Porphyrias Lover

A Robert Browning Poem

(Creator: Delzi Laranjeira)

1. “Porphyria’s Lover”,
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Robert Browning
Elizabeth Barret Browning

2. Remarks:
This poem was often grouped by Browning with "Johannes
Agricola in Meditation": when published together, the pair of
poems were usually titled "Madhouse Cells" and lost their
individual titles.
Porphyria: her name derives from the Greek word πορφυρος,
meaning purple. The related word porphyry is often used by
poets to mean a very beautiful purple stone similar to marble. In
the twentieth century, medical researchers identified a condition
that is generally called Porphyria, a common manifestation of
which is Acute Intermittent Porphyria: it is sometimes
characterized by mental confusion, hallucinations, and extreme
sensitivity to light. While the name for the disorder was probably
not inspired by Browning's poem, the relationship between the
disorder and this poem is intriguing.

3. Form® dramatic monologue, regular, with a tight
ababb rhyme pattern. Most of the poem is written in
iambic pentameter.
Title: paradoxical→ hints at a (probably happy) love
story, but tells about a murder.
Porphyria's lover → another one of those Browning
male characters who objectify, use, and abuse
woman by projecting their wishes upon them — the
Duke of Ferrara and Count Guido Franceschini being
the most obvious examples ( “My Last Duchess”, The
Ring and the Book)

4. Language® The diction of the poem is
straightforward. Browning often uses complex
classical reference and colloquialisms in his poems,
but the content and language in “Porphyria’s Lover”
seem straightforward and easy to understand →
most of the words used are monosyllables, as is
much of the description of events presented by the
speaker.
The poem uses simple, short words. However, there
are subtle developments in the poem to suggest the
speaker’s unusual state of mind and his heightening
sense of conflict: what shall he do with her?

5. At first, the poem relies almost exclusively on
description as the speaker recounts the events that
have taken place, but as it becomes clear that the
events described are seen through the lens of the
speaker’s madness, the language becomes more
metaphorical:
the early description of Porphyria→ the speaker offers
a simple physical description of her. She has smooth
shoulders and yellow hair.
after he kills her® uses vegetative imagery to describe
her: her eyelid is like a shut bud that holds a bee, her
head droops like a fallen flower, and it is smiling and
“rosy”, which seems to accentuate her total subjection
by him.

6. The sense of Porphyria’s dominance over her
lover and the difference in their temperaments
is indicated by the active verbs which initially
describe her and contrast her with the
speaker’s passivity. When the balance of
power shifts as he kills her, the speaker
reveals himself as in control, and this shift is
accomplished by his associating himself with
action while she lies passively and silent
against him.

7. Themes
Madness® In the second half of the poem,
Browning offers more and more clues to show that
the speaker is not merely delusional or confused
because of his near−broken heart but that he is
somehow quite mad.
All this is presented, in a calm manner, even as the
speaker describes how he takes his lover’s hair and
twists it around her neck until she is dead.
By not using disjointed language or crazy rhyme
(the rhyme scheme is rather irregular but follows a
very orderly pattern), Browning suggests that
madness is a complex phenomenon that has more
in common with sanity than we think.

8. Sex and Violence® depiction of an illicit love affair
between a woman of high social standing and her
poor lover would have been shocking to Victorian
readers. However, Browning’s poem is not shocking
merely because it presents a transgressive
relationship, but also because it poses questions to
readers about the nature of immorality. Porphyria
tries to seduce her lover by laying bare her shoulder
and putting his head on her shoulder, and he in turn
kills her and places her head on his. Both sex and
violence were deemed “immoral” by Victorian
standards, and Browning seems to be asking why
this is as he shows the two acts mirroring each other.

9. Dominance and Power® there is obviously a great
deal of tension between Porphyria and her lover, and
there is a sense of the speaker’s unease at
Porphyria’s power. She is clearly more in charge: she
is superior to him socially; she comes to see him and
puts his house in order. She is a forceful presence as
soon as she walks in the cottage and is able to shut
out the storm. The speaker seems to resent her
power over him. For, while he portrays her as strong
and commanding, he insists that she is weak and
needs him more than anything else.

10. When he kills her® reverses their roles so that he is in control;
at the end of the poem, she sits with her dead head drooped on
his shoulder, when before she had lain his cheek on hers.
The woman who is the more powerful partner in the relationship
is contrary to the stereotype® may be the reason for the
speaker’s resentment and anger.
She has a gay social life which she enjoys® a likely source of
his bitterness, and the only way to rid himself of his feelings of
impotence and powerlessness is to kill her.
Browning offers no commentary on the nature of power in
relationships, the poem brings up questions about how power
dynamics manifest themselves in sexual partners’ attitudes and
behavior toward each other.

11. Experiencing an Infinite Moment® This
theme of experiencing an infinite moment (in
which the lover experiences a woman’s
perfect love) was common in much Romantic
literature, and it has been suggested by a
number of critics that in his poem, Browning
parodies this notion by showing a madman
capturing this infinite moment with his
gruesome murder of his loved one.

12. Sonnets from the Portugese ®chronicles one
of the most famous romances in history.
Elizabeth Barrett wrote the sonnet sequence
during her courtship by Robert Browning, and
later presented them to him as a wedding gift.
Robert was amazed by the quality of the
poetry, and encouraged her to publish, but
Elizabeth objected, saying that the content
was too personal. At last, Robert prevailed,
and Elizabeth published her sonnets.

13. Sonnets from the Portuguese
 Disguised on its publication as a translation from the work of
the Portuguese poet Luis de Camões, Sonnets from the
Portuguese consists of forty−four sonnets—fourteen−line
poems of rhymed iambic pentameter.
The first four lines of an Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet make a
statement that the next four lines prove. These eight lines are
the “octave.” There follows a “turn” in thought. The next six
lines, the “sestet,” prove further and conclude the statement.
The Petrarchan rhyme scheme is abba, abba, cde, cde.
Browning often writes her sestets, however, with a rhyme
scheme of cdcdcd. She has been criticized for not adhering
strictly to tradition and for not making her rhymes exact (those
Victorians were terrible concerning form).

14. Sonnet I:
Opens the stages in the romance of Elizabeth and
Robert. The theme of the entire sequence is
announced in the first sonnet.
 Reading Theocritus, the speaker thinks on her own
life and its melancholy. Meanwhile, she is pulled from
behind by the hair. She thinks it is death, but she is
corrected: “‘Not Death, but Love.’”
 This phrase resounds throughout this entire work,
which tells how love entered her life and how the
beloved, as if he were truly heaven sent, turned her
from darkness and the contemplation of the grave to
light, love, and life.

15. Sonnet XLIV
Sonnet XLIV offers the sonnets to the beloved,
just as he has given her many flowers.
The flowers become metaphors for the
sonnets. Like the eglantine and the ivy (wild
plants that are perennial), the speaker wishes
the sonnets to remain forever with the beloved
(“instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true”)
and also function as a connection between
them (“and tell thy soul, their roots are left in
mine”).