Baylor University's Armstrong Browning Library to Host Browning Day
Robert Browning photo courtesy of the New York Public Library Archives.
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WACO, Texas (May 3, 2013) - In honor of Robert Browning's 201st birthday, the Armstrong Browning Library will host a concert and lecture as part of its annual Browning Day celebration. The event will take place at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 7, in the McLean Foyer of Meditation of the Armstrong Browning Library, 710 Speight Ave.
Festivities for the day will feature music composed by artist-in-residence Carlos Colón, a lecture by Cornelia Pearsall, Ph.D., professor of English language and literature from Smith College and a reception in the Garden of Contentment.
Pearsall's lecture is titled "Browning and the Traumatic Monologue" and will explore "trauma, wounding, broken things and darkening paths." While these topics may not initially seem in keeping with the celebratory nature of Browning Day, Pearsall said "they explore ways that representations of potentially disabling events or states were in fact enabling for Browning's poetry." Her lecture will pay particular attention to "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (1855) and to the emergent field of disability studies. Pearsall will examine the ways traumatic events are not only depicted but performed in the dramatic monologue and conceived as poetically productive.
Rita Patteson, director of the Armstrong Browning Library and host of this year's celebration, said she is "pleased that Carlos Colón, our artist-in-residence, is preparing a composition that centered on the idea of a dramatic monologue." Baylor alumnus Keron Jackson, a dramatic operatic bass, is scheduled to perform.
A.J. Armstrong, Ph.D., former chair of Baylor's English department and founder of the Armstrong Browning Library, began Browning Day sometime after 1912 as a means of honoring poet Robert Browning, whose works of dramatic verse are said to have influenced Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Browning was born near London, England on May 7, 1812. Baylor's library named in honor of Browning and Armstrong opened in 1951.
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, click here.
by Brent Salter, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
Baylor University is a private Christian university and a nationally ranked research institution, characterized as having "high research activity" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The university provides a vibrant campus community for approximately 15,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating university in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 11 nationally recognized academic divisions. Baylor sponsors 19 varsity athletic teams and is a founding member of the Big 12 Conference.
ABOUT THE ARMSTRONG BROWNING LIBRARY
The Armstrong Browning Library, located on the campus of Baylor University, is a 19th-century research center of the Baylor University Libraries dedicated to the study of the lives and works of Victorian poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and houses the world's largest collection of Browning material and other fine collections of rare 19th-century books, manuscripts and works of art.