Sordello (poem)
| Author | Robert Browning |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Narrative poetry |
| Publisher | Edward Moxon |
|
Publication date
|
March 1840 |
| Media type |
Sordello is a narrative poem by the English poet Robert Browning. Worked on for seven years, and largely written between 1836 and 1840, it was published in March 1840. It consists of a fictionalised version of the life of Sordello da Goito, a 13th-century Lombard troubadour depicted in Canto VI of Dante Alighieri's Purgatorio.
Convoluted and obscure, its difficulties increased by its unfamiliar setting, Sordello is notorious as one of the hardest poems in English literature. It was harshly received at the time of its publication: Tennyson's opinion was recorded thus by William Sharp in his biography of Browning: Lord Tennyson manfully tackled it, but he is reported to have admitted in bitterness of spirit: "There were only two lines in it that I understood, and they were both lies; they were the opening and closing lines, 'Who will may hear Sordello's story told,' and 'Who would has heard Sordello's story told!' " . The poem was, however, championed decades later by Algernon Swinburne and Ezra Pound.
The setting is northern Italy in the 1220s, dominated by the struggle between the Guelphs (partisans of the Pope) and the Ghibellines (partisans of the Holy Roman Emperor). Sordello is a Ghibelline, like his lord Ecelin II da Romano, and the soldier Taurello.
Browning begins by summoning the shades of all dead poets to listen to the story he has to tell. The one who intimidates him most is the "pale face[d]" Shelley (whom he does not name). The citizens of Verona have just heard that their Guelph prince, Count Richard of St Boniface, has been captured by Taurello Salinguerra.
Not long ago, Taurello had been lured away from Ferrara; in his absence, his palaces were burned by Guelphs. On his return, he takes vengeance, and Azzo and Richard flee. They come back and besiege Ferrara, but when Richard is invited to a parley, he is captured. In a castle at Verona, the Council of Twenty-Four discuss the city's predicament; in a distant room, the poet Sordello sits motionless, thinking about his love, Palma.
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