'Porphyria's Lover' is another one of
Robert Browning's more famous poems. In fact, before this class, it
was the only one of Browning's poems that I had read. Like 'My Last
Duchess', it is a dramatic monologue, but still with a rhyme scheme.
The rhyme scheme is ABABB for the most part. The person the speaker
is talking to is unknown. He could simply be musing to himself about
what has happened. The meter is 8 syllables, so, for the most part it
is in iambic octameter.
As for the main plot, in the most
literal taking, our speaker tells us the story of what recently
happened between him and Porphyria. The first five lines have the
speaker describing the weather as rainy, windy, and generally dismal.
I keep summoning up images of Wuthering Heights. The next four lines
describe Porphyria coming into the cottage and getting warm. The next
16 lines explain rather sensually about how she acts towards the
speaker. The next lines he starts to think about where they and
thinking about the situation they are in and how much love she has
for him; how she worships him. The next lines talk about how he takes
her hair and strangles her with it. Then, after she has breathed her
last breath, he continues to keep company with her in a rather
disturbing scene as he opens her eyes, toys with her hair, sits her
next to him, and even kisses her dead, lifeless body. He leaves us
with the lovely line of “And yet God has not said a word!”.
In the beginning, the weather reflects
the speaker's own mood. Then, Porphyria comes. Even though she's
soaking wet and cold, she lights up the mood and brings a kind of
cheerfulness. It can be speculated that she is married to a wealthy
man by the line “To set its struggling passions free/ from pride
vainer ties dissever,/ And give herself to me forever.” There is
also the line later, “ That moment she was mine, mine, fair,/
perfectly pure and good:..” He then goes off the deep end and
decides that the best thing would be to keep her all to himself, to
keep her pure and good, and to have her to brighten his cottage and
mood forever more.
The way he decides to kill her puts a
whole new perspective on the idea of a 'crime of passion.' for those
of you who aren't really sure what exactly a crime of passion is,
think of something that would require a lot of 'passion' for lack of
a better word, to do – stabbing, strangling, etc. not only is the
pseaker strangling his lover, but he's strangling her with her own
hair. Then he continues on as if nothing is different, even though he
has to prop her head on his shoulder, physically open her eyes, and
you can bet when he kisses her she won't be kissing him back. Unless
we're watching some extra disturbing episode of Supernatural. To top
it all off, as he sits with her all night, he muses on the fact that
God has not said a word, so obviously, he hasn't done anything wrong,
right?
Given that Browning's monologues are intended, in part, to reveal the inner psychology of the speaker, what is revealed by the way that Porphyria's lover retells the story of her visit and murder? Why do you think he tells the story the way he does?
ReplyDeleteThe way the speaker tells his story really focuses on how Porphyria brightens his world and how much passion she has for him. It really brings out a jealous and possessive view of the speaker; "If I alone can't have her in life, then I shall have her in death!" It also shows some severe psychological problems considering he could not only kill someone, but pretend everything is fine and continue to keep a corpse in his company.
DeleteMinnie, I really like this post. I haven't read Porphyria's Lover yet but now I'm interested. I really like your summary and was surprised with how we're told that he loves her but then he strangles her. I like how you discussed the idea of a "crime of passion" and mentioning the TV show Supernatural is a sure fire way to relate to an audience (like me, I LOVE that show!)
ReplyDeleteNice blog :) The last line of the poem is what really freaks me out about it! It kind of reminds me of some of Poe's work, like how the narrators are crazy but they tell the stories as if they are completely sane. Clearly the speaker, like you said, feels that he has done absolutely nothing wrong.
ReplyDelete