A compare/contrast analysis of the speaker of My Last Duchess and the speaker of Porphyria’s Lover; how they are similar and how they are different

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Great works of poetry don’t always make sense at first. They can be over a highly random subject, such as the singing of a bird or the way a woman composes herself, yet they are still great. Some of the most infamous poetry known to today’s modern literary world come out of 19th century England, the Victorian Era. These poets were some of the first to experiment with different themes and rhythms of poetry. “The easy conversational flow of the poem is created by making the regular mid-line pauses ("caesura") the dominant stops of the poem rather than endstopping.” (Tenebris) One of these poets was Robert Browning, who failed to obtain much recognition for his poetry until much later. His determination paid off, as he is now one of the greatest, right up there with Tennyson. The poems My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover, written by Browning, each have a single unique character, yet the characters’ traits seem to echo one another in some ways too.
The characters of My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover each speak as if the woman he loves is still alive, which neither woman is. My Last Duchess is a man speaking to another, telling him of his late wife, whose picture hangs on the wall. He talks of her traits and how she blushes, though she no longer lives. This perhaps represents that he hasn’t completely come to terms with the fact that he is alone. Throughout the poem, he seems to almost blame her, though the reader does not know what for; perhaps for leaving him alone. The speaker of Porphyria’s Lover is much more direct than the man in the previous poem. He speaks directly to the reader, and tells of his girl. He first describes her in a way that makes her seem like she doesn’t care about him. She comes in from a stormy nights an...

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...st Duchess, by Robert Browning." Yahoo
Voices. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. poetry-analysis-last-duchess-robert-browning-250145.html>. Salman, Adeel. "Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Browning." Academia.edu. N.p., n.d.
Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
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Tenebris. "Poetry Analysis my last Duchess by Robert Browning." Humanities 360.
N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. poetry-analysis-my-last-duchess-by-robert-browning-2-65328/>. Wilkerson, J. Courtney. "Reader-Oriented Criticism of My Last Duchess."
Armadillo and Sands: Intellectual Properties at Work. N.p., n.d. Web. 11
Apr. 2014.
reader-oriented-criticism-of-my-last.html>.

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