From the publication of his first signed poem, Paracelsus (1835), Browning thought of himself and was considered by his contemporaries as a dramatic poet. In the preface to this volume he stated, “I do not very well understand what is called a Dramatic Poem,” but Paracelsus has a dramatic form nonetheless. The longest review of the poem was written by John Forster and was entitled “Evidences of a New Genius for Dramatic Poetry—No. I.” William Charles Macready, the leading actor of the London stage, read Paracelsus and recorded in his diary for 7 December 1835: “the writer can scarcely fail to be a leading spirit of his time.” And from 1835 to the present numerous critics have called him the great dramatic poet of his century. At the same time they have almost unanimously declared him a failure as a dramatist.