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against his will. At the same time, however, Browning competes with Shakespeare: if Caliban is as much a philosopher as Prospero, then perhaps Browning, the poet whose empathy transforms Caliban into an intelligent being, is superior to Shakespeare in his understanding. In this way, Browning also insists on his “genius,” the hallmark of the “subjective” poet. Although intellectually Browning is committing himself to dramatic poetry, the influence of the same Romantic models that inform Bloom’s account of literary influence have their place in Browning’s relation to Shakespeare.

III The Shakespeareanization of Robert Browning

Although a somewhat muted reception greeted “Childe Roland” and the other poems collected in Men and Women (1855), a shift in critical response demonstrates Browning’s successful appropriation of Shakespeare and his cultural authority. Following the publication of Men and Women, Browning’s name was often evoked with Shakespeare’s by the critics as well as by Browning himself. Some critics even began to equate Browning’s art with Shakespeare’s. Defending Browning against the charge of “obscurity,” William Morris writes:

Now, I know well enough what [the critics] mean by ‘‘obscure”, and I know also that they use the word wrongly; meaning difficult to understand fully at first reading, or, say at second reading, even: yet, taken so, in what cloud of obscurity would “Hamlet” be!

(1856:172)

Morris, defending Browning’s alleged obscurity by yoking it with the “obscurity” of the author of Hamlet, establishes the movement to Shakespeareanize Browning.

In private, Browning also positioned himself as a misunderstood artist, an heir to other complex artists such as the creator of Hamlet. In a letter to John Ruskin (Dec. 10, 1855), Browning first defends his lack of critical acclaim, stating, “A poet’s affair is with God, —to whom he is accountable, and of whom is his reward; look elsewhere and you find misery enough” (cited in Woolford and Karlin 1996: 258). Then Browning participates in his own Shakespeareanization:

Do you believe people understand Hamlet? The last time I saw it acted, the heartiest applause of the night went to a little by-play of the actor’s own—who, to simulate madness in a hurry, plucked

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