Browning was trained extensively in music, both in composition and musical theory. Professional musicians and musicologists have been dismissive of his use of musical terms, but the music scholar Deryck Cooke writes of the poet's precise grasp of fine musical detail in this work. David Parkinson identifies "a link between each syllable of the poem and the musical notes of a scale."
Browning was trained extensively in music, both in composition and musical theory. Professional musicians and musicologists have been dismissive of his use of musical terms, but the music scholar Deryck Cooke writes of the poet's precise grasp of fine musical detail in this work. David Parkinson identifies "a link between each syllable of the poem and the musical notes of a scale."