Last Duchess And Porphyrias Lover Analysis

Robert Browning wrote the two poems, "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover." Both poems convey an thoughtful, examination profound commentary about the concept of love.

Additionally, the poet Robert Browning had penned several dramatic monologues, making it almost his signature form of writing. Two of his most known works, Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess are examples of this form. Because of how they share a poetic structure and multiple themes, the two works are rather alike. However, the content of each differs significantly from the other. For instance, Porphyria’s Lover is about a narrative who strangles his beloved mistress with her own hair, while My Last Duchess tells the story of a jealous Duke who describes his wife to a lawyer.

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.

Robert Browning is a very interesting character with quite odd dramatic poems. Browning wrote in the era we call The Victorian. Robert wrote about poems in which to this day are very memorable and unforgettable. One poem is called My Last Duchess, in which a man has lost his wife and chooses to find a new one with different personal characteristics. No one knows what happened to his wife, after commands from the Duke she was gone. A rather more disturbing poem is titled, Porphyria's Lover in which the male character strangles the a girl because it was what she wanted. My Last Duchess and Porphyria's Lover are two dramatic monologues that have some similarities and differences that make one wonder.

Do not just tell a reader about a character, reveal the character to the reader. When writing, an author should become the character. Doing this allows readers to explore inside the character’s head. Who is this person when nobody's looking? What thoughts are going through his or her head? Robert Browning is a poet who takes readers inside his character’s head and makes readers see the world from his speakers’ point of view. Browning used dramatic monologue to enter into the minds of specific characters struggling with specific sets of circumstances. They are real, they feel pain, and they act out on it. After hearing the crazy, jealous, flawed speakers in Browning’s poems, Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess, readers try and understand things

Since Time began, women have always been thought of as unequal to men. Women were thought of as property, owned by their fathers and later, their husbands. Royal women, or women raised in very high respected families were traded into an arranged marriage to keep the peace between the families, Often times, their wealthy husbands were very old and even sometimes abusive. Other times, women who were not in wealthy families were also abused. A poet by the name of Robert Browning wrote two very famous poems. My last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover. I believe that these two poems are very similar yet very different in many ways.

TITLE Robert Browning’s poems, My Last Duchess (‘MLD’) and Porphyria’s Lover (‘PL’) take the form of dramatic monologues and are striking examples of literature written in the Victorian era. Due to their form, a great interaction is developed between the reader and narrator, with an additional oratory effect; this allows the audience to understand a situation less ambiguously through features such as tone. Therefore, Browning is able to present male and female characters more completely. Furthermore, the poems accurately convey gender inequality present in Victorian society, hinting at the lack of liberties given to women.

How has love been presented by the poets in the poems: My Last Duchess, Porphyria’s Lover, Sonnet 116 and 18, A mother in a Refugee Camp and Mother any Distance? the true capacity of his obsession. The curtain in itself shows the Dukes craving for control as he wishes to restrict who is able to view the painting, instead of leaving it for all to admire. He didn’t want the Duchess, likewise the painting, to receive praise from different men because he didn't want the kind words of others to distract the Duchess from, what he viewed as, her main purpose of belonging to him and him only.

Often times we wonder why people write and say things. We wonder what will happen to those around us and how they might go. There are two poems about a love that has lead to people they love dying. Rivera has done research on Browning and she discovered many things, “Finding school irritating and uninteresting, Browning left formal institutional learning behind and was educated at home by a tutor.”(Rivera) This is surprising because every wrote some of the greatest poems in the Victorian age. Those two poems are called Porphyria’s Lover and The Last Duchess by Robert Browning.

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

be seen in, "some-how I know not how as if she ranked/ My gift of a

Robert Browning is the great poet of dramatic monologues. A dramatic monologue is described as narrator revealing characteristics about himself, while still explaining a particular series of events. Robert Browning was slow to make himself a name, but once he realized his capabilities in the literature world his career took off. Biographer, Richard Black explained, “Widely regarded for his knowledge and his explorations of philosophical questions of great resonance in Victorian life.” Browning writes extremely controversial poems that question his morals and the morals of the those around. In the poems, Porphyria's Lover and My Last Duchess,

Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” written in 1836 explores and undermines the complex gender stereotypes regarding power and authority present in the nineteenth century. The typical stable male figure is absent. Instead, the male narrator is extremely capricious and erratic in nature, making for an unusual story. Porphyria, the female in the poem, also undermines regular stereotypes. On a deeper level, Porphyria seems to be the one with the power even although physically she gets strangled. The irrational power of sexuality and the sublimity of nature are extremely relevant in this Romantic poem. Reason does not seem to exist on any level in “Porphyria’s Lover”, yet power is everywhere. Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” analyzes the

The title ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ may indicate to the reader the idea that the lover would be the only active article in the poem, especially if it was written by a male during those times. However, at the beginning of the poem Porphyria is immediately given the active role, she’s the one who “glided in” wanting to visit him “for love of her…/ through wind and rain”, she also “shut the out cold and storm”. This gives Porphyria a masculine physical ability as she has the power to “shut…out” something as sinewy as a storm, which goes against the female stereotype.

An English poet named Robert Browning who was born on May 7, 1812 in England. Robert Browning had extremely dramatic monologues, which later in life portrayed him as one of the best Victorian poets in the world. His father who worked as a bank clerk and mother who was a pianist, both collected books and pictures. “Porphyria’s Lover” and “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” are one of his best examples expressing his dramatic monologues and verses.