“Italy was my University.” — Robert Browning | V2Melody

“Italy was my University.”

His reply when asked whether he had attended Oxford or Cambridge · Remembered remark, as reported by contemporaries

Art
Memory

Robert Browning

About Robert Browning

Robert Browning

7 May 1812–12 December 1889

Robert Browning was born on 7 May 1812 at Southampton Cottage, Camberwell, then a semi-rural district south of London, and died on 12 December 1889 in Venice. Few English poets have combined such audacity of intellect, dramatic energy, moral curiosity, and technical resourcefulness. During his lifetime he moved from…

More by Robert Browning

Poems by Robert Browning

More remarks by Robert Browning

“I have no pleasure in writing myself—none, in the mere act—though all pleasure in the sense of fulfilling a duty.”

Distinguishing enjoyment of composition from a deeper sense of artistic obligation · Letter to Elizabeth Barrett, 12 March 1845

“The musician speaks on the note he sings with; there is no change in the scale, as he diminishes the volume into familiar intercourse.”

On the sincerity that should carry from a poet's grand work into his ordinary voice · Essay on Shelley, preface to the spurious Shelley letters, 1851

Art
Truth

“I believe in you absolutely, utterly.”

A remarkably direct expression of the trust at the centre of their developing relationship · Letter to Elizabeth Barrett, 30 August 1845