Bells and Pomegranates is a series of eight pamphlets by Robert Browning, published from 1841 to 1846. The first, Pippa Passes (1841), is a verse drama about a young silk-winder whose songs change the lives of the people who hear them.
Pippa Passes
On her one holiday of the year, Pippa, a poor girl of Asolo in northern Italy, wanders through the town singing. Without knowing it, she passes four groups of people at decisive moments.
Her songs turn lovers from crime, an artist from revenge and a bishop from a plot, though she never learns what she has done.
A cheap series
The publisher Edward Moxon printed the pamphlets cheaply in double columns, at Browning's father's expense, to make his work more widely available.
The series also included Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics and several plays, such as A Blot in the 'Scutcheon.
The title
Browning explained the title, after readers' puzzlement, as a mixture of music with thought, sound with sense, borrowing an image from the robe of the Jewish high priest in the Bible.
Elizabeth Barrett had urged him to explain it, as many readers and reviewers had found the title obscure.
Anecdotes
A song too easily quoted
Pippa's morning song ends with a line about all being right with the world. Taken out of context, it is often quoted as naive optimism, though in the play it is ironic, sung to people about to do wrong.
Asolo
Browning returned to Asolo, the setting of Pippa Passes, at the end of his life; his last collection, Asolando, published on the day of his death in 1889, is named after it.
Frequently asked questions
What is Bells and Pomegranates?
A series of eight pamphlets of poems and plays by Robert Browning, published 1841–1846.
What happens in Pippa Passes?
A young girl's songs unknowingly change the lives of people at turning points.
Where is Pippa Passes set?
In Asolo, a small town in northern Italy.