This cult is not hard to explain. The poet's optimism and energy attracted many a mind weary of the forlorn struggle against defeat of spirit. It appealed to the multitude who do not value what they get too easily, but enjoy the exercise of earning it, and prize it more when won. In America Browning's energy and cheerful relish for everything made him a Victorian favorite. Yet no poet, not even Homer, was ever more nearly omnivorous in his poetic appetite.
Every poet is tortured with the necessity of fitting matter to form.
With Browning the matter so abounds and crowds for utterance that it strains, distorts, and overflows the form. And not content with one word or phrase for one thing, his very abundance repeats it, once, twice, thrice, in synonymous words, phrases, sentences, accumulating like the kennings in Old English poetry.