Excerpt: ...or poetry, in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit." Yet Browning had never seen Rome until a few months before this poem was published. It is an example, not of careful study, but of the inexplicable divination of genius. Browning permits a delirious old Bishop to talk a few lines, and a whole period of history is written. The church of Saint Prassede is in a dirty little alley in Rome, hard by the great church of Saint Maria Maggiore. You push through the group of filthy, ...
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Excerpt: ...or poetry, in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit." Yet Browning had never seen Rome until a few months before this poem was published. It is an example, not of careful study, but of the inexplicable divination of genius. Browning permits a delirious old Bishop to talk a few lines, and a whole period of history is written. The church of Saint Prassede is in a dirty little alley in Rome, hard by the great church of Saint Maria Maggiore. You push through the group of filthy, importunate beggars, open a leather door, and you drop from the twentieth to the sixteenth century. It is one of the most ornate churches in Rome; the mosaic angels in the choir are precisely as the poet describes them. The tomb of the imaginary Gandolf may be identified with a Bishop's tomb on the south side of the church, and the Latin inscription under it, while it does not contain the form "elucescebat," is not pure Tully, but rather belongs to the Latin of Ulpian's time. The recumbent figure is in exact accord with the description by Browning. Skeptics are essential to the welfare of the Church; it is only in periods of sharp, skilful hostility that the Church becomes pure. In the Middle Ages, when it ran riot with power, there were plenty of churchmen as corrupt as our dying man. His love for a Greek manuscript is as sensual as his love for his mistress; and having lived a life of physical delight, it is natural that his last thoughts should concern themselves with the abode of his body rather than with the destination of his soul. Of course his mind is wandering, or he would not speak with quite such shameless cynicism. Browning has made him talk of Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, in order to prove the delirium. S. Praxed was a female saint. The constant confusion of Greek mythology with the ritual of the Christian church is a characteristic feature both of this poem and of the period of history it represents. Kipling is...
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