Sordello is the image of this curiosity and individuality, but only inwardly.

In the midst of this turbulent society Browning creates him with the temperament of a poet, living in a solitary youth, apart from arms and the wild movement of the world.

His soul is full of the curiosity of the time.

The inquisition of his whole life is, "What is the life most worth living?
How shall I attain it, in what way make it mine ?" and then, "What sort of lives are lived by other men ?" and, finally, "What is the happiest life for the whole ?" The curiosity does not drive him, like the rest of the world, into action in the world.

It expands only in thought and dreaming.