Author of “God’s in his heaven/All’s right with the world!” the Victorian poet Robert Browning has been described many ways. Too bad that his “Prospice” (“Prospects”) – his long sonnet about facing death boldly and manfully and being reunited with our loved ones – is all but forgotten.
Almost Stephen King-like (who stole one of Browning’s titles for one of his series) in his rich variety of murder sagas, self-incriminating soliloquies, medieval dramas and galloping verses, Browning embraced life with a gusto that helped make him the toast of literary Europe and America.
His evangelical mother instilled in him a lifelong “Broad Church heartiness” and fervent “embrace of God” said one critic. Like Tennyson, seen as a champion of declining Christian values, his love affair and elopement with the poetess Elizabeth Barrett was almost the Victorian equivalent of our Brad and Angelina. Both him and Tennyson are long overdue for literary revival.
Now there's a man you want on your team!