ABSTRACT
When a young man, Browning told Domett that the reason he has persisted in his art “although succeeding so indifferently” was that
I felt so instinctively from the beginning that unless I tumbled out the dozen more or less of conceptions I should bear them about forever and year by year get straiter and stiffer in those horrible cross-bones with a long name, and at last parturition would be the curse indeed. Mine was the better way, I do calmly believe, – for at this moment I feel as every body does who has worked – “in vain”? No matter, if the work was real . . . (13 July 1846; BC 13.156)
Energy drives the work, and Browning encourages himself by arguing that effort and intent are what count. Browning’s metaphors for writing, both in the envoi to “Pan and Luna” (1880) and in the letter to Domett, suggest the exceptional mental energy of this unusual person. The statement to Domett implies fi rst that effort matters, perhaps as much as the results, and second that this artist has so much that comes to mind that there is some value in just getting the work on paper. This suggests both a tolerance for imperfection as well as a method of composition which was based on speed as well as the pressure to write.
