Browning's Experiments with Genre

One of the chief characteristics of nineteenth-century poetics was a tendency to test the conventions and techniques of literary genres by shifting, modifying, and combining various styles and forms. Browning fully exploited these changes, because his interests and purposes as a poet seemed to demand more of the lyric, the dramatic, and the narrative than these kinds had traditionally been able to perform. His fascination was with the development of the individual soul and he was determined to e