Browning’s The Boy and the Angel: An Affirmation of Faith in a Double Technical and Temporal Context

Robert Browning’s The Boy and the Angel is a poem in his early collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845). The poem is often overlooked in critics’ discussions of Browning’s religious views or casually charged with combining faith and doubt. It even disappears from recent anthologies despite its significant religious revelations. Critics have fluctuated between faith and doubt in their discussion of Browning’s religious stand. The reading in this article aims to retrieve the poem from neglect and to highlight its significance as a statement of faith. The study reveals that the poem makes its religious affirmations through a double narrative line and two time zones. It narrates two versions of the same story and conveys a double-folded religious message. One-fold is humanist, celebrating the ordinary human’s act of worship, regardless of time, place, or rank. The second affirms God’s presence beyond the earthly timeline. The compound message contradicts the critics who read Browning’s poetry as a demonstration of a struggle between faith and doubt. The study concludes that Browning shows no signs of religious doubts in this poem. It is a poem of an unequivocal faith. The reading aligns with critics who discern pure faith in Browning.