Sordello (poem)

Sordello is a narrative poem by the English poet Robert Browning. Worked on for seven years, and largely written between 1836 and 1840, it was published in March 1840. It consists of a fictionalised version of the life of Sordello da Goito, a 13th-century Lombard troubadour depicted in Canto VI of Dante Alighieri's Purgatorio.

The poem is convoluted and obscure, its difficulties increased by its unfamiliar setting. It was harshly received at the time of its publication: Alfred, Lord Tennyson's opinion was recorded thus by William Sharp in his biography of Browning:

Lord Tennyson manfully tackled it, but he is reported to have admitted in bitterness of spirit: "There were only two lines in it that I understood, and they were both lies; they were the opening and closing lines, 'Who will may hear Sordello's story told,' and 'Who would has heard Sordello's story told!'".^[1]

The poem was, however, championed decades later by Algernon Swinburne and Ezra Pound.