Porphyria's Lover BY ROBERT BROWNING

 Porphyria's Lover

BY ROBERT BROWNING

The rain set early in to-night,

       The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

       And did its worst to vex the lake:

       I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

       She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

       Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

       Which done, she rose, and from her form

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

       And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

       And, last, she sat down by my side

       And called me. 

When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

       And made her smooth white shoulder bare,

And all her yellow hair displaced,

       And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

       And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me — she

       Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,

To set its struggling passion free

       From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

       And give herself to me for ever.

But passion sometimes would prevail,

       Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain

A sudden thought of one so pale

       For love of her, and all in vain:

       So, she was come through wind and rain.

Be sure I looked up at her eyes

       Happy and proud; at last I knew

Porphyria worshipped me; surprise

       Made my heart swell, and still it grew

       While I debated what to do.

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

       Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

       In one long yellow string I wound

       Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

       I am quite sure she felt no pain.

As a shut bud that holds a bee,

       I warily oped her lids: again

       Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

And I untightened next the tress

       About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

       I propped her head up as before,

       Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still:

       The smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will,

       That all it scorned at once is fled,

       And I, its love, am gained instead!

Porphyria's love: she guessed not how

       Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

       And all night long we have not stirred,

       And yet God has not said a word!

Dramatic Monologue and Robert Browning : 

Monologue itself simply means a speech delivered by a single character, typically in a play or other dramatic work. It allows the character to express their thoughts, feelings, and motivations directly to the audience.

Dramatic monologue, however, takes this concept a step further. It's a specific form of poetry where a single speaker addresses a silent listener, revealing their inner world and motivations indirectly. The listener is often implied by the speaker's words and doesn't respond.

Here's where Robert Browning comes in. He's considered a master of the dramatic monologue. He used this form to create vivid portraits of complex characters from all walks of life. Through their monologues, we get a glimpse into their personalities, desires, and the situations they face.

Examples of Browning's Dramatic Monologues:

•  "My Last Duchess" - A Duke speaks to an emissary, hinting at the fate of his deceased wife and revealing his controlling nature.
•  "The Laboratory" - A woman, possibly a scientist, contemplates a dangerous experiment fueled by love and obsession.
•  "Porphyria's Lover" - A man describes smothering his beloved while she sleeps, believing he's preserving her beauty.
•  "Fra Lippo Lippi" - A Renaissance painter defends his art and lifestyle, blurring the lines between the sacred and the secular.

Introduction : 

"Porphyria's Lover" is a dramatic monologue written by Robert Browning in 1836. It depicts a scene of murder from the perspective of an unnamed male speaker who has killed his lover, Porphyria. The poem enters the mind of the murderer as he coolly recounts his disturbing crime in a shockingly casual and reasoned way. Through vivid imagery, abnormal psychological insights, and an unsettling tone of detachment, Browning crafts a gripping portrait of insanity and obsession. 

The poem's first-person narration makes the reader an accessory of sorts to the narrator's twisted justifications and horrifying actions. "Porphyria's Lover" exemplifies Browning's mastery of the dramatic monologue form and serves as a chilling study of madness and perverse devotion.

Summary : 

The poem opens by setting a storm scene, as Porphyria enters the cottage and starts a fire to warm her estranged lover. In disturbing detail, the narrator describes Porphyria's actions of undressing and letting down her hair in an intimate moment. He grows increasingly obsessive, wishing the moment of her blushing with love for him could last forever. In a shockingly casual line, he reveals "When no voice replied" he strangled Porphyria with her hair to preserve that perfect moment.

He then positions her body to recreate the earlier peaceful scene, staring at her corpse in deluded admiration. The narrator rationalizes his crime by claiming now her soul and body are perfectly unified in an eternal union of love. The monologue ends with him imagining God has forgiven his actions and this frozen moment with Porphyria's body is closer to heaven than any church worship could provide.

Structure and Rhyme : 

The poem consists of six sections of varying line lengths connected by an ABABB rhyme scheme. This consistent rhyming creates a songlike, incantatory rhythm that juxtaposes eerily with the disturbing content and images.

The sections vary from 8 lines to 28 lines in length, mirroring the narrator's fractured mental state and the building intensity as his deranged plans unfold. After the longest 28 line section chronicling the murder, the final section is only 4 lines, reflecting a sense of frightening clarity and finality.

"Porphyria's Lover" is a poem about love, violence, and control. The speaker kills his lover, Porphyria, even though she seems to be returning his love. Here's a breakdown of the main ideas:

•  Love and Control:
  
  
  
  
  The speaker sees love as completely controlling someone. He kills Porphyria to keep her pure and good in his eyes, even though she's a strong-willed woman at the beginning of the poem.

•    Sexuality and Morality: 
• The poem hints at sexual desire. The speaker thinks killing Porphyria keeps her innocent because it stops her from anything sexual that might be considered sinful.

•   Hypocrisy: 

• The speaker believes God approves of his crime because he stays silent. This silence might expose the hypocrisy of society at the time, which focused on appearing good instead of actually being good. The readers might have been both interested in the poem's violence and secretly approved of Porphyria being punished for her sexuality.

 Symbols in "Porphyria's Lover":

•  Cheerless Grate: The fireplace represents warmth, comfort, and home. When Porphyria lights a fire, it shows she's trying to make the place welcoming.

•  Soiled Gloves: These gloves aren't just dirty and wet, they also hint that the speaker thinks Porphyria has done something wrong, maybe even something sexual.

•  Yellow Hair: The speaker is really focused on Porphyria's hair. It can represent her beauty and danger to him. In the end, he uses her hair to strangle her, taking away her power.

•  Gay Feast: Porphyria left a fun party to be with the speaker. This shows she cares about him a lot, but also that she gave up something nice.

  Pale: The speaker describes himself as pale, which can mean he's sick from love, or it can be a symbol of strong desire, like in many love poems.

•   Blush: After killing Porphyria, the speaker sees a blush on her face. He thinks this means she's still beautiful and pure, like he wanted. But it could also be a sign of death.

Conclusion : 

Through the unsettling dramatic monologue form, Browning gives chilling psychological insights into the mind of "Porphyria's Lover"'s deranged narrator. His eerily understated and casual depiction of strangulation and corpse absorption creates a tension between the narrator's apparent rationality and his complete detachment from moral sanity.

By leaving the setting, backstory, and respective social classes of Porphyria and her lover ambiguous, Browning universalizes the tale as an exploration of the darkest human potential for madness and obsession overtaking reason and love. We the readers become implicated in bearing witness to and attempting to understand these disturbed depths of the human psyche.

With haunting symbolic details like the storm, hair, and fire, Browning crafts a richly atmospheric study of insanity and perverse devotion gone horrifically awry. The poem's sing-song rhythms and melodic language make the narrator's calm, terrifying rationalizations all the more disquieting and memorable. "Porphyria's Lover" leaves an indelible impression as one of Browning's most psychologically probing and chillingly enigmatic poetic tales.