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Page 151 forth his handkerchief and flourished it hither and thither: certainly a third of the play, with no end of noble things, had been (as from time immemorial) suppressed, with the auditory’s amplest acquiescence and benediction. (258) Thus, Browning, as well as critics such as Morris, begins to position the poet as a Victorian Shakespeare—objective, dramatic, and, like Shakespeare, difficult to comprehend on occasion. In favorable reviews, poems such as “Caliban” were used to demonstrate Browning’s relationship to Shakespeare. The Athenaeum, which had not exactly been Browning’s ally in the past, wrote that “Caliban” is a “striking example” of Browning’s creativity. The writer adds that the “revelation of what Caliban ‘thinketh’ would have delighted Shakespeare himself, who would have been the first to have acknowledged that it faithfully represented the inner man of his original creation” (The Athenaeum 1864:766). The reviewer concludes that “only a great dramatic poet could have written this poem’’ (766). Twenty-six years later, Oscar Wilde fashions a similar connection between Browning and Shakespeare. He claims that from “ignoble clay” Browning created “men and women that live,” concluding that Browning “is the most Shakespearian creature since Shakespeare” (Wilde 1890:127) and “from the point of view of a creator of character [Browning] ranks next to him who made Hamlet” (127). Unlike Shelley, Browning writes dramatically about real “men and women.” In his irrepressible manner, Wilde adds: “If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips, Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths” (127). The equation between Browning and Shakespeare confirms Browning’s successful positioning of himself in the Shakespearean poetic line. Ironically, the private Browning began to chafe at the invasion of privacy brought on by the enormity of his success, an accomplishment due in great measure to his Shakespearean appropriation. In the poem “House” we see Browning’s new use of Shakespeare, this time to defend rather than to extend his public image. The publication of Dramatis Personae was deliberately delayed for a year as his other works continued to sell (Litzinger and Smalley 1970:17). It appears that Browning, like many artists, desired the recognition of others, but disdained the attendant celebrity. In one of his last appropriations of Shakespeare, Browning returns to the theme of the “Essay on Shelley,” arguing that Shakespeare is the central |
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