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dramatic and objective poet; more importantly, in this same poem, Browning seems to identify himself with Shakespeare completely. As John Maynard points out, “on the rare occasions when he used a poet as an image for himself,” such as the poem “House,” it was “Shakespeare, not Shelley, with whom Browning would identify” (Maynard 1977:232). As Browning successfully redefines himself as the objective poet, relinquishing in his retreat the ambitions of the Romantic, subjective poet who wants to supplant Shakespeare as a literary authority, he achieves greater resemblance to Shakespeare and greater authority.

In “House’’ (1876), Browning denounces subjective poetry such as that of the Romantics, while maintaining a poet’s right to privacy. Although James F.Loucks detects in this poem a “rather shrill defense of the author’s right to privacy” (1979:n. 1, 415), the poem, instead, emphasizes Browning’s choice of Shakespeare as his poetic model at the expense of his Shelleyan connection; this alignment would culminate in Browning’s refusal to preside over F.J.Furnivall’s Shelley Society and his willingness to accept the presidency of the New Shakspere [sic] Society.

The idea that a house could provide allegedly important clues about the author’s state of mind finds its comically exaggerated conclusion in Browning’s poem. Employing the image of the open house on display for all to see, Browning asks:

Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?

Do I live in a house you would like to see?

Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?

“Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?”

(Browning 1997:ll. 1–4)

In the last line of this first stanza, Browning paraphrases Wordsworth’s poem, “Scorn not the Sonnet,” which chastises those critics who have “frowned” on the sonnet form, “mindless of its just honours” (Wordsworth 1917:1. 2). Yet Wordsworth, like many Romantic poets, believed that the sonnet was the “key” with which “Shakespeare unlocked his heart” (l. 2–3). In “House,” however, Browning continues to resist the pull of confessional poetry, wondering whether he should “[i]nvite the world, as [his] betters have done” to view his “private apartment and bedroom too” (Browning 1997:507, ll. 5, 8). “No,” he responds, “thanking the public, [he] must decline” (ll. 9–10). While he may grant “a peep through [his] window, if folk prefer,” Browning pleads for his privacy: “But,

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