Robert Browning's Language

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and a
poet. He is the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

Donald Hair approaches Browning with insights governed by extensive
scholarship. He has an excellent understanding of the sources of
Browning’s ideas about language, and he shows how they were put into
practice in the poems. His study, which includes discussions of
unfamiliar poems as well as famous ones, shows that Browning was
influenced by the empiricist thinking of John Locke, who influenced Dr.
Johnson’s dictionary, one of the poet’s favorite works. The
empirical philosophical tradition may account for the concreteness of
the poetry. Hair’s discussion of rhyme is outstanding and employs
musical terminology to explain Browning’s practices. He is also
interested in Browning’s use of translations (often associated with a
framed narrative).

This learned and astute book ends with a charming statement: “My
conclusions are only interpretations, ready to be interpreted in turn,
and judged.” The references appear in the form of footnotes rather
than a bibliography, which is a drawback.