Robert Browning was poet during the Victorian Age, his wrote about love and established this through his characters. His works explore the nature of love, as shown in “Porphria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess.” Throughout both poems, Robert Browning uses multiple literary devices to help establish the theme of the nature of love. “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess”, it is extremely important to know the commonalities between these two poems. Both are dramatic monologues in which lovers tell their stories of love. While in "Porphyria’s Lover" the lover is and abnormal man telling how he made Porphyria’s love for him eternal, in "My Last Duchess" the lover is a proud man boasting about his last duchess and how he controlled her with his abilities. "Porphyria’s Lover" is a poem about a man with abnormal love. In the poem, Porphyrias lover lives in a cottage in the countryside. One stormy night, his lover Porphyria arrives, “sullen wind was soon awake,” and “and did it worst to vex the lake” (“Porphyria’s Lover” Ln. 2-4), is personification used to describe the scenery. Also, “the s...
seen in "The curtain I have drawn for you, but I". This tells us that
Robert Browning's Studies of Male Jealousy in the Dramatic Monologues Porphyria's Lover and My Last Duchess
Love is everywhere in the world and the majority of the people will do anything for love. People will push the limits to what they do for love and it just makes you wonder of how much crazy people are out there and are willing to take it to that crazy level. Social media blows up everywhere when they hear about a story that the guy or the girl went crazy in the relationship and just did something crazy. Well there are two poems that author Robert Browning wrote about love and they are called “My last Duchess” and “Porphyria's Lover” and there are a couple things that you can compare and contrast about it like both have very jealous people and another is how crazy people can get and one that’s different is how they handle it.
The narrator reveals a great deal about himself without any apparent intention of doing so. In both of these dramatic monologues, it appears that the speaker has murdered their mistress and is reflecting upon their actions while contemplating the image of their lover’s beautiful face. Both are selfish men who were jealous of their victims. The two speakers came from very different backgrounds, one a rich and powerful Duke, the other a low-born worker living in rural simplicity. Porphyria’s Lover is a love story told in the words of a simple man obsessed by his love for a woman of noble birth.
In the widely acclaimed novel “Catching Fire”, the fictional character Peeta Mellark is quoted as saying, “I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever.” (Collins). Coincidentally, that is what the unnamed lover in Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue “Porphyria’s Lover” aspires to achieve when he murders his beloved Porphyria, in hopes of preserving their intimate moment for eternity. At the start of the poem, Browning seemingly shows his audience a loving, romantic scene of Porphyria affectionately tending her inert beau. As the dramatic monologue progresses, it is learned that the originally envisioned romantic love story has transformed into a disturbing tale of a cruel lover’s massacre of his significant other. The moment the nameless speaker finally glances into his love’s eyes, he fully abandons his passive nature and reveals his true personality. The persona of Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” reveals himself as a sadistic and covetous lover who views Porphyria as a mere possession, and further illustrates himself as a delusional and selfish person. Browning overtly reveals the speaker’s character through proficient word choice, explicit imagery, and the clever use of irony in the poem.
Have you ever fallen in love? Have you ever developed strong feelings for another? If problems arose between the two of you, were you able to overcome them? Well certain men in Robert Browning’s works couldn’t seem to. . . “overcome” these differences with their women. Browning grew up learning from his father’s huge library. His wife was much more successful at writing than him. Eight years after her death, his career turned around for the last 20 years of his life. During this time, he wrote many short dramatic monologues such as My Last Duchess and Prophyria’s Lover. These two very intriguing and disturbing Monologues, My Last Duchess and Prophyria’s Lover, by Robert Browning, involve two very messed up men whose actions are both alike in their idea of immortalizing their woman, but different in why they chose to commit the act between the two stories, and a conclusion may be drawn from this observation.
In the poem "Porphyria's Lover," the lover begins by describing the unfolding scene to an unidentified listener: "and from her form / Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, / And laid her soiled gloves by, untied / Her hat and let the damp hair fall" (10-13). The lover, left alone in the cottage, relates the events of the dark, stormy evening in which he anxiously waits "with heart fit to break" for his beloved Porphyria to enter. "Evidently, her absence is due to her attendance at a 'gay feast,' one of the 'vainer ties' which Porphyria presumably cultivated" (Magill 338). When she finally arrives, he tells the reader: "she sat down by my side / And called me. When no voice replied" (14-15). Porphyria speaks to him, "murmuring how she loved [him]" while the lover silently watches, becoming the mastered object to be petted and "loved." However, when he looks into her eyes, he knows that she loves him: "at last I knew / Porphyria worshipped ...
"Porphyria's Lover" is an exhilarating love story given from a lunatic's point of view. It is the story of a man who is so obsessed with Porphyria that he decides to keep her for himself. The only way he feels he can keep her, though, is by killing her. Robert Browning's poem depicts the separation of social classes and describes the "triumph" of one man over an unjust society. As is often the case in fiction, the speaker of "Porphyria's Lover" does not give accurate information in the story.
that she is dead and the painting of his wife is there to show off and
Robert Browning, the poet, uses iambic pentameter throughout the poem. He breaks up the pattern so that every two lines rhyme. Aside from being a dramatic monologue, the poem is also considered lyric poetry because it is a poem that evokes emotion but does not tell a story. The poem is being told in the speaker's point-of-view about his first duchess, also as revealed in the title, The Last Duchess. The setting is important because the duke's attitude correlates to how men treated women at that time. The theme of the poem appears to be the duke's possessive love and his reflections on his life with the duchess, which ultimately brings about murder and his lack of conscience or remorse.
Written in two different literary periods “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” share various similarities with one another. While Browning can not be credited for inventing the dramatic monologue himself it was his fondness and skill for it that raised it to a highly sophisticated level. He also helped increase its popularity both with poets and the general public. His huge success with dramatic monologues served as inspiration for Eliot years later. Based on his work, Eliot was clearly influenced by the dramatic monologue style used by Browning. However, despite their similarities there are stark differences between the poems by Browning and Eliot. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” shows a clear movement away from the Victorian style found in “My Last Duchess” and goes towards Modernism.
Both of these poems can be used read from different points of view and they could also be used to show how society treated women in the Nineteenth Century: as assets, possessions. Both of these poems are what are known as a dramatic monologue as well as being written in the first person. The whole poem is only one stanza long, and each line in the stanza comprises of eight syllables. ‘My Last Duchess’ is about a member of the nobility talking to an ambassador concerning his last wife, who later on in the poem is revealed to have been murdered by the person speaking, who is about to marry his second wife. ‘Porphyria's Lover’ gives an insight into the mind of an exceptionally possessive lover, who kills his lover in order to capture that perfect moment of compassion. ‘Porphyria's Lover’ uses an alternating rhyme scheme during most of the poem except at the end. The whole poem is only one stanza long, and each line in the stanza comprises of eight syllables.
Porphyria shows power again by trying to get his attention by seducing him and telling the narrator she loves him. This surprises the narrator but still he sticks to his plan. The narrator puts Porphyria into a false sense of security t... ... middle of paper ... ...to use and show off than a loving wife for him to cherish. In Porphyrias lover the narrator describes the setting of the poem, it tells you about the weather, what they look like, what clothes they are wearing and it gradually sets the scene with visual detail.
In “Sonnet 43,” Browning wrote a deeply committed poem describing her love for her husband, fellow poet Robert Browning. Here, she writes in a Petrarchan sonnet, traditionally about an unattainable love following the styles of Francesco Petrarca. This may be partly true in Browning’s case; at the time she wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese, Browning was in courtship with Robert and the love had not yet been consummated into marriage. But nevertheless, the sonnet serves as an excellent ...
In “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover” both deal with the love of a woman. The theme for both is power and how the speaker in both want to be in control over the woman. The imagery in “My Last Duchess” is based off what the Duke’s feel and what he shares with the servant. The imagery in “Porphyria’s Lover” is based on Porphyria’s. The tone in “My Last Duchess” is arrogant and ignorant because the Duke think so much of himself and foolishly shares all his flaws. The tone in Porphyria’s Lover” is rational the speaker makes sense of the murder of a woman he loves so much. Both poems displayed dramatic