UK Professor to Lecture on Robert Browning’s True Crime Poetry for Annual Celebration

In celebration of Browning Day, on Friday, April 11 at 3 p.m., the Armstrong Browning Library and Museum presents “The Poetry of Real Life: Robert Browning’s 'Red Cotton Night-Cap Country,'” a lecture by professor of nineteenth-century literature Joseph Phelan. The event will take place in the Hankamer Treasure Room of Armstrong Browning Library and via Zoom Webinar. CAE credit is available for Baylor students who attend in person.

“Browning Day gives us the chance to hear about some of the great research being done using the Armstrong Browning Library’s collections,” Assistant Dean for Special Libraries and Director of the Armstrong Browning Library & Museum, Jennifer Borderud said. “Professor Phelan’s talk will provide listeners with an understanding of the scholarly work that goes into creating an annotated edition of one of Browning’s poems, in this case a poem based on real-life events.”

"Red Cotton Night-Cap Country" (1873) is a poem based on the true story of the life and death of a wealthy French jeweler, where Browning extensively references court case records to tell the story. Phelan’s talk will examine the editorial issues presented by poems that rely heavily on documentary evidence and explore Browning’s fascination with the challenge of turning real-life stories of crime and misfortune into poetry.

"'Red Cotton Night-Cap Country' is based on a real-life story of greed, deception, religious mania, and some frankly unpleasant and repulsive incidents. However, even with its rather off-putting appearance, it showcases an extraordinary demonstration of Browning’s imaginative power – his ability to take incidents and events that might be overlooked by others and see in them the expression of profound underlying motivations,” Phelan said. “In Browning’s hands, the sordid tale behind 'Red Cotton Night-Cap Country' becomes an acute examination of the unresolved social and psychological conflicts that led to the fall of the Second Empire in France." 

Joseph Phelan is a professor of nineteenth-century literature at De Montfort University Leicester, UK. He graduated from King's College Cambridge and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. at King's College, London. Phelan is co-editor of the Longman Annotated English Poets series “The Poems of Robert Browning,” and editor of "The Journal of Browning Studies," an annual publication about the lives and work of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

This event is free and open to the public. The lecture will be followed by a reception in the Cox Reception Hall. Browning Day is made possible with support from the Guardian Angels organization of the Armstrong Browning Library.

For more information, visit library.web.baylor.edu/browningday.