Dramatic Scenes: With Other Poems

Dramatic Scenes: With Other Poems by Barry Cornwall. This 1857 collection brings together long-form dramatic sketches and miscellaneous poems, many framed as verse-drama with named scenes and speakers. The volume opens with dramatic studies drawn from history and myth, such as Ludovico Sforza, Lysander and Ione, Juan, The Way to Conquer, The Falcon, and the Pan Demonium sequence, followed by The Temptation, Michael Angelo, Raffaelle and Fornarina, and The Florentine Party, among others. A preface by B. W. Procter explains that some scenes were written decades earlier and revised for this edition, and that the Miscellaneous Poems constitute Part the Third, with several shorter pieces and lyrical meditations. The collection reflects Romanticism’s fascination with Italy's Renaissance, classical legends, and moral dilemmas—ambition, jealousy, justice, and the tension between art and power. The work is noted for ornate diction, vivid imagery, and theatrical pacing, often with engraved illustrations by the Dalziels, and embodies Cornwall’s style of baroque ornament and moral meditation.