Comparing 'Porphyria's Lover And My Last Duchess'

Browning also uses an effective rhyming scheme. He uses rhyming couplets to make the poem flow easily. For examplein "My Last Duchess" he writes, "Frà Pandolf's hands/ Worked busily a day, and there she stands". The regular rhyme in "Porphyria's Lover" gives the poem a relaxed rhyme but off rhymes give a shocking effect at the point where the lover murders Porphyria

none puts by / The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)' He acts like

The early nineteenth century poem by Robert Browning, “Porphyria’s Lover”, is filled with examples of figurative language. Browning uses metaphors, similes, and personification to bring the poem to life. The use of figurative language allows Browning to raise from the dead a poem with the unemotional tonee of the speaker. He exposes the mind of a psychopath, an insane lover, mastering the art of the dramatic monologue.

Love is the most dominant theme in Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. It is presented as infatuation which is proven to be a force so strong that it literally consumes the two lovers. Although it is only alluded in Browning’s dramatic monologues The Laboratory, the speaker arguably loves her husband as she seeks to rid herself of his lover thereby reclaiming him as her own. Narcissism is seen in both Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess as both characters empower themselves by making them the central focus of the monologue. The Duke is the least emotional of all the characters depicted, yet his actions show a determination and strength of purpose which is evident in the poems.

The speaker’s in Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess have many similarities and differences apparent in the poems. Both poems are dramatic monologues about love, essentially they are about a man speaking his mind about his lover, expressing the possession he wants and what he felt was wrong with her, in the end the poems reveal that the man kills his lover in order to preserve the love he wanted. Although there are many similarities there are many differences in the men themselves, while in Porphyria’s Lover the speaker may not have been the richest man, considering he was living in a cottage the duke in My Last Duchess would have been quite wealthy showing off the painter and the beauty the painting portrayed. Furthermore, the duke had already

Last Versus Lover (A comparison and contrast of Robert Browning’s Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover) When another writer’s name is used in the same sentence and in comparison to Edgar Allen Poe, there must be a realization that something is a little off. Some of Robert Browning’s works can be considered out of the norm. First time readers are never expecting the interesting, unexpected twist. Two of his poems in particular stand out to most in the more disturbing category of literary works. These consist of My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover.

‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ are both poems by the Victorian poet Robert Browning. In this essay I will compare these two poems to find similarities and differences.

higher class than him socially and in heritage and he is not In a high

Robert Browning’s poems “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess” depict a mastery of the dramatic monologue style. Said style contains a narrative told by a character’s point of view that differs from that of the poet.The character’s monologue consists of them discussing their particular situation that they find themselves within, this is meant to convey their internal information to the reader or audience. This in turn allows the reader a glimpse into the personality of the narrating character. Within “Porphyria’s Lover” and My Last Duchess” these monologues are used along with poetic devices to develop unique male personas. Between these two personas there are evident differences in class and within each class social issues arise within each work.

While much of the Victorian Era centers around the rigid constructs of society, some authors and artists pull away from the strict rules and realism. Claude Monet, the French painter was a major contributor to the Impressionist Movement and his 1873 Impression, Sunrise is an oil painting on canvas that depicts a gloomy dawn over a harbor in the new style. The British poet, Robert Browning is known for his dramatic monologues, one of which is “Porphyria’s Lover”, written in 1834. The poetic style allows for the character to speak straight to the audience. Both forms of art deviate from traditional Victorian values, capturing feelings and personality, rather than morality and truth. In the painting, Impression,

The Victorian era was characterized by a strict patriarchal society that imposed oppressive ways of life and moral codes on its women. Because women were considered to have belonged primarily in the domestic realm, the traditional and ideal Victorian woman was the passive, pure, and virtuous “angel in the house.” Women were expected to maintain their virginity until marriage, and expressions of female sexuality or promiscuity were of moral outrage and came with serious consequences. Accordingly, Robert Browning uses this idea of female sexuality and its costs in several of his dramatic monologues. Close readings of Browning’s poems “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess” reveal how female subjects are victimized by their male counterparts

Love is a fleeting feeling amongst mankind. Within a single moment, love can become hate. There is a vicious cycle of love and hate that will continue for many years to come. Its part of the human nature. That nature is revealed in two poems. These poems are “Porphyria's Lover” and “The Last Duchess,” both by Robert Browning, are actually quite similar and yet different.

In the end, it is Porphyria’s own hair that leads to her demise. But, Browning makes sure to emphasize the length of her hair, it being long enough to wound around her neck an entire three times. For hair to become that long, one must put time and effort into growing it out to such a length. Porphyria is a character who obviously cares for her looks and her beauty, her hair being one of her signature attributes. She puts so much effort into something that perceived as lovely and enchanted when in reality, it is the thing that ends her life. Not only this, but on multiple occasions, the speaker chooses to draw attention to its yellow color. Yellow is used to represent happiness, wonderment, and enlightenment, ironic as it proves to bring nothing but sorrow. What is originally seen as something wondrous and magical, is in fact the cause of her downfall, thus again tying back to the theme of fantasy and

Robert Browning was a brilliant writer. The Longman Anthology of British Literature says, “More than any other nineteenth-century figure, Browning shaped the poetry of the twentieth, influencing British and American poets from, Hardy and Yeats to Elliot, Pound, Frost, Lowell, and Stevens” (1322). One of Robert Browning’s specialties was dramatic monologues. In his dramatic monologues, Browning develops his characters really well. Throughout the monologue Browning shows the true character of the person by not only what the character is speaking, but also by “idiomatic language, patterns of imagery, speech rhythms, and unintended ironies” (The Longman Anthology of British Literature, 1323). A good example of one of Browning’s dramatic monologues is The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church. In this monologue the main character is a Bishop who is trying to order a very extravagant tomb for himself. Browning did such an excellent job at the Bishop’s character development that John Ruskin said that there is not any other writing that portrays the “Renaissance spirit-its worldliness, inconsistency pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin” (The Longman Anthology of British Literature, 1332). Browning portrayed this in only one hundred and twenty-five lines, which shows the brilliance of Robert’s writing.

Robert Browning was an author in the nineteenth century. He was known for his writings of dramatic monologues. Not all of Browning's poems were monologues, but his two most famous poems were dramatic monologues. Dramatic monologues are poems that have a character that is talking to a silent character in a critical moment. The character ends up revealing to the silent character the dramatic situation in the poem. Robert Browning wrote two very similar yet disparate poems called Last Duchess, and Porphyria's Lover.