Essay Comparing My Last Duchess And Porphyria's Lover

Both poems have similar themes and both speakers describe a particular character found in both stories. Both poems have a beautiful woman as its main character and their themes describe the relationship between two lovers. In "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover," Robert Browning conveys two distinct portraits depicting the love shared between two people. The qualities of beauty, selfishness, and jealousy appear in both poems. In both works, the author explores the hidden influence death has upon the relationship shared by two lovers.

Similarly to the father of English’s, Chaucer’s, literary critique of his time period the Canterbury Tales, Browning critiques the treatment of women in his time period known as the Victorian Era. Robert Browning was self-educated through his father’s grand library. By the time he was a teenager Browning had decided to make poetry his life’s pursuit. Robert Browning’s work was controversial for his time and didn’t gain any real success until after the death of his wife. The two poems addressing most directly the treatment of women in Browning’s time are My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover. My Last Duchess is a dramatic monologue spoken by a Duke about his last wife. The Duke is

“My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and “ The Rape of the lock” by Alexander Pope are two poems that convey a theme of love and objectification towards women.For instance, both poems are similar in their use imagery and metaphors to grasp their audience attention. For example, in “My last duchess” the author shows the wife in the poem as an item controlled by her husband and uses his love for her as an excuse to abuse his power. Her life is ruled by him and she would have to deal with his insane jealousy because his obsessiveness is dominating his reality of his relationship . In this poem the male role has many characteristics one of them being paranoid and not helping him reflect on reality by him owning shrine of items that belonged to all his earlier wife’s. His late wife is shown as a piece of imagery where she is kept on a wall trapped not able to leave his sight or be allowed interact with others. (Browning,1-2) In “ The Rape of the Lock “ the poem starts off with Belinda,the main character, in a dream sent to her by her guardian Sylph. The dream sends a message to Belinda that she must be careful with all men in her life once she has received the message she awakens to a love letter at her sight and forgets the dream in its entirety. Throughout the course of the poem Belinda’s Sylphs are required to protect her chastity and help her contain her purity.. The man in her life is using her as an item and not as a human being.Pope encourages these characteristics

The two poems are similar in their corresponding feeling of dread for death. Using diction,

Another similarity can be found in both of the poems due to their mutual usage of the same Greek myth, which is about Icarus. The Dictionary of Classical Mythology details the myth of Icarus as follows, “At first all went well as they flew out over the sea, but then Icarus was fatally

There are not many similarities between the two poems but what do you expect from two poems that were written in totally different time periods since the style of poetry changes after

The first similarity that was noticed was how both these poems have the same rhyme scheme. A rhyme scheme is the pattern of how rhyme sounds occur . In the case of these poems, the last word in the line rhymes with the following, and then it starts a new word to rhyme with afterwards. In My Last Duchess, the twenty- first line rhymes with the twenty- second line: “For calling up that spot of joy. She had” (21) A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,” (22). When looking at the similar poem, My Ex- Husband, the twenty- first and twenty- second lines rhyme with each other as well: “Half- hidden in a corner nook. Such stuff” (21) “Was all too well rehearsed, I soon enough” (22). This is an obvious similarity to both the poems because they show this throughout the whole reading. Although these simple similarities are pretty obvious, there are some similarities that require a bit more

Robert Browning’s two poems, Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess have similarities and differences. The the narrators of Robert Browning’s Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess are very similar as they are both jealous, unstable men. In the former, Porphyria, a beautiful young woman, meets with her lover. He is envious of Porphyria as she just came from a party without him.

The speakers of Browning’s “My Last Duchess” and Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” are both men who are accustomed to having what they want and when they want it. Both speakers show that they have little to no intention for women other than to please themselves. The poets show their speaker’s true character with literary devises throughout the poems by alluding to their desire for power, their self-serving nature, and their attitudes that they are superior to women.

There are similarities in these two poems such as the theme and the observentness of the narrator. Both of the poems themes involve death. In ?I heard a Fly buzz when I died?, the poet writes, ? And then the Windows failed ? and then I could not see to see- ", which means that the narrator?s eyes would not open no more; they had died. In ?Because I could not stop for Death? it shows the theme

“My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover” are two mind boggling tales that relate in many ways. Two of which, they are both written by Robert Browning and from a male’s point of view. The Duke in “My Last Duchess” gives off a controlling, jealous, and arrogant vibe towards the Duchess which results in her death. The man in “Porphyria’s Lover” is angry and irritated because the woman he loves will not divorce her husband which also ends with her death. The poems “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover” demonstrate two different relationships with women while both men view women as objects.

“In order to gain his power back, he feels he must kill this seductress. In order to gain control over Porphyria, the speaker must take advantage of her at her weakest moment” (Marcus). During the Victorian era, the Patriarchy still lead a majority of the moral laws for individuals to follow. The rules, so to speak, are simply that the women are placed in a lower class than men and are to remain there and accept their place. Robert Browning is the author of two poems that are highly controversial to the modern reader for the sheer fact that the works of literature emphasis men overpowering women. While there are many types of ways for men to ruin female lives, and the ways keep expanding by the day, the poems My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s

Now, when it comes to technical similarities between the two poems (i.e. rhyme scheme and meter), there aren’t any, so instead of stating all they don’t have in common, we’ll just move straight on to the similarities in their subject matter. Of course, the most glaring similarity between the two is that they both feature a gloomy sailor

The two Browning poems, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ were written to convey to the reader how women were treated in that era; as possession, as assets. Both of these poems can be read from different points of view and they also both are what is

There are many common things between these two poems. Firstly both poems scenes are set in the