Romanticism In The Romantic Period And Porphyria's Love

The Romantic era began in 1770, with its peak being from 1800 to 1850. With emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a result of the Enlightenment period, which heavily placed values upon reason and order. Thus, Romanticism depends heavily on “the practical accomplishments of the prior un-Romantic era— a relationship between material wealth and scientific knowledge on one hand, and personal, spiritual, or emotional transcendence on the other, that twenty-first century Americans continue to manage.” The simplest explanation for what is Romantic is “‘anything but the here and now’ or whatever is not realistic” (“Romanticism”). The

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.

Robert Browning provides a critical view of gender and power relations in his dramatic monologues “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess.” The dramatic monologue, as S.S. Curry has written, "reveals the struggle in the depths of the soul” (11). Browning delves into the minds of characters to show their conceptions of women and ideas of power. He explores the mental processes of the characters, and invites readers to question societal ideas of power and gender. The mental pathologies of the speakers is emphasized, which forces readers to examine the sanity of their own notions of gender dynamics.

The loss of a loved one is perhaps the most difficult experience that humans ever come up against. The poem Porphyria’s Lover, written by Robert Browning, adds a sense of irony to this. At the most superficial layer, the speaker’s in both Porphyria’s Lover and Neutral Tones, written by Thomas hardy, both deal with loss. The tones in Neutral Tones seem to be indifferent, or Neutral. Porphyria’s Lover speaker ends up murdering his beloved at the end the poem. While this isn’t the case with the speaker in Neutral Tones, the two speakers are much more similar than we might think. The speaker in Neutral Tones doesn’t outright murder his lover, but there is a considerable amount of disdain and contempt towards his supposed lover. The speaker in Porphyria’s Lover is quite obviously a disturbed man, the sinister nature of the speaker in Neutral Tones, however, is not as clear. Delving further into this idea, I will also discuss other obscure parallels throughout the two poems.

The acceptance of love has the power of transforming an individual to demand of that same love. The social context of the 1850’s was seen to be emphasised on individual’s emotions and rebellion against established social rules and convections which was evident in her open declarations of love and demanding’s of love which was a concept of idealised love. The notion of idealised love transforming an individual is presented in the ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’. Sonnet 14 as Elizabeth Browning urges her lover to not love her for any particular reason other than “love’s sake only”. In the Octave, the first line is EBB talking directly to whom she loves and she uses high modality in the word ‘must’, making it seem like she

Romanticism was a period time 1750 to 1870 in Europe, Latin America and The United States. Romantic Movement didn’t reach to France until the 1820’s. Romanticism main spirit was against of rule, law and formulas that classicism the different characterized of general in 18th century. Imagination, Subjectivity of approach, freedom, Expression and the idealization of nature will be focused in movement of Romantic Literature. In this period industrial revolution with the social and political norms form as age of enlightenment and against of scientific rationalization of nature. Some Literature element of that period will be emotional, imagination and suspense. Romanticism movement brings some of different writes such as John Keats, Blake William, Wordsworth William and other. They came with the different illustrated, poetry that expresses the language, emotion and imagination. Romanticism is a phenomenon characterized by subjectivity of approach and reliance on the imagination, An Idealization of nature and freedom of though and expression.

Initially, Barrett Browning’s misunderstanding of love implies her innocence, apparent in the utilisation of direct speech in Sonnet I, “Not Death, but Love,”, emphasising her surprise. However, as the sonnets progress her views are altered and Sonnet XIV accentuates Barrett Browning’s yearning to be loved and urges Browning to reemphasise his love, “But love me for love’s sake, that evermore thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity,”. Imperative voice and diction indicates Barrett Browning’s preoccupation for an everlasting love that is not influenced by superficial circumstances. This notion is reiterated in Sonnet XXI, “Say thou dost love me, love me, love me,”. Imperative tone is utilised, urging Browning to repeatedly express his love for her. The idealised love that EBB envisions can surpass even Death, reflected in her Victorian

William Cullen Bryant was well known for writing poems on nature, and he beautifully shows us the Romanticism view of one of their key themes. As with numerous other poems from the Romanticism Period, Bryant uses the imagery and ideas of a woman to convey his love for nature. An example of this trait is in the poem, “Thanatopsis”, Bryant’s most famous work. The first three lines of the poem shows both his love for nature and that he is going to use the image of a woman for the rest of the poem. “To him who in the love of nature holds/ Communion with her visible forms, she speaks/ A various language; for his gayer hours” He expressly says

Porphyria’s Lover and The Laboratory “Porphyria’s Lover” and “The Laboratory” both deal with crimes of passion. Explore ways Browning explains ways of obsessive nature of his character and analysis the effects of literary techniques. “Porphyria’s Lover” is a poem about a crime and passion. Porphyria is a young, wealthy girl who seems to have abandoned her family’s tradition of choosing wealthy men as lovers. Her lover remains anonymous, this could be because he has murdered her and does not want his name releasing.

look at but he feels as if the Duchess takes him for granted and she

In Robert Browning's dramatic monologue, "Porphyria's Lover," the love-stricken frustrations of a nameless speaker end in a passionate, annihilating response to society's scrutiny towards human sensuality. Cleverly juxtaposing Porphyria's innocent femininity and her sexual transgression, Browning succeeds in displaying society's contradictory embrace of morality next to its rejection of sensual pleasure. In an ironically tranquil domestic setting, warm comfort and affection come to reveal burning emotional perversions within confining social structures. The speaker's violent display of passion ends not with external condemnation, but with the matter-of-fact sense of

Nevertheless, it is the only poem on the list containing dramatic irony. The title alone is misleading, as the poem is not about Porphyria’s lover, rather her murderer. The speaker is completely unaware that he has done something wrong, proclaiming in line 42, after strangling her, “I am quite sure she felt no pain.” He believes he made her happy, and that her love is his forever, whereas the readers know that he is insane and that he has just murdered this woman. There is a sort of detached madness in his belief that he has won her ultimate

Romanticism can be used to describe a time period when poets, painters, essayists and composers increasingly came to view nature itself as the greatest teacher (Sayre 177). Romantic artist believed that the past Classical values of dominance were over. Romanticism believed by a new way of living one where emotion and feeling can into play. Romantics had a very deep and passionate feeling for the beauty of nature and how it corresponds to life. The emotion of the new view of an individual creator, whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures in romanticism (Britannica). I feel that people felt a time of relief when painting they did not need to feel like they were subject to a certain

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.