“Porphyria’s Lover” Pres 2.ENG2311.Julie Blocker (1)

            “Porphyria’s Lover”  By Robert Browning   

Original Text    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! 

Paraphrase    Porphyria comes into a cottage out of the rain to join her lover. Starting a fire in the  hearth, she brings warmth and light to the cottage. After she takes her wet outer layers  off, she comes to sit next to her lover who wasn’t responding to her call. She puts his  head on her bare shoulder and wraps his arm around her waist. She begins  whispering to him about how much she loves him. However, she couldn’t be  completely his because she has extenuating ties to another man. D​ espite that reality,  she wouldn't be kept from him by the party she attended. Knowing that he was alone  without her, she traveled through the storm to see him. H​ er lover realizes that she  worships him despite her apparent flaws and strangles her with her hair to free her of  the other ties she held. After she dies, he insists she felt no pain. He opens her eyes  and kisses her cheek. Then, he lays her head on his shoulder as she did for him  previously. Her lover thinks that she now eternally belongs to him. They now sit in  stillness for the rest of the night without interruption, and her lover is surprised that  he has not been smote by God.   

Connotation    Sound Devices  Alliteration: “T​ ​hree ​ti​ mes her little t​ ​hroat around,” (stanza 8)    Euphony: “Which d​ one​, she ​rose,​ and from her f​ orm”​ (stanza 2)    Near Rhyme: The rhyming of “pain” and “again” (stanza 9)    Figurative Language  Personification: “she     Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,   To set its struggling passion free     From pride, and vainer ties dissever,” (stanza 5)    Simile: “As a shut bud that holds a bee,” (stanza 9)    Onomatopoeia: “murmuring” (stanza 5)    Irony: “And strangled her. No pain felt she;” (stanza 9)    Imagery: “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: ” (stanza 1)   

Attitude    Throughout the poem, Porphyria’s lover narrates with a dismissive tone regarding  Porphyria’s actions. The narrator makes no motion to acknowledge Porphyria’s  presence until she speaks on how much she apparently ‘worships’ him. Because  Porphyria must light the fireplace when she walks in, it is clear that the lover was  sitting in the dark and cold in the midst of a raging storm with a “heart fit to break”  (stanza 1). Due to his heartbreak, the lover does not seem to care about anything  Porphyria does until the latter half of the poem.    Differently, the poem seems to have a lyrical tone. With this tone comes a gentle,  romantic feeling that does not align with the words used to depict the poem.  Throughout Porphyria’s strangulation, the lover has a calm dialogue with himself and  the audience in which he is sure that his murder made Porphyria’s wish to love him  only come true. The poem flows with long vowels but holds a cacophonous, dark  meaning.   

Shift    The poem shifts halfway through when the lover resolves to strangle Porphyria. The  light, gentle diction remains throughout her death to the end of the poem, however,  the poem’s overall tone takes a dark shift when he turns his feelings of love into her  murder (stanza 8).    “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,”   

Theme    In Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover”, the theme is that love feeds on irrationality.    

                      

“How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 45)”    By Elizabeth Barrett Browning    How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.  I love thee to the depth and breadth and height  My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight  For the ends of being and ideal grace.  I love thee to the level of every day’s  Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.  I love thee freely, as men strive for right.  I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.  I love thee with the passion put to use  In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.  I love thee with a love I seemed to lose  With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,  Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,  I shall but love thee better after death. 

Theme    The theme of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 45)”, is that  love inspires beyond the physical.   

Explanation    I chose “How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 45)” in juxtaposition to “Porphyria’s Lover” due  to their similarity in lyrical stanzas but difference in implied meaning. While  “Porphyria’s Lover” is a dark tale of a man obsessed with possessing his lover, it is still  a love story of a man who would do anything to see his love wholly returned. In that  sense, Porphyria’s lover is crazed only by the thought of not having her forever.  Similarly, “How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 45)” is a poem about love’s power to change a  person’s outlook on life as a whole. As deeply wrong as the murder of Porphyria was,  the lover was fueled by desire to make her wish of complete devotion to him come  true. Therefore, both poems display the yearn for love’s immortality through death  into whatever lies ahead.