Page 347 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes Browning’s religion is inextricably bound up with his philosophy of life. His philosophy is no set
professional synthesis, but the immediate product of a series of recurrent insights into life. His
poems are his philosophy. He is one of those great poets who have given a concrete synthesis of life,
a creative and constructive line of thinking and above all a deep and profound philosophy of life
grounded in optimism and faith.
In estimating Browning’s philosophy of life one is to bear in mind that he treated certain elements
as axiomatic. He harbored no doubts about certain of his philosophical conceptions and took them
for granted. He was not prepared to enter into any arguments about the veracity of certain of his
philosophical thoughts and ideas.
Browning takes for granted the existence and supremacy of God as the creator and the sole governor
of the universe, and was not, in the least, in a position to doubt His existence. He considered God as
an all pervading Deity, an essence always partially, never wholly revealed in the creative energy of
nature and the aspirations of man. All nature is viewed as a thought of God . “God is the perfect
poet”, he says “who in His person acts his own creations.” So the whole universe is a crystallized
thought of God to him:

“God dwells in all
From life’s minute beginnings up at last
To man,
and
God is seen God
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the cloud.”

Browning did not conceive of God as a cruel and tyrannical being unmindful of the lot of the creative
universe, or a sinister intelligence bent on punishing mankind. He conceived of God as a benignant
and sympathetic power helping men in their endeavors if they reposed faith in Him and His mercy:
“God made all the creatures and gave them
Our love and our fear
We and they are His children
Our family here.”
Browning’s philosophy of life, evident in many of his poems, is based upon his faith in immortality.
He never believed that death brings the end of the divine spark irradiating human life. God is the
potter and the soul is the clay. Both of them endure forever. This faith of the poet is expressed in
“Rabbi Ben Ezra”:
“Fool! All that is at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;”
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure
Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.”

The earthly life is a period of trial, testing and preparation for the future life is central to Browning’s
optimistic philosophy of life. The earthly life is necessarily imperfect:

“On the earth the broken arcs: in the heaven a perfect round.”
Though, imperfect Browning earnestly believed that the world with all its glories and triumphs, its
joys and fears, is a fitting place for man’s actions and activities. Browning was not an ascetic who
shunned the world, nor across grained man to regard the universe as a vale of sorrow and tears,

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