Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper
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Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper is a short collection of English poems by Robert Browning, published in 1876.[1]: 93 The collection marked Browning's first collection of short pieces for more than twelve years. It received a mixed reception.[1]: 93–94 The title poem, which ostensibly discusses the life and works of 15th-century Italian painter Giacomo Pacchiarotti, is actually a thinly veiled attack on Browning's own critics, in particular Alfred Austin,[1]: 93–94 and many other pieces in the collection take the same tone.
Contents
- Prologue
- Of Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper
- At the "Mermaid"
- House
- Shop
- Pisgah-Sights
- Fears and Scruples
- Natural Magic
- Magical Nature
- Bifurcation
- Numpholeptos
- Appearances
- St. Martin's Summer
- Hervé Riel
- A Forgiveness
- Cenciaja
- Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial
- Epilogue
Reception
William Lyon Phelps called the poem Pachiarotto "an error in judgment".[1]: 94 Park Honan and Edward Irvine regarded it as indicating "a growing perversity not wholly attributable to old age, a new failure in self-control and more deeply in self-assurance."[1]: 94
