What a contrast to Juvenal is Sordello!

As a mere youth he wrote sonnets, such as Sordello the Troubadour would not disdain to own.

Their attitude towards the poet's early work may be inferred from Tennyson's humorous criticism of Sordello.

It may be remembered that the first line of this obscure poem is, "Who will may hear Sordello's story told"; and that the last line is, "Who would has heard Sordello's story told."

It may be remembered that the first line of this obscure poem is, "Who will may hear Sordello's story told"; and that the last line is, "Who would has heard Sordello's story told."

Two years later appeared Paracelsus, and then his tragedy Strafford was put upon the stage; but not till Sordello was published, in 1840, did he attract attention enough to be denounced for the obscurity and vagaries of his style.

Of his early soul studies, Pauline (1833), Paracelsus (1835), and Sordello (1840), little need be said here, except perhaps this: that if we begin with these works, we shall probably never read anything else by Browning.

The merciless criticism which greeted Sordello had a wholesome effect on Browning, as is shown in the better work of his second period.

Sordello: Stevenson naturally accompanies this statement with a parenthetical exclamation.

Sordello, published in 1840, is the most obscure of all Browning's poems, and for many years blinded critics to the poet's genius.

My name is Sordello."

Sordello, in another tone, now exclaimed, "But who are ye?" Virgil disclosed himself, and Sordello fell at his feet.

Sordello, in another tone, now exclaimed, "But who are ye?" Virgil disclosed himself, and Sordello fell at his feet.

Sordello now undertook to accompany the great Roman poet and his friend to a certain distance on their ascent towards the penal quarters of the mountain; but as evening was drawing nigh, and the ascent could not be made properly in the dark, he proposed that they should await the dawning of the next day in a recess that overlooked a flowery hollow.

"They come from Mary's bosom," whispered Sordello, "to protect the valley from the designs of our enemy yonder,the Serpent.

Sordello had been left behind, Virgil alone remained, looking him cheerfully in the face.

[Footnote 11: Sordello was a famous Provençal poet; with whose writings the world has but lately been made acquainted through the researches of M. Raynouard, in his Choix des Poésies des Troubadours, &c.] [Footnote 12: "Fresco smeraldo in l'ora che si fiacca."

She eloped from her first husband, Richard of St. Boniface, in the company of Sordello (see Purg.

In Memoriam, 1850; Maud, 1855; and Browning's Sordello, 1840, and Bells and Pomegranates, 1843-1846.

"One eye," you remember, that of Browning's Sordello one eye In all Verona cared for the soft sky.

The most famous, however, of the Italian troubadours is certainly Sordello.

At any rate, Sordello and Cunizza betook themselves to Ezzelino's court.

Sordello's restless life and his intrigues could be exemplified from the history of many another troubadour and neither his career nor his poetry, which with two exceptions, is of no special originality, seems to justify the portrait drawn of him by Dante; while Browning's famous poem has nothing in common with the troubadour except the name.

Bertran d'Alamanon said that the heart should not be divided among the cowards, enumerated by Sordello, but given to the noble ladies of the age: Peire Bremen proposed a division of the body.

The point is that Dante in the Purgatorio represents Sordello as showing to Virgil the souls of those who, while singing Salve Regina, ask to be pardoned for their neglect of duty and among them appear the rulers whom Sordello had satirised in his sirventes.