BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 PROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 Henrg M. SaQc 
 1891 
 
 A.JLJL9.ah.i>. ^^.Jji./j}.! 
 
133-5li7-lm-801 
 
 BULLETIN 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 
 
 NUMBER 93 
 Humanistic series no. s april i, i907 
 
 The Grotesque in the Poetry 
 of Robert Browning 
 
 Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the College of Arts of the University 
 ' of Texas for the Degree of Master of Arts, June, 1906, 
 
 By 
 LILY BESS CAMPBELL, B. L. 
 
 I Published by the University of Texas semi-monthly. Sntered as second-class 
 mail matter at the postoffice at Austin 
 
 AUSTIN, TEXAS 
 
Cultivated mind 13 the guatdian genius of de- 
 mocracy. . . . It is the only dictator that free- 
 men acknowledge and the only security that 
 
 freemen desire. 
 
 President Mirabeau B. Lamar. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 • THE NATURE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE GROTESQUE. 
 
 Page. 
 
 I. Introduction 5 
 
 II. The History of the Grotesque 5 
 
 III. The Origin of the Grotesque. . . . .' 7 
 
 IV. The Elements and the Mission of the Grotesque 10 
 
 V. Summary and Conclusions 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 browning's TREATMENT OF THE GROTESQUE. 
 
 I. Browning as the Poet of the Grotesque 16 
 
 II. Browning's Method of Treating the Grotesque 18 
 
 III. The Three Classes of the Grotesque as Found in Browning.20 
 
 A. The First Class of the Grotesque, the Great 
 
 Grotesque 30 
 
 1. "Caliban upon Setebos" SO 
 
 2. "The Heretic's Tragedy" ' 23 
 
 3. "Mr. Sludge, 'the Medium' " .24 
 
 [/ 4. "Bishop Blougram's Apology" 25 
 
 5. "Red Cotton Fight-Cap Country" 26 
 
 B. Grotesque Poetry of the Second Class, the Fanci- 
 
 ful Grotesque 28 
 
 1. "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" 28 
 
 C. The Third Class of the Grotesque, the Artificial 
 
 Grotesque 29 
 
 t/1. "Holy-Cross Day" 29 
 
 2. "Pacchiarotto" 29 
 
 IV. Browning as He Is Revealed in These Poems 32 
 
4 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTBE III. 
 
 THE ARTISTIC POSSIBILITIES OF THE GROTESQUE. 
 
 Page. 
 
 I. The Tendencies of Present-day Criticism 35 
 
 II. The Effect of These Tendencies in 'the Banking of the 
 
 Ugly and of the Grotesque 35 
 
 III. The Artistic Worth of Browning's Grotesque Poetry 37 
 
 Bibliography .' 30 
 
THE GROTESQUE IN THE POETRY OF ROBERT 
 BROWNING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE NATURE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE GROTESQUE. 
 
 A study of the grotesque as found in its chief poet, Eobert 
 Browning, necessarily involves the discussion of three questions: 
 (1) What is the grotesque ? (3) How is the grotesque embodied 
 in Browning's work? (3) Is the grotesque a legitimate subject 
 for art, and has Browning succeeded in making it art? 
 
 Of first importance in this study is an understanding of the 
 nature and the origin of the grotesque considered historically and 
 sesthetically. At first glance it would seem that it is almost im- 
 possible to understand the nature of the grotesque because of 
 the very mass of unordered details which make up our knowledge 
 concerning it, because of the indefiniteness with which it is gen- 
 erally referred to, and because of the actually varying significance 
 attached to the term by philosophers, artists, and critics. It is 
 the first aim of this paper, then, to find whether ,or no there 
 be any consensus of opinion regarding the nature and the origin 
 of the grotesque, and to find, in a tentative definition and classifi- 
 cation of the grotesque, a working basis for our study of the 
 grotesque in the poetry of Browning. To this end we shall discuss 
 in this chapter the history of the word grotesque, the history of 
 the use of the grotesque in art, the origin of the grotesque in th6 
 mind producing it, and the use of the grotesque in art at the 
 present time. 
 
 The word grotesque is of comparatively recent origin in En- 
 glish, having only been adopted into the language in 1640. It 
 is 'descended from the Early Modem French word Grotesque, an 
 adaptation (by assimilation to the Old French crote, the Italian 
 grotta) of the Italian grottesca, which is defined as "a kind of 
 rugged, unpolished painter's work." Florio in both his diction- 
 aries regards grottesca as an Italian word meaning "antique, 
 
6 Bulletin of The University of T,6xas. 
 
 fretted, or carved work." The real Bignificance of the word in 
 English, then, should be "painting appropriate to grottoes," or in 
 a larger sense it might be defined as "characterized by distortion 
 or unnatural combinations, fantastically extravagant/^'^ 
 
 Obviously, then, a mere history of the word cannot give a satis- 
 factory account of the grotesque. In a History of Caricature and 
 Grotesque in Literature and Art by Thomas Wrightj we find, 
 however, a very interesting history, not of the word, but of the 
 art form signified by the grotesque. It is evident from the title 
 that the author recognizes a close kinship between caricature and 
 the grotesque, in both of which the element of distortion is empha- 
 sized. 
 
 Art itself, Wright says, is in its earliest form merely caricature, 
 ^or only by such accentuation of peculiar characteristics is an 
 unskilled draughtsman able to make his work comprehensible. 
 Furthermore, the tendency to burlesque and caricature is early 
 developed in a people because they demand such entertainment. 
 Among the primitive tribes the chieftain with his warriors found 
 amusement in mocking their enemies, and among the Teutons the 
 customs of the mead-hall, as described in Old English poetry, 
 demanded such forms of amusement. 
 
 The transition frony this early art to that of the Middle Ages 
 was not a decided one, Wright continues. We find that the early 
 Christian edifices were decorated by the grotesque art of their 
 pagan builders. The clergy and the evil one had furnished a basis 
 for most of the caricature of the Anglo-Saxons. Now, the first 
 form of Christian, caricature was likewise found in the inclination 
 to give the demons monstrous forms and to make the older pagan 
 mythology into a demonology, by Constructing from elves and 
 hobgoblins demons whose essential nature was ugliness with a 
 mirthful cast, and who were more laughable than terrible. In- 
 deed, the art of the Middle Ages is often characterized by ugly 
 and distorted figures, for such a picture presents to the unre- 
 fined a perfect idea of mirth. The chief difference between ancient 
 and mediaeval grotesque art came in the fact that antiquity gave 
 a general meaning to her grotesque figures, while in the early 
 Middle Ages the design and the ideas extended no further than 
 
 'This history with the definition is taken from the New English Diction- 
 ary. 
 
IVie Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 7 
 
 the forms the artist gave them. Later there came the innovation 
 of imposed inner meanings. 
 
 Even after the Middle Ages had passed, demonology furnished 
 •the greater part of the material for grotesque art. It spread from 
 Egypt during the Middle Ages and was grafted on the super- 
 stitions of Teutonic paganism. 
 
 Studying, then, the history of the grotesque as given by Wright, 
 we note several important tendencies. First, the grotesque is closely 
 akin to caricature, for both emphasize the element of distortion. 
 Secondly, the grotesque is the ugly which embraces both the terri- 
 ble and the humorous. Finall y , the grafting of-pagan symlrol'S" on- 
 C hristian belie fs tended to the grotesque; and demonology, the 
 product of this grafted symbolism, furnished' much of the mate- 
 rial for the grotesque. 
 
 Moreover, we note also some things which, though less empha- 
 sized, will be later helpful in determining the origin of the gro- 
 tesque in the producing mind. Caricature and the grotesque, 
 Wright^ says, arise from the fact of the artist's limitations. The 
 unskilled draughtsman is not able to portray objects save by the 
 accentuation of certain characteristics, which results in distortion. 
 The grafting of pagan symbols on Christian beliefs, again, pre- 
 sented an incongruity impossible of comprehension. Demonology, 
 the realm of the imagination and fancy, has furnished much of 
 the material for the grotesque in its entire history. These facts 
 but emphasize the first conception of the grotesque, that of its 
 origin in the attempt to portray the incomprehensible or to picture 
 the comprehensible by means not yet adapted to the end. The ar- 
 tist's limitations and the incongruity resulting from an attempted 
 combining of clashing elements would, then, seem to create the 
 grotesque. 
 
 Whether or no the conclusions drawn from this history of the' 
 grotesque can be substantiated by the theories of the philosophers 
 of art, then, becomes our question. In his History of Esthetic, 
 Bosanquet has given in fragments the opinions of various philoso- 
 phers concerning the nature of the grotesque, though what we 
 shall term the grotesque is there variously named the ugly, the 
 
 '■Loe. cit., p. 2. 
 
8 Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 ugliest ugly, and the grotesque. The facts here given, then, have 
 been gained from a study of Bosanquet and from a reading of 
 some of the authors suggested by him. 
 
 If we look as far back as Aristotle, we find that he made the 
 laughable a subdivision of the ugly, further classifying it as the 
 subject of comedy, which is one of the fine arts and hence beauti- 
 fuLj In spite of this paradox, however, it is important to note his 
 conception of the kinship of the ugly to the laughable. 
 
 Burke, in his essay on The Sublime and the Beautiful, led up to 
 the relation of the sublime to the ugly. The sublime, he said, is 
 outside the beautiful, for, while beauty brings ideas of pleasure, 
 the sublime is referred to ideas of pain and danger. Eeal dis- 
 tress and disaster, however, do not cause pure pain to the specta- 
 tor, but fascinate and attract him. 
 
 Hegel, again, emphasized the relation between the sublime and 
 the ugly. Contortion and false characterization are to him the 
 essence of ugliness.^ In one place he says: "They are not beau- 
 tiful, but, as attempting to express the absolute in plainly inade- 
 quate form, they have a certain analogy to the sublime."" Eude- 
 ness, austerity, and the grotesque he does not class as ugliness, 
 however. The sublime, like the ugly, is an attempt to express the 
 infinite without finding in the realm of phenomena any object 
 which proves itself adequate for this representation. 
 
 In his Die JEsthetih des Haesslichen, Eosenkranz supposes 
 three regions which may be made the subject of art: the fir.?t is 
 the beautiful, then the ugly, and finally the comic. The ugly acts 
 as a transition stage between the beautiful and the comic, the 
 comic being the representation of the continued process of the 
 overcoming of the rebellion of the ugly. "Die goettliche Kunst 
 kann nur gar das Haessliche werden, wann sie es komisch behan- 
 ' delt," he says. The ugly, moreover, has two essential character- 
 istics, formlessness and incorrectness, i 
 
 Solger' defines beauty as the perfect unity of idea and phenome- 
 non. Ugliness arises "when the human mind finds in the com- 
 mon-place phenomenon something essential, wherein the phenome- 
 non, derived from the idea, has independent reality." Beauty, in 
 
 'Bosanquet,'' toe. <At., p. 355. 
 HUd., p. 355. 
 'Lectures on Mlsthetio. 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 9 
 
 passing through the sublime to the comic, comes very close to the 
 
 In a paper published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian So- 
 ciety for 1888-1891 entitled "The iEsthetic Theory of Ugliness" 
 and written by Bosanquet is found perhaps the most comprehen- 
 sive treatment of the ugly that has been made, but it can be only 
 indirectly helpful here, as the" grotesque is specifically ruled out 
 of consideration. Bosanquet says : "We are not to look for real 
 ugliness in the sublime, the humorous, or the grotesque, or the 
 austere, or the rude, or the terrible, or the difficult, in short, in the 
 partial, of fine art."^ "Ugliness is the self-contradictory as ex- 
 pressed for presumption or fancy."^ It would seem that to this 
 author truth is beauty, or at least truth is art. It is the false or 
 partial characterization that makes the ugly. He says: "Beauty 
 is too narrow a conception even for Greek art : the principle of fine 
 art must be called by some such name as 'the characteristic' or 'the 
 true,' and no subject-matter must be excluded because it is painful 
 or ignoble."^ It is well to note here, also, that the grotesque is 
 recognized by Bosanquet as a partial revelation of the ugly along 
 with the sublime and the humorous. 
 
 Last year (1905) Professor Santayana, of Harvard University, 
 published a book on aesthetics entitled The Sense of Beauty, which 
 directly or indirectly bears much upon the grotesque. Beauty, he 
 says, makes two demands, comprehension and inspiration. The 
 ugly is usually a source of amusement rather than the cause of 
 any real pain : yet "if its suggestions are vitally repulsive, its pres- 
 ence becomes a real evil toward which we assume a practical and 
 moral attitude."* All nature is beautiful, and even "imaginary 
 forms differ in dignity and beauty not according to their close- 
 ness to fact or type in nature but according to the ease with which 
 the normal imagination reproduces the synthesis they contain.'""' 
 Art has to do with life, and in life it finds what it produces as 
 ugliness. The grotesque, then, the imaginative form of the ugly, 
 is "a thing which nature has not, but might conceivably have of- 
 
 'Bosanquet," loo. cvt.^ p. 47. 
 nUd., p. 48. . 
 nUd., p. 39. 
 
 *Santayana,° loc. oit., p. 25. 
 "Ibid., p. 182. 
 
10 Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 fered."^ "The good grotesque is novel beauty."^ It is related to 
 the sublime in that in the grotesque we are carried out of our- 
 selves only to become smaller, in the sublime to become larger. 
 
 What conclusions as to the origin of the grotesque can, then, be 
 drawn from this review of sesthetie theories? In the first place, 
 the grotesque is generally acknowledged, it seems, as a partial ex- 
 pression of the ugly. Further, the grotesque would seem to have 
 its origin in man's own mind, while the ugly may be found as ex- 
 istent. Thirdly, the kinsliip of the ugly to the comic and of the 
 grotesque to the sublime is universally acknowledged. 
 
 Hegel's idea of the origin of the grotesque differs from that of 
 the other philosophers in that he considers the grotesque to arise 
 from man's inadequacy rather than to be merely the product of 
 human imagination. 
 
 Perhaps we are now prepared to turn to a study of the elements 
 and the mission of the grotesque. 
 
 Euskin has given us the most complete discussion of the gro- 
 tesque, though limiting his discussion to architecture. Art for 
 him must be based on truth and power. Beauty comes from the 
 imitation of natural forms : whatever is not so derived must be ugly 
 and must depend for its dignity upon its arrangement and "gov- 
 ernment by the human mind."' 
 
 In The Stones of Venice is a chapter treating of "The Grotesque 
 Renaissance," which I think it may be useful to summarize here. 
 Ruskin says that in this study it is of first importance to examine 
 into the nature of the grotesque and to ascertain in what respect 
 the jesting of art in its highest flight differs from its jesting in its 
 utmost degradation. The grotesque is "in almost all cases com- 
 posed of two elements, one ludicrous, the other fearful ; as one or 
 other of these elements prevails, the grotesque falls into two 
 branches, sportive grotesque and terrible grotesque : but we cannot 
 legitimately consider it under these two aspects, because there are 
 hardly any examples that do not in some degree combine both ele- 
 ments."* Yet we can examine the conditions of mind which it 
 
 'Santayana,= p. 256. 
 
 Hbid., p. 257. 
 
 'Seven Lamps of Architecture. 
 
 *The Stones of Venice, p. 126. 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. ll 
 
 combines, and see what are the kinds of Jest and the kinds of fear- 
 fulness.- 
 
 Euskin' divides all humanity into four classes : thoee who play 
 wisely, those who play necessarily, those who play inordinately,- 
 and those who play not at all. "The forms of art which result 
 from the comparatively recreative exertion of minds more or less 
 blunted or encumbered by other cares and trials, the art which we 
 generally call the art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is 
 the business of men's lives, is in the best sense of the word gro- 
 tesque."^ Such grotesque is the product of the second class of 
 minds, and is produced not by the workings of nature and of time 
 but exclusively by man's 'fancy. The third class of minds is charac- 
 terized by incapacity for true imagination, and the grotesque that 
 it produces will be "an incongruous chain of hackneyed graces,"^ 
 absurd without being fantastic and monstrous without being terri- 
 ble. The fourth class of men produce terrible rather than playful 
 grotesque. 
 
 Summing up, Euskin says that "in the true grotesque a man of 
 naturally strong feeling is accidentally or resolutely apathetic; in 
 the false grotesque, a man naturally apathetic is forcing himself 
 into temporary excitement" f the true grotesque represents mind in^ 
 repose, the false grotesque represents mind in activity. "If the 
 objects of horror, in which the terrible grotesque finds its material, 
 were contemplated in their true light, and with the entire energy 
 of the soul, they would cease to be grotesque, and become altogether 
 sublime."*, 
 
 In his~essay on "Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning, or Pure, 
 Ornate, and Grotesque Art in Poetry," Bagehot has given the most 
 complete presentation of the grotesque by a literary critic^ He 
 contrasts grotesque art as that which takes the "type in difficul- 
 ties" with pure and ornate art, which view the subject in the best 
 possible light. Grotesque art, he says, gives a representation of its 
 object "in its minimum development, amid the circumstances least 
 favorable to it. Just while it is struggling with obstacles, Just when 
 it is encumbered with incongruities. It deals, to use the language 
 of science, not with normal types, but with abnormal specimens: to 
 
 ^The Stones of Venice, p. 132. 
 'Hid., p. 135. 
 
 -lOia., p. 130. 
 
 'Ibid., p. 142. 
 'lUd., p. 150. 
 
12- Bulletin of The University of Tfixas. 
 
 use the language of old philosophy, not with what nature is striv- 
 ing to be, but with what by some lapse she has happened to be- 
 come.'"^ "Good elements hidden in horrid accompaniments are the 
 special theme of the grotesque."" Mediaeval subjects are most 
 
 ^ often chosen for the grotesque. 
 
 Based on this essay is one by Professor Schelling, of the Univer- 
 sity of Pennsylvania, entitled "Robert Browning and the Arabesque 
 in Art,'L)the arabasque being his term for the grotesque. To quote 
 from the essay: "The arabesque ■ was an elaborate style of orna- 
 mentation used among the early Saracens or Arabs, in which the 
 most indulgent play of fancy was permitted, except that a literal 
 interpretation of the second commandment forbade the representa- 
 tion of a living creature therein."^ Arabesque art is, indeed, but 
 a vice of the ornate. "An ornamentation that arises, not natural- 
 ly out of the subject, but is loaded upon it extraneously, an orna- 
 mentation pushed to the extreme until the subject is lost in the 
 treatment, to the unnatural, to distortion, to the grotesque — this is 
 what is meant by the term arabesque."* Take Donne's conceits and 
 add large draughts of iigly modern realism, and you have the gro- 
 
 i,, tesque. 
 
 Mr. Chesterton, in his Rolert Browningjj has given a somewhat 
 truer picture of the grotesque than has Professor Schelling, and he 
 has given as well a very interesting view of the mission of the gro- 
 tesque. For him the grotesque is a distinct art form. It is a form 
 that arises naturally from a certain way of looking at the grotesque. 
 "The element of the grotesque in art, like the element of the gro- 
 tesque in nature, means, in the main, energy, the energy which" 
 takes its own forms and goes its own way."° This, however, is not 
 
 ■ the only significance of the grotesque, for there is another kind of 
 grotesque whose function is surprise. It is the supreme function of 
 the philosopher of the grotesque "lo make the world stand on end 
 that people may look at it."° 
 
 Still another comment on the grotesque is found in a paper on 
 "Caliban Upon Setebos" by Mr. J. Cotter Morrison, published in 
 
 'Bagehot, loc. oit., p. 375. 
 'Hid., p. 381. 
 'Schelling, loo. cit., p. 14. 
 *md., p. 17. 
 
 'Chesterton, loc. oit,, p. 149. 
 °IUd., p. 151. 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 13 
 
 the London Browning Society Papers} ''Its proper province," he 
 writes, "would seem to be the exhibition of fanciful power by the 
 artist, not beauty or truth in the literal sense at all, but inventive 
 affluence of unreal yet absurdly comic forms, with just a flavor of 
 the terrible added, to give a grim dignity and save from the trivial- 
 ity of caricature." 
 
 Considering the varying theories of all these critics, we find that 
 they hold in common that the two elements going to make up the 
 grotesque are the -terrible and th^;^umorous. Moreover, all save 
 Buskin make the grotesque the product of activity rather than of 
 passivity in the producing mind. He alone considers .it as the 
 product of the fancy and of the play-time of men's minds. All 
 agree, also, on the existence of contortion and unreality as features 
 of the grotesque. Moreover, Bagehot and Schelling alone represent 
 the grotesque as existing in actual phenomena rather than as aris- 
 ing in the producing mind. 
 
 To certain conclusions, then, all things seem to point. Early in 
 the paper'' we found that the beginnings of the grotesque in art 
 came from primitive man's failure to comprehend that which he 
 wished to portray sufficiently to adapt it to the laws of his art. 
 This origin of the grotesque in man's limitations is substantiated 
 by Hegel, as we have seen, for to him the grotesque arises from the 
 attempt to express the infinite through the finite. The fact that 
 man's limitations are thus farther and farther removed but proves 
 that just so long as they exist man will struggle to remove them or 
 to go beyond them ; and just so soon as he endeavors to go beyond 
 them into the unknown and unordered, he enters the realm of 
 chaos and the grotesque. 
 
 The grotesque to me, then, seems necessarily the work of an ac- 
 tive mind, the work of the imagination and not of the fancy. It is 
 the constant striving of the imagination to grasp the incomprehen- 
 sible that creates the grotesque. 
 
 A further cause of the grotesque, resulting in its incongruity, 
 was first noticed in the grafting of pagan symbolism on Christian 
 beliefs. Whenever the false is portrayed as the true, whenever an 
 object is in itself or in its surroundings incongruous, the result is 
 
 'Vol. V, 1881-1884, pp. 389-399. 
 =Cf. p. 7, above. 
 
14: Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 the grotesque. Thus, also, when the real and the ideal are con- 
 fused or are treated simultaneously, the result is something in the 
 nature of the grotesque. 
 
 The two universally recognized elements of the grotesque, the 
 terrible and the humorous, are very closely aldn, for the terrible 
 here finds its most horrible accompaniment in this grim humor. 
 
 This brings us to a discussion of the often observed relation of 
 the grotesque to the comic. Eosenkranz, it seems to me, has given 
 us the key to this problem. We saw that he regarded the ugly as 
 the transition stage between the beautiful ard the comic. It must, 
 then, be that the grotesque occupies the border-land between the 
 ugly and the comic, partaking of the characteristics of both. The 
 distorted figure is the primitive idea of a mirth-provoking object, 
 and here in a mingling of the ugly and the humorous we have the 
 grotesque. The near relationship of the ugly to the comical in the 
 inLnd reveals their nearness in that mind's productions in the gro- 
 tesque and in caricature. The ugly and the comic have, indeed, the 
 same general characteristics ; and, when the element of terror is ac- 
 cented and the picture hence falls more iuto the realm of the ugly 
 than of the comic, it becomes grotesque; when the humorous ele- 
 ment is emphasized and the picture falls more into the realm of 
 the comic, the result is caricature. 
 
 Again, we have noted the often acknowledged relationship of the 
 sublime to the grotesque. Xow, it seems to me that just as the 
 ugly and the comic find their point of contact in caricature and the 
 grotesque, so the ugly and the beautiful find a two-fold point of 
 contact in the relationship of (1) the grotesque to the sublime nnd 
 of (2) the grotesque to the picturesque. Where the imaginatu m is 
 c oncerned, the kinship is between the grotesque and^ the sublime; 
 both are the regions beyond the realm of art; both are more or^ess " 
 chaotic realms because yet unordered to the laws of art. Hence, 
 when the artist attempts to portray the incomprehensible that lies 
 beyond the beautiful, he enters the realm of the sublime; when he 
 attempts to portray the outlying regions of the ugly, he enters tlie 
 J realm of the grotesque^ This is the work of the imagination, the 
 work of an active mind. On the other hand, the relationship be- 
 tween the ugly and the beautiful in fancy's realm is that between 
 the grotesque and the picturesque. 
 
 This would seem to indicate, as indeed it does, that there mav be 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 1 5 
 
 different classes of the grotesque. Such a classification as will serve 
 our purposes may perhaps be suggested here, though any classifica- 
 tion is necessarily iaadequate owing to the slight gradations of the 
 grotesque. If we take as a basis of classification the origin of the 
 grotesque as the work of the imagination, or of the fancy, or as 
 merely the result of the mind's unordered wandering, the grotesque 
 falls into three classes: the great grotesque, the fanciful grotesque, 
 and the artificial grotesque. The great grotesque is that grotesque 
 which is produced by the attempt of the mind through the imag- 
 ination to remove its limitations. It is the result of activity and 
 of strength. The fanciful grrgt asque is the grotesque referred to 
 by Ruskin. It is the work of the mind's play-time, fancy's crea- 
 tion in the realm of the ugly. The purely artificial grotesque is 
 the wilfully unordered product of a mind working among either 
 the known or the unknown objects about it. This grotesque know- 
 ingly constructs incogruities. It creates grotesque rhymes. It is 
 absolutely incoherent. 
 
 Such seem to be the more evident conclusions in regard to the- 
 nature and the origin of the grotesque. These theories must find a 
 practical test, however, and it is to a study of the poet of the gro- 
 tesque that we turn to test the adequacy of the theories of the gro- 
 tesque. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 browning's treatment of the grotesque. 
 
 From the study, then, of the nature and the origin of the gro- 
 tesque, we turn to a study of the poet of the grotesque, Eobert 
 Browning. In the consideration of any poet, the first question 
 'inust be concerning his function as a poet and an artist. For 
 Browning Jlr. Chesterton^ has answered this question by making 
 Ms function "the serious use of the grotesque." , And, indeed, with 
 the single exception of Swift, the conscious use of the grotesque had 
 not been known in our literature until the time of Browning^ 
 There had been, of course, a slight element of the grotesque in the 
 work of many of our poets, but the idea of treating the grotesque 
 for its own sake was a new one. The idea that grotesque charac- 
 ters and incidents should be chosen as independent subjects and 
 treated in the method adapted to them had not yet dawned upon 
 any previous English poet. 
 
 The discovery of the grotesque as a subject for literature and the 
 use of a suitable art form for its expression constituted the work of 
 Eobert Browning. Browning_wa3__in_his grotesque work. as. in all 
 else, a conscious poet, his art a c nnspif ^ns ar t That his style was 
 not always artistic was merely because he fought his way through 
 the mass of words which encumbered his thought. He was none 
 the less conscious of the effort and conscious of his attempted art. 
 
 Browning, though not the sanest, is ranked among the broadest 
 of our poets. His subjects are chosen from the lowest as well as 
 the highest classes. No character is too despicable or too low in the 
 intellectual or moral scale, no incident too trivial or too horrible 
 for Browning to make it the subject of his art, if art it shall be 
 called. As ilr. Chesterton has again pointed out. Browning will 
 take even those characters cast off by their own class. Of course. 
 Browning's breadth of view includes, also, a grasp of the beautiful 
 and the power of rising to the heights of beautiful conceptions, and 
 his breadth of treatment enables him, also, to treat the beautiful 
 and the sublime as we find them in "Saul" or in 'TRabbi Ben Ezra." 
 He merely differed from the majority of artists in not finding there 
 
 'Loc. cit., p. 143. 
 
The- Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 17 
 
 his limitation. It was the man and the philosopher striving to por- 
 tray life fully and truly which forced upon the poet the embodi- 
 ment of the disap-eeablp in appropriate form. The neglected but 
 nflTertTieless pYiHtignt ugly ffl und through Eobert Browning its 
 means of expression. 
 
 Browning combined in himself opposing methods of work and 
 belief and art. He was subjective and objective, idealistic and real- 
 istic all at once. His mingling of subj^ectivity and objectivity is 
 peculiar. He seems to project himself into some one character and 
 through the eyes of that character to see how things would appear 
 ^0 him. Perhaps his method is best illustrated in his own "Pippa 
 Passes," where Browning for the time sees the whole world from 
 Pippa's standpoint^ In spite of the objectivity of this method, 
 there is the ever present fact that Browning sees it all, that it is 
 Browning's mind to which these things appear, appear as they 
 would have appeared had Browning been placed in the environment 
 and natural condition of his character. 
 
 I have said that Browning was also both realist and idealist. He 
 was a man of the world, not blind to existent facts, yet he was a 
 man above the world and hence able to see to some extent the ulti- 
 mate truth of things. It was, then, in this struggle between his 
 idealism and his realism that he became the poet of the grotesquej 
 An ever constant struggle thus to attain the absolute through the 
 finite, to reconcile fact and truth, to comprehend the infinite or- 
 dering of things through the finite, this made Eobert Browning the 
 poet of the great grotesque. 
 
 Furthermore, Browning was the poet of mind conflict, the poet 
 to whom rebuff was but encouragement, the poet of "Childe Eoland 
 to the Dark Tower Came." This conflict of the actual and the 
 ideal was one whose resolution he would never cease to attempt. 
 The conflict must continue, for, when partially overcome, it but 
 pointed to new conflicts ahead. Progress was inevitable, but con- 
 flict unceasing. 
 
 Now, it is the necessary outcome of this conflict, of this attempt- 
 ed reconciliation of fact and truth that there should be much of re- 
 volt, r evolt against nature, revolt against the hypocrisies and shams 
 of men's lives, revo lt even against God ai times, because the noe t 
 c annot '^"ustifv the w^jis -of— God to man," above all revolt against 
 men's attitude toward God. \ 
 
18 Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 This revolt Browning expressed by two methods, satire and the 
 
 grotesque, the two bearing a relation to each other similar to that 
 
 of wit to humorj In onr discussion of the grotesque, we are apt 
 
 to include those things that should rather be classed as satiric, for 
 
 y the two forms are closely akin. 
 
 In his poetry Browning embodied the grotesque in three ways : in 
 ■ grotesque situations, grotesque characters, and grotesque treat- 
 l^entj_ He uses grotesque situations in his poems consciously, just 
 as "many others use them unconsciously. Wherever the keenest 
 tragedy is felt, wherever the uselessness of tragedy is found, there 
 must be some element of the grotesque. "The Blot in the 'Scutch- 
 eon", then, is almost grotesque in situation because of the utter 
 uselessness of it all. The grotesque situation always has an under- 
 lying note of tragedy rather than of pathos. Yet, of course,. the 
 tragic element is present in varioua degrees. 
 
 Professor Schelling^ says that Browning is grotesque in the mere 
 ■-thoice of such a character as Caliban, chosen not as the foil for 
 beauty but for its own sake. / And, indeed, a mere reading of the 
 titles of Browning's poems does bring us to a realization of his ex- 
 tremely grotesque choice of characters, j That Browning should 
 make Caliban and Mr. Sludge, "the Medium," the mouthpieces of 
 deeply philosophical views of life will be remarkable to one unfa- 
 miliar with Browning. ( I do not mean to say, however, that Brown- 
 ing made them the mouthpieces for his own views of life, for he 
 did not impose upon these characters views from without. He only 
 found after studying them how things must appear to them. > 
 
 In the first part of this paper I have maintained that the gro- 
 tesque is the result of a limited view of life rather than a neces- 
 sary fact of existence. This I maintain to be the case in Browning's 
 view of grotesque situations. It is their incomprehensibility, theii; 
 lack of resolution, that makes them grotesque. The grotesque char- 
 acter may be fashioned in Browning's own mind, fashioned from 
 normal elements into abnormal shapes; or it may be "the type in 
 difficulties,"^ a character actually possessing a grotesque nature be- 
 cause of its conflicting elements, a character whose view of life as 
 expressed is necessarily grotesque. 
 
 '^Loc. cit., p. 17. 
 'Bagehot, loc. cit., p. 375. 
 
The Grotesque m Browning's Poetry. 19 
 
 I have said that a .work may be grotesque also as regards its 
 treatment, and in this grotesque treatment of subjects Browtiing 
 again excels. First, as regards mere setting, he is grotesque in the 
 placing of his ugly characters. His view of nature is of an unsym- 
 pathetic nature, a self-existent nature, very often in contrast with 
 man's moods rather than in sympathy with .them. Browning's view 
 of nature is that of a minute observer. His descriptions are those 
 of a naturalist and yet of the impressionist. He sees all the de- 
 tails, but he describes the distinguishing details and the impressive 
 ones. Though nature is to him unsympathetic, or at least uncom- 
 municative, yet it always fits in with the tone of things, sometimes 
 fulfilling its mission by being in harmony with life, sometimes 
 finding its appropriateness in its very lack of harmonyj^ In his de- 
 scriptions of nature as in his descriptions of human life, Browning 
 does not hesitate to show the most loathsome realities and to pic- 
 ture the most disagreeable detailsr\As Mr. Chesterton expresses 
 it, "ISTature may present itself to the poet too often as consisting - 
 of stars and lilies."^ "Men who live in the heart of nature, farmers 
 and peasants, know that nature means cows and piga,'"- Browning 
 was not looking for or expecting all stars and lilies ? he realized the 
 existence and the value of the ugly creatures of the earth, and he 
 appreciated their use in grotesque art, for they are the essence of 
 the grotesque settingyj 
 
 Moreover, Browning's style was peculiarly adapted to his treat- 
 ment of the grotesque. His poetry is rugged, and it had to be 
 rugged to be fitted to its grotesque subjects^ It must be confessed 
 that Browning iised this rugged form naturally even where the 
 more perfected forms would have been more harmonious ; but, never- 
 theless, it was because of the peculiar appropriateness of his natural 
 style to his grotesque pictures that he became the great master of 
 the grotesque. {Browning was much more intent upon saying what 
 he wanted to say than upon his method of saying it; and the 
 forced, rugged style which resulted is appropriate to the partially 
 chaotic nature of the grotesque.) 
 
 At times Browning's style in his grotesque poetry loses its natu- 
 ral ruggedness, substituting an artificial form known as the gro- 
 tesque rhyme^ The forced nature of such rhymes and their utter 
 
 'Chesterton, loc. cit., p. 149. 
 
20 Bulletin of The University of Tfixas. 
 
 lack of sanity seem to me to take them utterly out of the range of 
 art.i 
 
 In the first part of this paper I have given a tentative division of 
 the grotesque into three essential classes: the great or inevitable 
 grotesque, the purely fanciful grotesque, and the merely artificial 
 grotesque. The first class of the grotesque is that in which Brown- 
 ing is master ^and though varying in degrees of greatness and im- 
 portance, the majority of his grotesque poems will be found to come 
 under .this class, the natural grotesque, with its conrilict of ideal and 
 real, its revolts, its picturing of the incomprehensible, and its re- 
 vealing of the shams of life. This grotesque may exist in the gro- 
 tesque of situation alone, but of the poems dealing with only gro- 
 tesque situations I shall treat later.^ 
 
 The most perfect type of this natural grotesque and of the 
 grotesque in general that is to be found in Browning or in our en- 
 tire literature, is, I think, "Caliban Upon Setebos," a poem gro- 
 tesque in situation, character, and treatment. 
 
 "Caliban Upon Setebos" is a dramatic monologue, the art form 
 which is so peculiarly associated with Browning and so peculiarly 
 adapted to his work, the analysis of the soul. The sub-title of the 
 poem, "Natural Theology in the Island," indicates what Browning 
 intended to be its theme, the religion of the natural man, the un- 
 evolved and uncivilized man. Taking the Caliban of Shakespeare's 
 Tempest as a basis. Browning added thought to emotion; intensi- 
 fied even the mere feelings of the first Caliban ; and, by giving him 
 a soul, made perfect both an intellectual picture and a soul analysis. 
 
 The setting of the poem is artistically almost perfect in its 
 placing of Caliban in the midst of nature's most repulsive forms 
 and in its revealing of Caliban's lack of harmony with nature's 
 Euler by his lack of harmony with nature in its larger manifesta- 
 tions. 
 
 Browning's descriptive power is, indeed, never better shown than 
 here in the detailed but impressionistic pictures of 
 
 "Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech ; 
 Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, 
 That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown 
 
 'Of. p. 31, below, where the matter is treated more at length. 
 "Cf. pp. 26-28, below. 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 21 
 
 He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye 
 •By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue 
 That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, 
 And says a plain word when she finds her prize, 
 But will not eat the ants;" etc.^ 
 
 Caliban himself, half-man and half-beast, yet neither man nor 
 beast, one of the cast-ofE creatures, is introduced by a wonderful 
 description : / 
 
 " 'Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is -best, 
 Plat on his belly in the pit's much mire, 
 With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. 
 And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, 
 And feels about his spine small eft-things course. 
 Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh : 
 And while above his head a pompion-plant, 
 Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye. 
 Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard. 
 And now a flower drops with a bee inside. 
 And now a fruit to" snap at, catch and crunch. — 
 He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams' cross 
 And reeross till thpy weave a spider-web 
 ('Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) 
 And talks to his own self, howe'er he please. 
 Touching that other, whom his dam called God."^ 
 
 Yet the description of this creature is not so great as the picture 
 of the unformed soul here given, the soul that has not yet attained 
 to self-consciousness, the soul that only wonders and fears and hates 
 and finds herein its religion. Caliban, it seems to me, represents not 
 only the Darwinian "natural man," the racial man, but also the 
 rugged nature of every soul, and reveals the depths which are never 
 completely civilized, never completely conventionalized. 
 
 The choice of such a grotesque character as Caliban is unusual, 
 but it is powerful. The refinements of civilization must needs pre- 
 vent such revealing of soul-depths, such absolute ruggedness and 
 strength of passionate feeling in a conventional man. It seems 
 
 "•Caliban," lines 46-53. 
 'Hid., lines 1-16. 
 
22 Bulletin of The Universiiy of Texas. 
 
 that here at least Browning's choice of the abnormal is not only 
 justified but necessitated. 
 
 Caliban knows a power to be over him, and he hates this power, 
 the god Setebos. He sees in Him envy, spite, injustice, — qualities 
 not tempered by even the kindnesses which are found in His created 
 beings. Yet Setebos has power, and power alone makes Him god. 
 In Setebos Caliban sees another Caliban made all powerful. He 
 plays with this idea of himself as God, and he curses Setebos. 
 Then, in the midst of his taunts and revilings and terror, he cries, 
 
 "What I hate, be consecrate 
 To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate 
 For Thee ; what see for envy in poor me ?"^ 
 
 seemingly thinking to avert thus the wrath of Setebos; and in this 
 cry the high-water mark of the grotesque is attained. 
 
 There is only one gleam of hope for Caliban, the hope that 
 there may be "the Quiet,'' some power above Setebos who may 
 end Setebos's rule by an eternal, existence of his own. This 
 hope is not to be encouraged, however, for Setebos, the author of 
 evil, must be supreme, else the Creator had made his creatures 
 strong to withstand evil. Yet evil may grow into good, or it may 
 be overcome by good.^ These thoughts go rapidly through Cali- 
 ban's mind. But he is punished. Setebos has heard, and 
 
 "What, what ? A curtain o'er the world at once ! 
 Crickets stop hissing ; not a bird — or, yes. 
 There scuds His raven that hath told Him all ! 
 It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind 
 Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move. 
 And fast invading fires begin ! White blaze— r 
 A tree's head snaps — and, there, there, there, there, there. 
 His thunder f ollovre ! Fool to gibe at Him ! 
 Lo ! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos ! 
 'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip. 
 Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month 
 One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!"" 
 
 '"Caliban," lines 276-278. 
 
 -These ideas are borrowed from Miss E. M. Naish's Browiiing and Dogma, 
 p. 21. 
 '"Caliban," lines 284-295. 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 23 
 
 ■ Surely no greater plea for the power of the grotesque in art can 
 be made than a mere reading of this poem affords, for everything 
 contributes to the horror and to the grim humor of the scene, that 
 humor which is the most terrible part of the grotesque. 
 
 "The Heretic's Tragedy" Sj'mons is inclined to rank even higher 
 than "Caliban" in grotesque poetry/ He says : "If I say that it is 
 perhaps the finest example in English poetry of the pure grotesque, 
 I shall fail to interpret it aright to those who think of the gro- 
 tesque is a synonym for the ugly and debased."^ "Its special 'note' 
 is indescribable, for there is nothing with which we can com- 
 pare it."^ 
 
 We found Professor Schelling describing the grotesque as a re- 
 vival of the mediseval ; . and Browning, the poet of the grotesque, 
 does often turn to the Middle Ages for his subjects. And of his 
 mediaeval poems "The Heretic's Tragedy" is the greatest. It finds 
 its historic origin in the burning of Jacques du Bourg-Molay, the 
 grand master of the order of the Templars. This event of 1314 
 was the culmination of the persecution of the Templars, the order 
 which had been purged by oppression, and whose leaders finally 
 stood as martyrs, persecuted as they themselves had persecuted the 
 Turks. 
 
 "The Heretic's Tragedy," as the author's explanatory note indi- 
 cates, gives a glimpse from the burning of Molay "as distorted by 
 the refraction from Flemish brain to brain, during the course of a 
 couple of centuries." The poem opens with the pre-admonishing 
 of the abbot, then becomes a taunting song from one of the by- 
 standers. The close of each stanza in the poem is marked by the 
 one-line song of the church. The abbot's speech is of infinite mercy 
 and infinite justice. The song of the onlooker is a recounting of 
 Molay's sins, a telling of the grotesquely horrible incidents of his 
 punishment, an exultation over his misery. 
 
 The horror of the burning of this so-called heretic, who had so 
 often condemned other heretics to such a fate, and the taunts of the 
 surrounding crowd, their mockeries and revilings, present a picture 
 of an intensely grotesque nature. The very fact of the judge's 
 being called to judgment, of the persecutor's being brought to per- 
 
 '^Symons, loc. oit., p. 26. 
 'Ibid., p. 102. 
 
24 Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 secution, shows that grim hiimor so characteristic of the grotesque. 
 This horrible humor finds its climax in the description of the 
 martyr's finding of the rose in the service of Him whom he had 
 called the Eose of Sharon : 
 
 "Ha, ha, John plncketh now at his rose 
 
 To rid himself of a sorrow at heart .'. 
 Lo, — ^petal on petal, fierce rays unclose ; 
 
 Anther on anther, sharp spikes outstart; 
 And with blood for dew the bosom boils ; 
 
 And a gust of sulphur is all its smell ; 
 And lo, he is horribly in the toils 
 
 Of a coal-black giant flower of hell !"^ 
 
 A poem showing a slightly different type of the grotesque is 
 found in "Mr. Sludge, 'the Medium.' " Here Browning has shown 
 again his extreme realism, a realism that went to newspaper stories 
 for its materials. In Mr. Sludge is portrayed an existent character, 
 a Mr. Home, whose popularity as a spiritualist medium was raging 
 at the time in which Browning wrote the poem. "Mr. Sludge" is a 
 poem of revolt against the shams of human life rather than a por- 
 trayal of the apparent inconsistencies of the divine rule as is the 
 case in "Caliban" and "The Heretic's Tragedy." The poem I take 
 to be, not an attack on spiritualism or its supporters, but more uni- 
 versally an attack upon human shams and hypocrisies. 
 
 Here again Browning used the form of a dramatic monologue in 
 his work of laying open to our view the soul of Sludge. As in 
 "Caliban," the choice of Sludge as a poetic subject is here gro- 
 tesque in itself, for Sludge in the process of his self-revealment 
 proves a subject not to be chosen by any other poet. 
 
 Browning portrays Mr. Sludge just at the time when his hypoc- 
 risies have been found out and he is being forced into banish- 
 ment. At first Sludge attempts self-justification. He has only 
 done what he has done because it pleases his victims, because by so 
 doing he gives them what they want. They desired falsehood, and 
 he satisfied their desire. But, from a coolly intellectual justifica- 
 tion of his deeds, Sludge is roused to intense passion, the passion 
 of self-defense; and his language becomes wild, his arguments 
 
 ""The Heretic's Tragedy," lines 72-79. 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 25 
 
 unsound. Alternately fawning upon and snarling at his accuser, 
 alternately daring and fearing his discovery, he presents a picture 
 of purely grotesque art. It is at the close of the poem that, as 
 in "Caliban," the sham of it all is' most plainly seen. Sludge, 
 seemingly all resolved into gratitude and love, has let his perse- 
 cutor depart ; hut, the accuser well out of sight. Sludge repents him 
 that he has not himself turned accuser. In a fit of anger he re- 
 veals all the hatred and malice back of his whining and whim- 
 pering, and in chaotic mutterings of anger and vengeance the 
 poem would close, save that in the last lines there is a new turn 
 of thought, a saner thought, which seems merely to say that such 
 is the way of the world and that the thing for Sludge to do is 
 to go elsewhere, not trying to rid the world of one fool, for he 
 would accomplish nothing thus. 
 
 As I have said, t he very choice of Sludge a s a poetic subject is 
 grotesque, and particularly so is the choice of him at a moment 
 when the inconsistencies of his life and reasonings must appear 
 most vividly. The language of Sludge in the poem is at first sane 
 and collected, but as passion conquers him it becomes oftentimes 
 incoherent and in itself grotesque. 
 
 Closely related in subject to "Mr. Sludge, 'the Medium,' " is an- 
 other dramatic monologue, "Bishop Blougram's Apology." In this 
 poem Browning deals again with the sham-life, a life here carried 
 'on by a bishop of the Catholic church. But, nevertheless, the poem 
 is not intended as an attack on any creed any more than was the 
 case in "Mr. Sludge." This poem is rather more satiric in its 
 nature than grotesque, yet, as revealing the same philosophical 
 methods as are observed in others of Browning's more grotesque 
 poems, it may well be included in our study. 
 
 Bishop Blougram, a man of some sixty years of age, is repre- 
 sented in an after-dinner conversation with Mr. G-igadibs, a young 
 man of thirty, in which conversation, the Bishop attempts to jus- 
 tify his own attitude toward the church, whose doctrines he teaches 
 and whose support he receives, while at the same time he does 
 not believe these doctrines. Here is presented a concrete picture 
 of Browning's philosophy, the struggle of realism and idealism, 
 realism in the person of Bishop Blougram justifying itself to 
 idealism in the person of Mr. G-igadibs. It may be noted, too; that 
 
26 Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 realism is represented in the experienced man, idealism in the 
 young man. 
 
 The Bishop argues his cause well. He cannot be other than 
 himself, he says. He cannot be a Napoleon, a Shakespeare, a 
 Luther, or a Strauss, both because he cannot do their work and 
 because there would be no need for a mere repetition of their 
 work if he could do it. He makes here a strong plea for individ- 
 uality, the need and the necessity for it, so often taught by Brown- 
 ing. 
 
 • Further, the Bishop says, absolute belief and absolute unbelief 
 are alike impossible. Only relative faith is possible. Truth itself 
 is but relative. He has faith merely because he has a balance of 
 faith over doubt. And, then, the struggle between faith and doubt 
 is in itself worth something after all: 
 
 "When the fight begins within himself, 
 A man's worth something."^ 
 
 Moreover, considered as a practical matier, this pretense of ab- 
 solute faith is better than revealing the sham of it to those who 
 cannot understand relativity, to those who would make this sham 
 an excuse for less excusable pretenses in their own lives. He is 
 living a useful life as it is; why change? 
 
 Bishop Blougram is utterly incapable of truth for truth's sake, 
 incapable of the struggle for an ideal which cannot be attained. 
 His sin, as Brovming portrays it, is contentment. He is content 
 with such insigjiificant things, — ^mere bodily comfort, friends, cul- 
 ture. To the poet of strife towards an ideal this satisfaction with 
 the attainable is terrible, and the overcoming of the ideal by the 
 real, or at least the utter lack of understanding of the ideal, must 
 have been somewhat grotesque. 
 
 I have said that a poem may be grotesque in situation only; 
 
 and such, it seems to me, is the case in "Eed Cotton Night-Cap 
 
 Country."j Here again Browning has gone to the newspaper for 
 
 his subject and has found it in the story of a Paris ieweler. His 
 
 "ugly realism" again becomes apparent. The story ip, indeed, not 
 
 • 
 ^"Bishop Blougram's Apology," lines 693-694. 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 27 
 
 a pleasing one save in the comparatively direct manner in whicli it 
 is told. 
 
 The sentiment expressed in the three lines near the beginning of 
 the poem indicates its element of the grotesque: 
 
 "Ay, to find 
 Your Eed desiderated article, 
 
 Where every scratch and scrape provokes my White 
 To all the more superb a prominence !"^ 
 
 The red under all the white, the sin under all the appearance 
 of good, the tragedy under all the signs of calm, this is what 
 Browning saw in life, what he embodied in the grotesque, and 
 what he symbolized in "Red Cotton Night-Cap Country." The 
 story of Miranda, ■ the Paris Jeweler, his commonplace existence, 
 his finding of Clara, his love for her enduring even the test of 
 the discovery of her falsehood, takes us to the climax. Miranda, 
 then, knowing that -it is a sin, persists in his love for Clara. The 
 story continues with his quarrel with his mother, her death, his 
 penitence and his attempt at purging his own soul through bodily 
 suffering. But, at the first opportunity, he returns to Clara, find- 
 ing in his love his only happiness and his only fidelity. Yet 
 Clara despises him for his weakness. He is lavish in his attempts 
 to atone for the sin which he yet persists in. At his death, Clara 
 is found as the lawful possessor of his home, and here Browning 
 sees her. 
 
 A mere recounting of the story cannot reveal the awful struggle 
 between love and duty, between sin and its atonement herein pic- 
 tured. The utter horror of the tragic lining of the story thus re- 
 vealed to us by Browning necessitates its going into the realms 
 of the grotesque. The scene of the attempted purification by fire 
 is grotesque in every element. 
 
 Browning has related this story more directly perhaps than any 
 other, and in the very calmness with which he relates it is found 
 an additional grotesque element, — ^repressed passion on the author's 
 part when dealing with unrestrainedly passionate subjects. 
 
 In its sub-title, "Turf and Towers," the poem has its meaning 
 sjrmbolized. The turf is the every-day existence; the towers are 
 
 "'Red Cotton Night-Ca/p Country," I., lines 756-759. 
 
28 Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 those of virtue and truth, observed from the turf, but not often 
 ascended/ Again lie close relation of the real and the ideal, the 
 insuflSciency of the one in the realization of the other, is shown. 
 
 The poems that I have dealt with thus far are only those in- 
 cluded in the first sort of grotesque, the great grotesque. Among 
 the grotesque poems they are most characteristic of Browning's 
 attitude toward life, but the range of his genius was not limited to 
 these; and we now turn to the grotesque poetry of the second 
 class, — the fanciful grotesque. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of the man who wrote so intensely, 
 whose philosophy seemed to actuate his every poetic thought, as 
 one who would wilfully permit his imagination to become mere 
 fancy. Indeed, the only explanation I have been able to find for 
 the existence of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," is the fact that it 
 is a child's story. Yet Browning did adapt himself to this simple 
 style, and with perfect art relate the fanciful story which would 
 appeal to a child's imagination, a man's fancy. 
 
 Though to me a continual character contradiction in Browning, 
 "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" does exist, and to those who, with 
 Euskin, consider the grotesque as a product of the mere play-time 
 of men's minds, it seems the most perfect grotesque written by 
 Browning. Professor Schelling says that Browning did all that 
 it is possible to do for the field of the grotesque when he wrote 
 "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." 
 
 The story is one known to every child, and to the dweller in 
 fairyland it is a very possible story. The Piper, with his humor- 
 ous and yet fear-inspiring character, is certainly fancifuUv gro- 
 tesque. The picture of the mayor and the wise men of the city 
 pondering over the subject of rats is more nearly like Browning 
 than anything else in the poem, and it is distinctly humorous. 
 
 The poem is written very artistically. The first part of it is 
 all humorous, the second part pathetic. And humor and pathos 
 distinguish that second sort of the grotesque which is akin to the 
 picturesque. "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is, as far as I know, 
 the only instance of the fanciful grotesque in Browning. 
 
 ^For this idea I am indebted to the article by Mrs. A. Orr referred to 
 in the "Bibliography." 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 29 
 
 There are in Browning, however, two' good examples of the 
 grotesque that borders upon chaos, the artificial grotesque. These 
 are "Pacchiarotto" and "Holy-Cross Day," the latter possessing 
 many of the characteristics of the great grotesque. 
 
 "Holy-Cross Day" gives the picture of the Jews on the occasion 
 of their forced weekly attendance upon Christian services. The 
 story being laid in the Me Middle Ages, the poem furnishes us 
 another example of grotesque mediaeval poetry in Browning. 
 
 The poem is merely a half-chaotic murniuring from the Jews 
 against this practice, which enforced hypocrisy among them. At 
 first a mere muttering against their condition, it becomes a defi- 
 nite reviling of the Bishop, then a tracing of the sufferings of the 
 Jews at the hands of the Christians; and finally it expresses a hope 
 that the chosen people are not utterly forsaken by their Lord 
 because of their sins. After all, the Jews "would wrest Christ's 
 name from the Devil's crew."^ 
 
 In its opening the poem shows its excessively grotesque nature : 
 
 "Few, faw, fum! bubble and squeak! 
 Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week. 
 Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough. 
 Stinking and savory, smug and gruff. 
 Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime 
 Gives us. the summons — ^'tis sermon-time !"^ 
 
 The meaning of the summons to church is almost hiddeiKJn the 
 unmeaning chaos of words. Yet this very jumble of words oOes 
 give an impression of the hurrying, pushing, muttering crowd. 
 
 The artificial grotesque, however, finds its most distinctive ex- 
 pression in Browning in "Pacchiarotto" rather than in "Holy- 
 Cross Day." "Pacchiarotto" is the title given to a collection of 
 poems which is grotesque in its very combination of subjects and in 
 its passing from boisterous humor and satire to lyrical verse. The 
 collection contains several poems which are perhaps more con- 
 fessedly subjective than any found elsewhere in Browning. 
 
 The prologue to the collection is a lyric, which, though not 
 
 '"Holy-Cross Day," line 116. 
 ^Ilid., stanza 1. 
 
30 Bullet in of The University of Texas. 
 
 ranking as grotesque poetry, is yet here important as throwing 
 light upon Browning's philosoph)'. It seems to signify that life's 
 meaning is found in the spiritual nature, which gives form and 
 expression to the material world. The pre-eminence of the spirit- 
 ual and its power over matter, in which it finds its revelation, 
 are doctrines underlying Browning's faith, and tenets which are 
 continually finding expression in his poetry. 
 
 Though this prologue and many of the poems in the collection 
 are not to be ranked as grotesque poetry, the impression derived 
 from "Pacchiarotto" as a whole, is the most decidedly grotesque 
 in Browning. A careful study reveals the fact that this impres- 
 sion finds its only basis in the mingling of unconnected thoughts 
 and in the one poem "Of Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in 
 Distemper." The effect is, to a great extent, caused by the mere 
 subjects of the poems, however. The combinaiion of such titles 
 as "Of Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper," "Shop," 
 "Bifurcation," "Xumpholeptos," etc., is rather disheartening to the 
 prospective reader; and, by the time the first poem is read, an in- 
 delible impression of grotesqueness is made for the entire collec- 
 tion. 
 
 "Of Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper," the first 
 poem in the collection, is utterly chaotic. Many readings serve 
 only to bring a little more definite sense of why the chaos exists, 
 but do not effect a resolution. Beginning with the tale of Pac- 
 chiarotto, the painter who chose to build a grotto for his studio — 
 I suppose because grotto gave opportunity for another grotesque 
 rhyme — the poem relates first the artisfs theory: 
 
 "This Painter was of opinion 
 Our earth should be his dominion 
 Whose Art could correct to pattern 
 What Nature had slurred — the slattern!"' 
 
 In disconnected fashion the poem relates Pacchiarotto's joining 
 the club of Spare Horses, his proposed schemes, their ungrateful 
 reception, and his own experience in the dungeon, whence he had 
 escaped. Then generalizing, Browning finally turns to the sub- 
 ject of his own apparently unwelcome critics, who, attempting to 
 
 '"Pacchiariotto," lines 20-23. 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 31 
 
 act as chimney-sweeps, really bring more filth into the house than 
 they take out of it. The poem becomes even more boisterous and 
 more grotesque than before in its absurd characterization of these 
 critics. 
 
 The poem is decidedly not good grotesque. It seems to say much 
 where there is nothing to say, and to say that much wildly^ so that 
 the general impression is of an almost insane mind producing it. 
 Even more than in the actual content of the poem, the grotesque 
 element is manifested in its impossible style. Chesterton says that 
 Browning "had a capacity for becoming perfectly childish in his 
 indulgence in ingenuities that have nothing to do with poetry at 
 all, such as puns, and rhymes, and grammatical structures that 
 only just fit into each other like a Chinese puzzle."^ Certainly in 
 no other poem has the poet made so evident this half-demented 
 ingenuity as in "Pacchiarotto." 
 
 The use of grotesque rhymes is the most conspicious element in 
 the style. The entire poem is composed of grotesquely rhjrmed 
 couplets with an occasional variation of three-line groups, such as 
 
 "Confutation of vassal for prince meet — 
 Wherein all the powers that convince meet, 
 And mash my opponent to mincemeat !"^ 
 
 For the sake of such rhymes any sacrifice of sense is made. The 
 meaning of the poem is further obscured by the use of foreign 
 terms merely for rhyme's sake. Indeed, the poem gives an impres- 
 sion of having been strung together from any phrases happening 
 to occur to the author, with merely one purpose — grotesque rhyme. 
 
 This h^lf-demented rhyming of Browning is not confined to 
 "Pacchiarotto," however, for even in his most serious poems the 
 tendency is revealed. There the odd rhymes are even more out of 
 place than here, where sensible rhyme could scarcely redeem the 
 poem. 
 
 "Pacchiarotto" does contain some excellent satiric epithets and 
 a few sensible lines, but the utter artificiality of the whole is un- 
 questioned when we consider such lines as : 
 
 '•Chesterton, loc. cit., p. 1.52. 
 "'Pacchiarotto," lines 120-122. 
 
32 Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 " 'If you pounce on and poke out, with what pole 
 I leave ye to fancy, our Siena's 
 Beast-litter of sloths and hyenas' — 
 (Whoever to scan this is ill able 
 Forgets the town's name's a disyllable) ;"^ 
 
 or as: 
 
 "You Tommy-maTce-room-for-your-Vncle us ! 
 Troop, of all you — man or homunculus."^ 
 
 Having looked at the grotesque poems of Browning separately, 
 let us now see whither they lead us in an estimate of Browning as 
 the poet of the grotesque. 
 
 We have seen that he treated all phases of the grotesque. First 
 we find him, in "Caliban," "The Heretic's Tragedy," "Mr. Sludge," 
 "Bishop Blougram," and "Eed Cotton Night-Cap Country," as he 
 sees the tragedies of life, its inconsistencies, its shams, and em- 
 bodies all these in concrete pictures, great pictures of the grotesque. 
 Then we find him, in "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," allowing his 
 fancy free play in the creation of a child's story, a story which is 
 simply picturesquely ugly instead of picturesquely beautiful. Fi- 
 nally we find him, in "Holy-Cross Day" and "Pacchiarotto," pro- 
 ducing the artificial grotesque. 
 
 In this study we discover that a momentary pessimism is ob- 
 servable. The tragedy of life seemed at times to oppress Browning ; 
 the uselessness of life's tragedies seemed to come powerfully over 
 him. He tried to find out how this tragedy could be useful. He 
 tried to attain the incomprehensible and to know the reason for the 
 existence of the facts. But he could not. Then he gave himself 
 to the picturing of the grotesque, to the revealing of the unknow- 
 able, to the depicting of the revolt against God and man and nature 
 which he observed in others and with which he sympathized. The 
 grotesque, indeed, seems necessarily to involve momentary pessi- 
 mism. In Browning it is not an ultimate one, but merely presents 
 one side of the soul conflict which finds its victory in optimism. 
 This conflict is a necessity to a true optimism, and in this most 
 triumphantly optimistic of our poets we flnd the greatest conflict. 
 
 '"Pacchiarotto," lines 267-271. 
 niid., lines 519-520. 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 33 
 
 This conflict, as has been implicitly stated, is the result of a 
 powerful intellectuality in Browning. The intellectual element is 
 present in every one of his poems. His faith is not a mere emo- 
 tional attitude; jtjs of ten rathe r a reasoned belief. Love is the 
 greatest thing inThe~worIcl to him because through it^'a nature finds 
 its complement, whereby it is made perfect. Eeligion, even, takes 
 shape for him through intellectual conflict. 
 
 Now, the result of this intellectuality in Browning is that all of 
 his work has a deeply thoughtful foundation, and that in much of 
 his poetry the intellectual element predominates over the emo- 
 tionaL Indeed, it is in this very predominance of the intellectuaT 
 thaTBrowning's poetry as poetry finds one of its limitations. 
 
 The poet of the intellectual is the only one who can attempt the 
 treatment of the grotesque. He is, indeed, the only one to whom 
 the greatest grotesque is possible. It is, therefore, natural that the 
 greatest poet of conflict should be the poet of the grotesque, for the 
 grotesque is a product of the intellect. Miss E. M. ISTaish, in her 
 Browning and Dogma/ has emphasized this fact in her discussion 
 of ''Caliban." She says : "The attraction peculiar to the grotesque 
 in any form is here present in a marked degree : an attraction fre- 
 quently stronger than that exerted by the purely beautiful, involv- 
 ing as it does a more direct intellectual appeal ; since grotesqueness, 
 whether in Nature or in Art, does not usually denote simplicity." 
 
 Thus far in our study we have considered Browning as the poet 
 of conflict, of conflict between the subjective and the objective, the 
 real and the ideal, the optimistic and the pessimistic, the intellect- 
 ual and the emotional. In that he was the poet of this conflict we 
 have found him the poet of the grotesque. We have found that this 
 conflict was the source o!f his greatness. A close study will further 
 show, I think, that this conflict was also the source of his limita- 
 tions. 
 
 Browning's viewpoint was evidently a broad one. He included 
 in his poetry the lowliest and ugliest of characters and the most hor- 
 rible of situations. Yet the conflict of idealism and realism 
 brought to Browning from this very breadth a tendency to idealize 
 the real. As a result, it seems to me, Browning is prone to do just 
 what the realist most often does. In his attempt at justice he be- 
 comes unjust; in his attempted breadth of view he becomes narrow. 
 
 ^P. 11. 
 
34 BnUefin of The University of Texas. 
 
 Browning took the facts of life for his subjects, and he included 
 even the ugly facts ; but the question arises, Did he not neglect the 
 common-place things, which, after all, constitute reality? In sound- 
 ing the depths and ascending the heights of the soul he gained 
 breadth of view, but did he not in this fail in a comprehensive 
 view ? Did he not unduly accentuat p thpsp dppt.hg and heights t o 
 which few can penetr ate? And may not this be the caiise of the 
 lack of universality in Browning? 
 
 Furthermore, this tendency to idealize and generalize from ex- 
 treme realities, not only limits the comprehensive view, but to a 
 certain extent it makes it untrue. Eealism itself is inclined to gen- 
 eralize from abnormal facts. Eealistic novels always have unsatis- 
 factory endings, while in real life things do not always turn out 
 wrong. In this the so-called realism is unreal. Browning chose 
 the abnormal and the neglected, and truly portrayed them ; but they 
 are merely individuals, not types. He has, therefore, chosen the 
 less significant facts and has given them the significance due only 
 ^ generalities. Accordingly, in his treatment of the grotesque. 
 Browning has often made the abnormal seem the normal, facts 
 seem generalized truths, and hence unreal things seem realities. 
 
 I have said that Browning was the poet of thought. To express 
 his thoughts he had to fight for words. It was as though his ideas 
 were enveloped in words, through which they tried to find expres- 
 sion. They tried one way, then went back and tried another, and, 
 not yet finding adequate expression, explanations and parentheses 
 had to be resorted to. The resulting style is peculiarly adapted to 
 the grotesque; and, by the accident of its suitability, it enhanced 
 the value of Browning's grotesque poetry. 
 
 Yet in all Browniug was a conscious poet, conscious in his choice 
 of subjects, conscious in his style, and conscious of the conflicting 
 elements of his nature. He believed in the artistic possibilities of 
 all nature's objects. He knew his own half-subjective, half-objec- 
 tive method. He knew his own struggle with pessimism, and he 
 recognized his triumphant optimism. 
 
 Therefore, Browning as the poet of the grotesque becomes the 
 man who is not afraid to face reality and to fight out his own soul- 
 battles : the philosopher who bases his view of life upon an obser- 
 vation of the ugly as well as of the beautiful ; and finally the poet 
 who discovers new ways of interpreting life, of elevating the de- 
 based. Thus he fulfills tlie two-fold mission of a poet, that of the 
 priest and that of the prophet.j 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE ARTISTIC POSSIBILITIES OE THE GKOTESQUE. 
 
 The discussion of the artistic possibilities of the grotesque can be 
 only an arbitrary one, as it is scarcely possible for a student defi- 
 nitely to solve a problem which has so long been the subject of dis- 
 cussion among the greatest philosophers and critics. I shall not 
 here even attempt to bring together the varying theories of art or 
 definitions of art; I merely wish to note three of the tendencies^ 
 which seem to me to be evident in present-day criticism. 
 
 First, it seems to me that there is evident a decided tendency to 
 enlarge the field of what we call the beautiful to include at least 
 the rugged. Such a tendency Bosanquet has definitely pointed out, 
 his statement having been given in the first part of this paper.^ 
 
 Secondly, art definitions seem to point toward truth rather than 
 mere beauty as the criterion of art. Matthew Arnold's oft-quoted 
 dictum, "Poetry is at bottom a criticism of life," illustrates this 
 tendency. 
 
 Thirdly, modern scientific methods are being applied to criticism ; 
 and, instead of judging the artistic value of literary works accord- 
 ing as they conform to arbitrarily fixed theories of art, these theo- 
 ries are now being constructed from a basis of facts. Accordingly, 
 theories of art are being broadened to admit new subjects for art. 
 
 'Now, it is vrith these present-day tendencies of art criticism that 
 the place of the grotesque in art becomes a living question. Until 
 this time, and even now to some extent, the ugly has been excluded 
 as a subject for art. With the growth of the new trend in criticism, 
 however, this cannot long be the case. The ligly is existent, and its 
 portrayal is the portrayal of truth. Furthermore, the ugly, when 
 greatly conceived, enters the realm of beauty under the new idea 
 of beauty — or the larger thing for which we have no other name 
 than beauty — for it becomes the rugged. Finally, the test of 
 whether the ugly should come in the realm of art is found in the 
 masterpieces of art which are yet essentially ugly, such as the statue 
 of the Laocoon and the drama of Prometheus Bound. 
 
 'See p. 9j above. 
 
36 Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 However, the place of the ugly in art, if determined, would not 
 fix the grotesque in art, for the grotesque, as we have seen, mingles 
 the comic and the ugly; is akin to the sublime in its imaginative 
 nature and to the picturesque in its fanciful nature. The gro- 
 tesque in its greatest form arises from the artisf s inability to com- 
 prehend his subject sufficiently to adapt it to the laws of his art. 
 The second class of the grotesque springs from the playing of fancy 
 among nature's possibilities, constructing from them probabilities 
 which, though not very significant, yet possess a distinct fascina- 
 tion. The third class of the grotesque is artificial chaos. 
 
 Xow, art seems in every case to make three demands: freedom, 
 order, and truth. What reply the grotesque makes to these de- 
 mands is yet undecided. 
 
 There is in the grotesque freedom and yet a certain restraint. 
 In the first class of the grotesque there is freedom of imagination, 
 a freedom only restricted because of the limitations of the imagi- 
 nation. In the fanciful grotesque there is a subjective restraint of 
 the fancy, but no external restraint. In the third class, the arti- 
 ficial grotesque, the imagination is forced, and a conscious chaos 
 is the result. 
 
 As to the demand for order, at first glance it may seem that the 
 grotesque is unordered from its very nature. The third kind of 
 the grotesque is, indeed, chaotic, and its expression often inarticu- 
 late. The imaginative grotesque, however, glimpses the chaos be- 
 yond, and though in itself half-chaotic, is yet ordered sufficiently 
 to be expressed in meaningful language. The fanciful grotesque, 
 finding its restraint subjective, is necessarily more ordered than 
 either of the other kinds of the grotesque. Although the grotesque, 
 then, can never attain or approximate absolute order, unless com- 
 plete order is made the criterion of art the first two kinds of the 
 grotesque may in some manner be included as art. 
 
 Finally, we see the ultimate demand of art coming more and 
 more to consist in truth, and in its truth must the grotesque find 
 its ultimate test as an enduring art form. Xow, the imaginative 
 grotesque portrays the failure to comprehend facts, yet this in it- 
 self is reality, for they are facts which, though unresolved in their 
 conflict, yet tend toward universal truth in a future resolution 
 made possible by their portrayal. The fanciful grotesque is so 
 nearly akin to the picturesque that we are apt to take it as art 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 37 
 
 without questioning it. Eosenkranz says that we limit our ideas 
 of beauty to little things ; and this may be our reason for consider- 
 ing all little things artistic. Neither the picturesque nor the 
 grotesque portrays great truths nor constitutes great art, yet, if 
 the one is classed as art, the other must be so classed, too. The 
 artificial grotesque, however, in its very nature is unable to portray 
 truth that arises from any ordering of facts. 
 
 As we have seen, grotesque art is limited on the side of compre- 
 hension and on the side of ultimate truthfulness. It deals with 
 the characters and incidents of the very borderland of the known. 
 It omits the broader and saner truths which the more comprehen- 
 sive art presents, and in its undue accentuation of minor truths 
 and abnormal facts, it fails to embody the truth which is necessary 
 to a great interpretation. 
 
 I may, then, summarize these tentative conclusions. Art tends 
 more and more to depend for its criteria on freedom, order, and 
 truth. The ugly must consequently be classed as material for art, 
 and both the imaginative grotesque and the fanciful grotesque 
 may be so classed. However, whether the grotesque in reality is 
 the subject of art can be detennined only by a practical test, and 
 for this test we must turn to the poet of the grotesque, Eobert 
 Browning. 
 
 The Browning student, I imagine, is accustomed to think of 
 "Caliban," "The Heretic's Tragedy," and others of the first kind 
 of the grotesque poems as great, and generally as great art. And, 
 indeed, if great conceptions finding expression in a great nature 
 make art, these poems are art. 
 
 The fanciful grotesque finds its only illustration in Browning 
 in "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." This poem, is regarded as the 
 typical artistic expression of the grotesque by almost all Browning 
 critics. Even in the essays of Bagehot and Professor Schelling 
 this poem is referred to as the nearest approach to art. The poem 
 is one which we are not accustomed to regard as great art but 
 which unconsciously we class with the picturesque as art. 
 
 "Holy-'Cross Day" and parts of "Pacchiarotto," the reader 
 first and last finds chaotic, and these he leaves out of his consider- 
 ation of art. 
 
 What, then, did Browning do for the grotesque? He discov- 
 
38 Bulletin of The University of Tsxas. 
 
 ered the grotesque as a poetic form. His own straining, intent 
 intellect created unconsciously the imaginative grotesque, and he 
 made it the great grotesque by the force of his great mind. 
 
 Yet the grotesque as seen in Browning seems but to reveal its 
 possibilities. Grotesque-art and the art of the grotesque have not 
 reached their acme. For this reason, I have said that Browning 
 is not only the poet but also the pjophet of the grotesque. 
 
BIBLIOGEAPHY. 
 
 I. Text Used. 
 
 Porter, Charlotte, and Clarke, Helen A. Complete Poetical 
 Works of Bohert Browning, "Camberwell Edition," 12 vols., T. Y. 
 Crowell and Company, New York, 1898. 
 
 II. WorJcs Consulted. 
 
 Alexander, W. J. Introduction to the Poetry of Robert Brown- 
 ing, Ginn and Company, Boston, 1889. 
 
 Ames, Charles Gordon. "Caliban upon Setebos," in Boston 
 Browning Society Papers, pp. 67-83, The Macmillam Company, 
 New York, 1900. 
 
 ""I^Bagehot, Walter. "Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning, or 
 Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in Poetry," in his Literary 
 Studies, vol. II., Longmans, Green, and Company, London, 1891. 
 
 Beatty, Arthur. Browning's Verse-Form: Its Organic Charac- 
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 Berdoe, Edward. Browning and the Christian Faith, George 
 Allen, London, 1899. 
 
 Bosanquet,^ Bernard. "The Esthetic Theory of Ugliness," in 
 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1888-1891, vol.' I., No. 3, 
 Part I., Williams and Norgarte, London, 1891. 
 
 Bosanquet,^ Bernard. History of ^Esthetic, Swan Sonnensehein 
 and Company, London, Maemillan and Company, New York, 1892. 
 
 Brooke, Stopford A. The Poetry of Robert Browning, T. Y. 
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 Chesterton, G. K. Robert Browning, The Maemillan Company, 
 New York, 1903. 
 
 Cooke, G. W. Guide Boole to the Poetic and Dramatic Worhs 
 of Robert Browning, Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, Boston, 
 1901. 
 
 Corson, Hiram. Introduction to the Study of Robert Brown- 
 ing's Poetry, D. C. Heath and Company, Boston, 1900. 
 
 Dowden, Edward. Robert Browning, J. M. Dent and Company, 
 London, 1904. 
 
40 Bulletin of The University of Texas. 
 
 Fotheringliaiii, James. Studies of the Mind and Art of Robert 
 Browning, third edition, Horace ilarshall and Son, London, 1900. 
 
 Gayler, C. M., and Scott, F. X. Methods and Materials of 
 Literary Criticism, Ginn and Companj', Boston, 1899. 
 
 Harford, C. H. Robert Browning, Dodd, :Mead, and Company, 
 Xew York, 1905. 
 
 Jones, Henry. Browning as a Philosophical and Religious 
 Teacher, James Maclehose and Sons, Glasgow, 1899. 
 
 Kingsland, W. G. Robert Browning, Chief Poet of the Age, 
 London, 1887. 
 
 Morrison, J. C. '"Caliban npon Setebos," in London Browning 
 Society Papers, vol. v., 1881-1884, pp. 389-399. 
 
 Xaish, Ethel il. Browning and Dogma, George Bell and Sons, 
 London, 1906. 
 
 Xettleship, J. T. Robert Browning: Essays and Thoughts, 
 John Lane, London and Xew York, 1901. 
 
 Orr, ;Mrs. A. (Mrs. Sutherland Orr). "Essay on 'Eed Cotton 
 Xight-Cap Country,' " in Contemporary Review, vol. 22, 1873. 
 
 Orr, ^Irs. Sutherland. Handbook to the Worhs of Robert 
 Browning, fifth edition, George Bell and Sons, London, 1890. 
 
 Eenan, Ernest. "Caliban," in his Drames Philosophiques, Cal- 
 mann Levy, Paris, 1888. 
 
 Eosenkranz, J. K. F. ^sthetih des Haesslichen, Koenigsberg, 
 18.53. 
 
 Buskin,' John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture, John Wiley 
 and Sons, Xew York, 1885. 
 
 Ruskin,* John. The Stones of Venice, John Wiley and Sons, 
 Xew York, 1885. 
 
 Saintsbury, George. A History of Criticism, three vols., Dodd, 
 Mead, and Company, New York, 1900-1904. 
 
 "^ Santayana,' George. "Barbarism in Poetry: Browning and 
 Whitman," in his Interpretations of Religion and Poetry, Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, Xew York, 1900. 
 
 Santayana,^ George. The Sense of Beauty, Charles Scribner's 
 Sons, New York, 1905. 
 
 „,- Schelling, Felix E. 'TRobert Browning and the Arabesque in 
 Art," in Two Essays on Robert Browning, Philadelphia, 1890. 
 
 Scudder, Vida D. "Browning as a Humorist," in her The Life 
 
The Grotesque in Browning's Poetry. 41 
 
 of the Spirit in Modern English Poetry, Houghton, Mifflin, and 
 Company, Boston, 1895. 
 
 Sharp, William. Life of Robert Browning, Walter Seott, Lon- 
 don, 1890. 
 
 Stedman, E. C. The Nature and Elements of Poetry, Hough- 
 ton, ^lifflin, and Company, Boston, 1893. 
 
 Symons, Arthur. Introduction to the Study of Browning, Cas- 
 sell and Company, London, 1897. 
 
 Winchester, C. T. Some Principles of Literary Criticism, The 
 Macmillan Company, New York, 1900. 
 
 Wright, Thomas. A History of Caricature and Grotesque in 
 Literature and Art, Chatto and Windus, London, 1875. 
 
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