Discuss and illustrate as far as you can Browning’s search, as a poet, for formal and thematic variety?

In 1851 Browning wrote an essay on Percy Bysshe Shelley, and in it he both praised the Romantic poet who had so influenced him, and also explained how he, Browning differed in his own poetic project. Shelley, according to Browning, was a subjective poet, a poet who wrote from the perspective of the inner self, while Browning wishes to be an objective poet. Browning felt that subjective poetry which is never relieved by objectivity meant that “the world is subsisting wholly on the shadow of a reality”. He wanted to present the world from a distanced objective view, not through a haze of abstraction, and to show the world and the people in it clearly and directly. Employed by Browning, among others, the dramatic monologue is one poetic strategy which allows us a vision of both worlds. The character in the monologue tells his or her story in a subjective manner, while allowing the distanced poet and reader to remain objective.

The “action” in a dramatic monologue is mental, ps...