''Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, a Poem'' (

1850 Events January–June * April ** Pope Pius IX returns from exile to Rome. ** Stephen Foster's parlor ballad "Ah! May the Red Rose Live Alway" is published in the United States. * April 4 – Los Angeles is incorporated as a cit ...

) is, despite the title, often treated as two poems by

Robert Browning Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings ...

, rather than as one poem in two parts. It was the first new work published by Robert Browning after his marriage to

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime. Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabet ...

and their departure for Italy, and is widely considered to show the influence of his wife's religious beliefs. "Christmas-Eve" is an account of a vision in which the narrator is taken to a

Nonconformist Nonconformity or nonconformism may refer to: Culture and society * Insubordination, the act of willfully disobeying an order of one's superior *Dissent, a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or entity ** ...

church, to St. Peter's in Rome, to a

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

lecture theatre where a practitioner of the

Higher criticism Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". While often discussed in terms of ...

is discoursing on the Christian myth, and back to the Nonconformist church. In "Easter-Day" a Christian and a sceptic debate the nature of faith. ''Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day'' gives valuable clues to the religious opinions of Browning himself, as opposed to those of his characters, but, as his wife warned a correspondent, "Certainly the poem does not represent his own permanent state of mind, which was what I meant when I told you it was dramatic."Ian Jack, Rowena Fowler and Margaret Smith (eds.) ''The Poetical Works of Robert Browning'', vol. 4 (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1991) p. 320. ''Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day'' was first published by

Chapman & Hall Chapman & Hall is an imprint owned by CRC Press, originally founded as a British publishing house in London in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman and William Hall. Chapman & Hall were publishers for Charles Dickens (from 1840 ...

in 1850. In recent years it has been edited by

Ian Jack Ian Grant Jack (7 February 1945 – 28 October 2022) was a British reporter, writer and editor. He edited the ''Independent on Sunday'', the literary magazine ''Granta'' and wrote regularly for ''The Guardian''. Early life Jack was born in Fa ...

, Rowena Fowler and Margaret Smith as part of ''The Poetical Works of Robert Browning'', vol. 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), and by John Woolford, Daniel Karlin and Joseph Phelan as part of ''The Poems of Browning'', vol. 3 (London: Longman, 1993).

References

External links

Online edition at Google Books

in ''

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature ''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature'' is an encyclopedia of literary criticism that was published by Cambridge University Press between 1907 and 1921. Edited and written by an international panel of 171 leading scholars a ...

'' Poetry by Robert Browning 1850 poems Chapman & Hall books {{UK-poem-stub