A Comparison Between "Porphyria's Lover and "My Last Duchess"

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A Comparison Between “Porphyria’s Lover and “My Last Duchess”

  Both of these poems are what is know as a dramatic monologue. “My Last Duchess” is about a member of the nobility talking to an ambassador concerning his last wife, who later on in the poem is revealed to have been murdered by the person speaking, who is about to marry his second wife. “Porphyria’s Lover” gives an insight into the mind of an exceptionally possessive lover, who kills his lover in order to capture that perfect moment of compassion.

  “Porphyria’s Lover” uses an alternating rhyme scheme during most of the poem except at the end. It is written in the first person and is known as a dramatic monologue. The whole poem is only one stanza long, and each line in the stanza comprises of eight syllables, this helps to give the poem a very regular rhythm; this gives a sense of order and control in the poem which is what Porphyria’s lover seeks to gain over Porphyria.

Unlike  “Porphyria’s Lover”, “My Last Duchess” uses a regular rhyme scheme using rhyming couplets. It is also written in the first person and is also a dramatic monologue.  The poem is one stanza long, the same as “Porphyria’s Lover”, and each line in the stanza contains ten syllables; similar to in “Porphyria’s Lover” this helps to give the narrator a very strong sense of power and control over the poem and his last duchess.

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“Porphyria’s Lover” is written in the first person, and in fact the narrator is actually “Porphyria’s Lover”. This poem is all about the narrator’s control over his lover; some of the imagery for this sense of control is outlined above.

The start of the poem gives us an extremely unpleasant visual picture:

“The sullen rain was soon awake, / It tore the elm-tops down for spite.”

This use of imagery personifies everything outside as being unpleasant. Then in line six Porphyria appears and shuts out the cold, unforgiving outside and proceeds to warm up the cottage:

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