Frasi di Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Data di nascita: 7. Maggio 1812
Data di morte: 12. Dicembre 1889
Robert Browning è stato un poeta e drammaturgo britannico, la cui grande abilità con i componimenti drammatici, soprattutto monologhi drammatici, lo ha reso uno dei più importanti poeti della letteratura vittoriana. Wikipedia
Frasi Robert Browning
„As if true pride
Were not also humble!“
In an Album.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
„But, gathering in its ancient market-place,
Talked group with restless group; and not a face
But wrath made livid, for among them were
Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care
To feast him. Fear had long since taken root
In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,
The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way
It worked while each grew drunk! men grave and grey
Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro.
Letting the silent luxury trickle slow
About the hollows where a heart should be;
But the young gulped with a delirious glee
Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood
At the fierce news“
— Robert Browning, libro Sordello
Book the First
Sordello (1840)
„Say not "a small event!"“
— Robert Browning, Pippa Passes
Why "small"?
Costs it more pain that this ye call
A "great event" should come to pass
From that? Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!
Introduction.
Pippa Passes (1841)
„I do what many dream of, all their lives,
— Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive — you don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat —
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.“
— Robert Browning, Men and Women
"Andrea del Sarto", line 70
"Less is more" is often misattributed to architects Buckminster Fuller or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It is something of a motto for minimalist philosophy. It was used in 1774 by Christoph Martin Wieland.
Men and Women (1855)
„That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,—
His hundred's soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.“
— Robert Browning, Men and Women
"A Grammarian's Funeral", line 115.
Men and Women (1855)
„Forgive me this digression — that I stand
Entranced awhile at Law's first beam, outbreak
O' the business, when the Count's good angel bade
"Put up thy sword, born enemy to the ear,
"And let Law listen to thy difference!"“
— Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book
And Law does listen and compose the strife,
Settle the suit, how wisely and how well!
On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault,
Law bends a brow maternally severe,
Implies the worth of perfect chastity,
By fancying the flaw she cannot find.
Book IX : Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)
„Deeds let escape are never to be done.“
— Robert Browning, libro Sordello
Book the Third
Sordello (1840)
„I find earth not gray but rosy;
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.“
"At the 'Mermaid'"(1876).
Contesto: I find earth not gray but rosy;
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All's blue.
„Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.“
— Robert Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra
Origine: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 12.
Contesto: Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men.
„Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.“
— Robert Browning, Men and Women
"Andrea del Sarto", line 70
"Less is more" is often misattributed to architects Buckminster Fuller or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It is something of a motto for minimalist philosophy. It was used in 1774 by Christoph Martin Wieland.
Men and Women (1855)
Contesto: I do what many dream of, all their lives,
— Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive — you don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat —
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.
„Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!“
— Robert Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra
Origine: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 12.
Contesto: Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men.
„Let us cry, "All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"“
— Robert Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra
Origine: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 70.
„Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats“
— Robert Browning, The Pied Piper of Hamelin
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, line 10 (1842).
Contesto: Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.
„Life’s business being just the terrible choice.“
— Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book
Book X: The Pope.<!-- line 1235 -->
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)
Contesto: White shall not neutralize the black, nor good
Compensate bad in man, absolve him so:
Life’s business being just the terrible choice.
„Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.“
"At the 'Mermaid'"(1876) <!-- line 72 - 80 -->
Contesto: Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I save and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.
„Each a God's germ, but doomed remain a germ
In unexpanded infancy“
— Robert Browning, libro Sordello
Book the Third
Sordello (1840)
