4.  SORDELLO.

    [Published in 1840 (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol.  I., pp.
    47-289).]

Sordello is generally spoken of as being the most obscure and the least attractive of Browning’s poems; it has even been called “the most illegible production of any time or country.”  Hard, very hard, it undoubtedly is; but undoubtedly it is far from unattractive to the serious student of poetry, who will find in it something of the fascination of an Alpine peak:  not to be gained without an effort, treacherous and slippery, painfully dazzling to weak eyes, but for all that irresistibly fascinating. Sordello contains enough poetic material for a dozen considerable poems; indeed, its very fault lies in its plethora of ideas, the breathless crowd of hurrying thoughts and fancies, which fill and overflow it.  That this is not properly to be called “obscurity” has been triumphantly shown by Mr. Swinburne in his essay on George Chapman.  Some of his admirable statements I have already quoted, but we may bear to be told twice that Browning is too much the reverse of obscure, that he is only too brilliant and subtle, that he never thinks but at full speed.  But besides this characteristic, which is common to all his work, there are one or two special reasons which have made this particular poem more difficult than others.  The condensation of style which had marked Browning’s previous work, and which has marked his later, was here (in consequence of an unfortunate and most unnecessary dread of verbosity, induced by a rash and foolish criticism) accentuated not infrequently into dislocation.  The very unfamiliar historical events of the story[14] are introduced, too, in a parenthetic and allusive way, not a little embarrassing to the reader.

But it is also evident that the difficulties of a gigantic conception were not completely conquered by the writer’s genius, not then fully matured; that lack of entire mastery over the material has frequently caused the two interests of the poem, the psychological and the historical, to clash; the background to intrude on and confuse the middle distance, if not even the foreground itself.  Every one of these faults is the outcome of a merit:  altogether they betray a growing nature of extraordinary power, largeness and richness, not as yet to be bound or contained within any limits or in any bonds.

Sordello is a psychological epic.  But to call it this only would be to do it somewhat less than justice.  There is in the poem a union of breathless eagerness with brooding suspense, which has an almost unaccountable fascination for those who once come under its charm, and nowhere in Browning’s work are there so many pictures, so vivid in aspect, so sharp in outline, so rich in colour.  At their best they are sudden, a flash of revelation, as in this autumnal Goito:—­

                     “’Twas the marsh

Gone of a sudden.  Mincio, in its place,
Laughed, a broad water, in next morning’s face,
And, where the mists broke up immense and white
I’ the steady wind, burned like a spilth of light,
Out of the crashing of a myriad stars.”