on Browning’s statement of religious belief, 1873

Answer 13

Browning admitted to loving Byron’s poetry ‘as a Christian(!)’

‘I never heard him, I think, avow his “Christianity” distinctly in his own person except on this occasion’

Question 14

John Stuart Mill’s critique of Pauline, Browning’s first published work

Answer 14

Condemned the poet’s ‘intense and morbid self-consciousness.’

Question 15

Juliana Ludick on the periods of Robert Browning’s life

Answer 15

‘Two events in the life of Robert Browning, his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett … in 1846 and her death in 1861, easily divide his work into three period.’

Question 16

Sushmita Roy’s understanding of Browning’s philosophical thought before Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day

Answer 16

‘man must recognise the limitations of his own powers.’

Question 16

Professor Dowden’s suggestion of what Browning assumed Sordello lacked in his life

Answer 16

Sordello’s need
‘was that of a revelation of the Divine in the Human, of the
Christ of God’

Question 17

W. O. Raymond’s description of Browning’s doctrine of ‘love’

Answer 17

“the central principle of the moral consciousness, the
transcendent virtue which harmonizes the conflicting tendencies and solves the perplexing antithesis of life, the bond of unity which links the individual with humanity and God”

Question 18

What do commentators believe the ‘representative power’ quoted in Sordello’s death to allude to?

Answer 18

Christ

Question 19

What is Juliana Ludick’s opinion on the religious content of Browning’s earlier poems?

Answer 19

‘There is very little explicit Christianity in these early poems’.

Question 20

Lord Tennyson’s opinion on Browning’s Sordello

Answer 20

‘There were only two lines in it that I understood, and they were both lies; they were the opening and closing lines’.

Question 21

Michael Yetman’s opinion on the invocation of Shelley in Sordello

Answer 21

A way of escaping an anxiety of influence ‘because of its temporal validity over his own.’

Question 22

What lesson does David learn in ‘Saul’ that Sordello does not?

Answer 22

That mere human knowledge and love are inadequate - if the poet is to speak effectively, his power and message must be divinely inspired.

Question 23

Which competing points of view does Browning tackle in ‘Christmas-Eve’?

Answer 23

Dissent, Higher Criticism, Catholicism (with Dissent winning)

Question 24

What are two quotes which exemplify Browning’s contradictory views on Catholicism in ‘Christmas-Eve’?

Answer 24

Roman Catholic ‘teaching is not so obscured / By error and perversities, / That no truth shines athwart the lies’

‘I see the error; but above / The scope of error, see the love.’

Question 25

Kingsbury Badger on Browning’s religion

Answer 25

‘He did believe in a
Supreme Being, but his Trinity was the metaphysical
Power, Intelligence, and Love, rather than the theological Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.’

Question 26

The lines in Christmas-Eve which seem to signal toward Browning’s message that ultimately, one must make a choice

Answer 26

‘Lest myself, at unawares, be found, /
While attacking the choice of my neighbours round, / With none of my own made — I choose here.’

Question 27

Roger Sharrock on the ultimate message behind ‘Easter-Day’

Answer 27

‘The Victorian honest doubt remains on the intellectual surface and the bedrock of intuition is not disturbed.’

Question 28

‘Christmas-Eve’s presentation of Christ’s pure presence

Answer 28

‘All at once I looked up with terror. / He was there. / He himself with his human air.’

‘Very man and very God.’

Question 29

What is the conclusion arrived at in ‘Christmas-Eve’ by the Higher Critic professor?

Answer 29

Jesus was a man whose work ‘gave warrant almost sufficient / To his disciples, for rather believing, He was just omnipotent and omniscient.’

Question 30

What is Aprile’s final revelation at his death in Paracelsus?

Answer 30

‘Yes; I see now. God is the perfect poet, / Who in his person acts his own creations.’

Question 31

How does Robert Browning present Karshish first in the poem?

Answer 31

‘Karshish, the picker-up of learning’s crumbs, / The not-incurious in God’s handiwork’

Question 32

Where is the irony in Karshish’s failure to apprehend Christianity?

Answer 32

Karshish believes himself to identify with Lazarus’s impatience after witnessing the eternal because he has had similar experiences with those who misunderstand medicine - the reader, knowing Karshish has no grasp on medicine, finds this ironic

Question 33

What is Karshish often compared to?

Answer 33

German Higher Criticism/scientific developments - Karshish thinks he is using the latest in research techniques, but his knowledge is far too rudimentary to grasp anything - let alone the glory of God.

Question 34

The main tenets of Browning’s religious thought:

Answer 34

• Evangelical non-conformist upbringing
• Praise of intuition over doctrine
• Individualism - man must make a choice
• Religion highly bound with art (creative instinct only reaches its highest potential under divine inspiration)
• Body + soul are natural allies, no longer in opposition

Question 35

Robert Browning’s own opinion on Bishop Blougram

Answer 35

‘He said true things, but called them by wrong names.’

Question 36

Fundamental ideas behind ‘Christmas Eve and Easter-Day’

Answer 36

Reject God as a fixed external concept, reject religious doctrine, advocates for more internal + personalised religion

Question 37

E. D. H. Johnson on Browning’s beliefs on the intellect

Answer 37

‘Browning’s heroes are always the children of their intuitions.’

‘belief that the intuitions operate through the instrumentality of the emotions rather than the intellect’.

Question 38

Robert Browning’s instruction on what to wish those who’ve died in Epilogue to Asolando

Answer 38

“Strive and thrive!” cry “Speed,—fight on, fare ever / There as here!”

Question 39

Which line in Epilogue to Asolando suggests Browning’s unwavering belief in his own private faith?

Answer 39

One who ‘marched breast forward / Never doubted clouds would break’.