Men and Women is a collection of fifty-one poems in two volumes by Robert Browning

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...

, first published in 1855. While now generally considered to contain some of the best of Browning's poetry, at the time it was not received well and sold poorly.

Background information

Men and Women was Browning's first published work after a five year hiatus, and his first collection of shorter poems since his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...

 in 1846. His reputation had still not recovered from the disastrous failure of Sordello

Sordello

Sordello da Goito or Sordel de Goit was a 13th-century Lombard troubadour, born in the municipality of Goito in the province of Mantua...

fifteen years previously, and Browning was at the time comprehensively overshadowed by his wife in terms of both critical reception and commercial success. Away from the spotlight, Browning was able to work on a long-considered project. He had long been associated with the dramatic monologue

Dramatic monologue

M. H. Abrams notes the following three features of the dramatic monologue as it applies to poetry:-Types of monologues:One of the most important influences on the development of the dramatic monologue is the Romantic poets...

, having written two early volumes of poems entitled Dramatic Lyrics

Dramatic Lyrics

Dramatic Lyrics is a collection of English poems by Robert Browning, first published in 1842 as the second volume in a series of self-published books entitled Bells and Pomegranates...

and Dramatic Romances and Lyrics

Dramatic Romances and Lyrics

Dramatic Romances and Lyrics is a collection of English poems by Robert Browning, first published in 1845 as the seventh volume in a series of self-published books entitled Bells and Pomegranates.- Contents :...

, but with Men and Women he took the concept a step further.

Browning's Men and Women consists of fifty-one poems, all of which are monologues spoken by different narrators, some identified and some not; the first fifty take in a very diverse range of historical, religious or European situations, with the fifty-first - One Word More - featuring Browning himself as narrator and dedicated to his wife. The title of the collection came from a line in her Sonnets from the Portuguese

Sonnets from the Portuguese

Sonnets from the Portuguese, written ca. 1845–1846 and first published in 1850, is a collection of forty-four love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The poems largely chronicle the period leading up to her 1846 marriage to Robert Browning...

. Browning himself was very fond of the collection, referring to the poems as "My fifty men and women" (from the opening line in One Word More), and today, Men and Women has been described as one of Victorian England's most significant books.

Transcendentalism - A Poem in Twelve Volumes

Thirteen years after the publication of Men and Women, Browning revisited the first edition, and made a reclassification of it. He separated the simpler rhymed presentations of an emotional moment, such as Mesmerism and A Woman's Last Word, or the picturesque rhymed verse telling a story of an experience, such as Childe Roland and The Statue and the Bust, from their more complex companions, such as Cleon, Fra Lippo, and Rudel. The resulting collection of only twelve poems is typically found today in many abridged editions of Men and Women, and in the somewhat more accurately titled volume, Transcendentalism: A Poem In Twelve Volumes.

Poems in the collection

• Love Among the Ruins
  Love Among the Ruins (poem)
  Love Among the Ruins is an 1855 poem by Robert Browning. It was included in his collection Men and Women, published that year. It is the first poem in the book.Below is the first stanza:Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,...
  
  
• A Lover’s Quarrel
• Evelyn Hope
• Up at a Villa – Down in the City
• A Woman’s Last Word
• Fra Lippo Lippi
  Fra Lippo Lippi (poem)
  Fra Lippo Lippi is an 1855 dramatic monologue written by the Victorian poet Robert Browning. Throughout this poem, Browning depicts a 15th century real-life painter, Filippo Lippi, who faces the conflict of a religious life committed to the Church or a life of leisure. The poem asks the question...
  
  
• A Toccata of Galuppi's
  A Toccata of Galuppi's
  "A Toccata of Galuppi's" is a poem by Robert Browning, originally published in the 1855 collection Men and Women. The title refers to the fact that the speaker is either playing or listening to a toccata by the 18th-century Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi.-Musical background:It is not known...
  
  
• By the Fire-Side
• Any Wife to Any Husband
• An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician
• Mesmerism
• A Serenade at the Villa
• My Star
• Instans Tyrannus
• A Pretty Woman
• “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
  Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
  "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is a poem by English author Robert Browning, written in 1855 and first published that same year in the collection entitled Men and Women. The title, which forms the last words of the poem, is a line from William Shakespeare's play King Lear...
  
  ”
• Respectability
• A Light Woman
• The Statue and the Bust
• Love in a Life
• Life in a Love
• How It Strikes a Contemporary
• The Last Ride Together
• The Patriot
• Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha
• Bishop Blougram’s Apology
• Memorabilia
• Andrea del Sarto
  Andrea del Sarto (poem)
  "Andrea del Sarto " is a poem by Robert Browning , published in 1855. The poem is a dramatic monologue, a form of poetry for which Robert Browning is famous.-Overview:...
  
  
• Before
• After
• In Three Days
• In a Year
• Old Pictures in Florence
• In a Balcony
• Saul
• “De Gustibus—”
• Women and Roses
• Protus
• Holy-Cross Day
• The Guardian-Angel
• Cleon
• The Twins
• Popularity
• The Heretic’s Tragedy
• Two in the Campagna
• A Grammarian’s Funeral
• One Way of Love
• Another Way of Love
• "Transcendentalism - A Poem in Twelve Volumes"
• Misconceptions
• One Word More

See also

• Victorian literature
  Victorian literature
  Victorian literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria . It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century....
  
  
• Dramatic poetry
• Robert Browning
  Robert Browning
  Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
  
  
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...