To realise this situation,
to define in a chill and empty atmosphere, the focus where rays, in
themselves pale and impotent, unite and begin to burn, the artist has to
employ the most cunning detail, to complicate and refine upon thought and
passion a thousand-fold. The poems of Robert Browning supply brilliant
examples of this power. His poetry is pre-eminently the poetry of
situations. The characters themselves are always of secondary importance;
often they are characters in themselves of little interest; they seem to
come to him by strange accidents from the ends of the world. His gift is
shown by the way in which he accepts such a character, and throws it into
some situation, or apprehends it in some delicate pause of life, in which
for a moment it becomes ideal. Take an instance from Dramatis Personae.
In the poem entitled Le Byron de nos Jours, we have a single moment of
passion thrown into relief in this exquisite way. Those two jaded
Parisians are not intrinsically interesting; they only begin to interest
us when thrown into a choice situation.
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