Record Number: 19513
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 14 June 1845: 'When I ask my wise self what I really do remember of that Prize-poem -- the answer is -- both of Chapman's lines a-top, quite worth any prize for the quoter -- then, the good epithet of "green Europe" contrasting with Africa -- then, deep in the piece, a picture of a vestal in a vault [...] I read the poem many years ago, and never since -- tho' I have an impression that the versification is good.'
Century:1800-1849
Date:unknown
Country:unknown
Timen/a
Place:n/a
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Unknown
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:7 May 1812
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:writer
Religion:unknown
Country of Origin:England
Country of Experience:unknown
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:Timbuctoo
Genre:Poetry
Form of Text:Print: Pamphlet
Publication DetailsProbably as published in Prolusiones Academicae (Cambridge, 1829)
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:19513
Source:n/a
Editor:Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis
Title:The Brownings' Correspondence
Place of Publication:Winfield
Date of Publication:1992
Vol:10
Page:264
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis (ed.), The Brownings' Correspondence, (Winfield, 1992), 10, p. 264, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=19513, accessed: 15 May 2024
Additional Comments:
Tennyson won Chancellor's Gold Medal for 'Timbuctoo' whilst a student at Cambridge, in 1829. Browning took a copy of Prolusiones Academicae, a pamphlet containing Cambridge University prize poems for 1829, on visit to Barrett on 11 June 1845; see p.261 n.2 in source. Source eds. also note that lines used as Tennyson's epigraph have never been identified in any work by George Chapman; see p.265 n.2 in source, and The Poems of Tennyson (1969), ed. Christopher Ricks, p.171n.
