Dramatic Lyrics


Dramatic Lyrics is a collection of English poems by Robert Browning, first published in 1842 as the third volume in a series of self-published books entitled Bells and Pomegranates. It is most famous as the first appearance of Browning's poem The [Pied Piper of Hamelin], but also contains several of the poet's other best-known pieces, including My Last Duchess, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, Porphyria's Lover, and Johannes [Agricola in Meditation].

Contents

Many of the original titles given by Browning to the poems in this collection, as with its "follow-up" collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, are different from the ones he later gave them in various editions of his collected works. Since this book was originally self-published in a very small edition, these poems are now always referred to by their later titles.
The poems were written between 1836 and 1842.