'Pied Piper of Hamelin': Two Levels of Meaning (Literary Criticism)

In ''Browning's 'Pied Piper of Hamelin': Two Levels of Meaning," Wolfgang Franke shares M.Millhauser's view that "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" poses a profound critique of Victorian society and its antipathy to artistic values. Franke, however, sets the poem in its historical and social context and in so doing refers to such specific issues as the massive emigration from Britain and the passing of the Copyright Act in 1842. Though their approaches differ, Millhauser and Franke reach similar conclusions about the poem's underlying seriousness and concern with social and cultural issues. Franke's historical-contextual approach and Millhauser's method of examining the poem with reference to its structure and other intrinsic features provide a sound basis for further research and study. Methods, however, are subject to adaptation and revision. When defining the context of the poem, we have not only the general historical background of the early Victorian era to consider but also the poem's relationship to Browning's other works, to his philosophical and religious attitudes and, not least, to the tradition constituted by all works that take the motif of the Pied Piper as their theme.