ABSTRACT
Robert Browning's imaginative attachment to the semi-animate affected even the textual history of his verse. His lines have something of the same indeterminacy as those other filaments produced by people's heads, for, as it is the greatest of this new edition's many virtues to make clear to us, once printed they wouldn't stop changing. The gentling-down of the close of 'A Woman's Last Word' exemplifies a larger trend. The proofs of 1855 were spattered with dashes and exclamation marks: many of these were removed before publication, and further winnowings took place thereafter, notably in 1863. This shows, as the editors comment, that Browning progressively adopted a more conventional system of pointing. Browning's poem intimates to us his retreat from the palatial ambitions which he too had shared in Paracelsus and Sordello, and his concentration on what is more important to him: relationships between men and women.
