“I
find earth not grey but rosy/Heaven not grim but fair of hue.”
Robert Browning, a cherished poet of the
Victorian era, has many of his poems filled with unbridled optimism. “Browning is emphatically the poet-militant,
and the prophet of struggling manhood. His words are like trumpet-calls sounded
in the van of man’s struggle, wafted back by winds, and heard through the din
of conflict by his meaner brethren, who are obscurely fighting for good in the
throng and crush of life”, very aptly remarks a critic.
When Browning started writing, the attitude
of the milieu was scientific and materialistic. And this means, people had lost
faith in religion, morality and spirituality. He was optimistic about the
existence of God and the notion of a perfect heaven. His poetry is a reflection
of this, deviating from the scientific temperament typical of his age.
Robert Browning is an optimist, and as
an optimist, he is a moralist and a religious teacher holding a very distinct
place among the writers of the Victorian Age. He is “an uncompromising foe of scientific materialism”.
Browning
is a very consistent thinker of optimistic philosophy of life. His optimism is
based on life's realities. Life is full of imperfection but in this very
imperfection lies hope, according to Browning's philosophy. He does
not challenge the old dogmas. He accepts the conventional view of God, the
immortality of the soul, and the Christian belief in incarnation.
He is hopeful about the
struggle of human life. He says persistent struggle gives meaning to life. The
perfection of life resides not in accomplishment, but in the strife to
accomplish. ‘In Last Ride Together’
Browning counsels to:
"Welcome each rebuff.
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that ages not sit nor stand but go"
"Welcome each rebuff.
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that ages not sit nor stand but go"
Browning's optimism is founded on the
realities of life. It is not 'blind' as he does not shut his eyes to the evil
prevailing in daily life routine. He knows that human life is a mixture of good
and evil, of love and the ugliness, of despair and hopefulness, but he derives
hope from this very imperfection of life. Browning’s thorough-going optimism
naturally seems to imply a pantheistic view of the world. In the famous lines
of "Pippa Passes", he
says:
"God
is in his Heaven –All is right with the world!"
Browning's optimism is firmly based on his
faith in the immortality of the soul. The body may die but the soul lives on in
the Infinite.
Browning believes in the futility of this
worldly life. He thinks that failure serves as a source of inspiration for
progress as in "Andrea
Del Sarto":
“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's heaven for?”
“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's heaven for?”
Browning's
philosophical view about old age is optimistic which is made explicit in "Rabbi Ben Ezra”. Regret for lost
youth and terror for the old age are stock ideas. But the
Rabbi invites everybody to grow old eagerly:
“Grow old along with me!
The
best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:”
… See all, nor be afraid"
Life in this world is worth living because
both life and the world are the expressions of Divine Love. The world is
beautiful as God created it out of the fullness of His love. As says Lippo in Fra
Lippo Lippi:
“The world’s no bolt for us,
Nor blank, it means
intensely, and means good.”
Browning's optimism finds the passion
of joy; no one has sung more fervently than Browning of the delight of life.
The Rabbi in "Rabbi Ben Ezra" often passes philosophical judgments.
"As
the bird wings and sings,
Let
us cry 'All good things.”
In the Last Ride Together we find Browning's optimistic attitude
towards love through the words of the rejected lover:
"The
instant made eternity, –
And
heaven just prove that in and she
Ride, ride
together, for ever ride?
Therefore, we can
safely conclude that Browning speaks out the strongest words of optimistic
faith in his Victorian Age of scepticism and pessimism. As Moody comments:
“Browning's robust optimism
in the face of all the unsettling and disturbing forces of the age is thrown
out in sharp relief.”
Of all English poets, no other is so completely, so
consciously, so magnificently a teacher of man as is Browning whose “poetry is
intensely charged with moral purpose.” These following lines from
the Epilogue to Asolando offer a
fitting tribute to one of the great poets of Victorian age.
“One
who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never
doubted clouds would break
Never dreamed, though right were worsted,
wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight
better
Sleep to wake"