Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis by Robert Browning
After reading a pedantic treatise in the garden, a speaker drops it into a waterlogged plum-tree crevice and turns to food, wine, and Rabelais. Retrieving it this morning, the speaker describes its damaged pages, imagines creatures using it, and plans to return it to the bookshelf.
By Robert Browning · Genre: Dramatic Monologue, Satirical Poetry, Narrative Poetry · 849 words
First lines
Plague take all your pedants, say I! / He who wrote what I hold in my hand, / Centuries back was so good as to die, / Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land; / This, that was a book in its time, / Printed on paper and bound in leather, / Last month in the white of a matin-prime, / Just when the birds sang all together.
Into the garden I brought it to read, / And under the arbute and laurustine / Read it, so help me grace in my need, / From title-page to closing line. / Chapter on chapter did I count, / As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge; / Added up the mortal amount; / And then proceeded to my revenge.
What this Textopian page supports
Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Browning, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Browning
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Dramatic Monologue, Satirical Poetry, Narrative Poetry
- Length: 849 words
- Structure: 1 section, 9 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis by Robert Browning
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
- Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph
Genres
- Dramatic Monologue — A single speaker recounts a grievance against a treatise and addresses the damaged book as though it could suffer and answer.
- Satirical Poetry — The speaker mocks pedantry by giving a learned volume a humiliating soak and imagining insects and newts appropriating its pages.
- Narrative Poetry — Nine rhymed stanzas recount reading the book, dropping it into a tree, retrieving it, and proposing its return to a shelf.
Tags
pedantry · books · reading · literary satire · book damage