The Complete Works of Robert Browning, Volume X: With Variant Readings and Annotations

The Complete Works of Robert Browning, Volume X contains critical editions of Balaustion's Adventure: Including a Transcript from Euripides and Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society. Both published in 1871, these two long poems take up a pair of subjects that held enduring fascination for Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: classical Greek literature and the career of Napoleon III, Emperor of France. Balaustion's Adventure, which the poet characterized as merely a “May-month amusement,” was surprisingly successful with the reading public that paid more attention to Browning after the triumph of The Ring and the Book in 1868-69. His first poem since the publication of that masterpiece, Balaustion's Adventure creates a charming and brave narrator who recalls in vivid detail a performance of Euripides' play Alcestis.

Browning began a poem on Louis Napoleon in 1860, but not until after the fall of the Second Empire in 1870 did he attempt a full-scale portrait of the French emperor. As an exercise in self-justification, Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau falls into a familiar sub-genre of Browning's dramatic monologues. The most intriguing aspect of the poem lies in its biographical importance: the character and career of Napoleon III was a topic of sustained, sharp disagreement between Robert and Elizabeth Browning.

As always in this acclaimed series, a complete record of textual variants is provided, as well as extensive explanatory notes.

Euripides is thought to have lived between 485 and 406 BC. He is considered to be one of the three great dramatists of Ancient Greece, alongside Aeschylus and Sophocles. He is particularly admired by modern audiences and readers for his astute and balanced depiction of human behavior. "Medea" is his most famous work.