“…Where one small orange cup amassed
Five beetles,--blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal…”
The images are abundantly fertile, with an intense evocation of invigorating beauty and fertility. The sixth stanza describes how nature reproduces in these fields, and features sexual images such as “primal naked forms of flowers”. The repetition of “such” emphasises the exultant effect. This section of the poem focuses on the passionate and carefree aspect of the relationship.
The seventh stanza is the final verse of lyrical seduction before it is intimated that the couple have sex. Browning seduces the woman by stating that it is what heaven and nature wants, and uses rhetorical questions to emphasise this:
“How is it under our control
To love or not to love?”
The next verse contrasts with the climactic mood of the previous verse, and immediately becomes more subdued, as though the poet has entered a post-coital depression phase:
“Would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.”
He says the moment has passed; the complete passionate union of mind, body and spirit has left them once again. The pace of the poem slows with heavy usage of monosyllabic words to emphasise his tortured misery that is also reflected in the searching questions and repetition of ‘‘nor’’. Browning deals accurately with the complexities of human passion here; he is realistic about the way many humans do feel after such intimate unity, and this realism was a shock for many readers of his poetry in the Victorian era. Browning rebelled from the typical content of idyllic Victorian romantic poetry, and liked to include unsuspected twists (for example the disturbing conclusion of “Porphyria’s Lover”). Browning covered semi-taboo subjects in his poetry, and “Two In The Campagna” is no exception as it deals with the way men often lose interest in women after they have sex. This loss of emotion is epitomised in the following lines:
“No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul’s warmth,--I pluck the rose
And love it more than the tongue can speak—
Then the good minute goes.”
“Two In The Campagna” concludes with the sentiment that he cannot stay fixed to one person however much he wishes he could. The final verse is the subject of much critical controversy: some critics claim that it is negative – Browning is saying that human beings can never achieve infinite passion. Others say it is positive – he has managed to hold on to the thread of thought long enough to realise love is infinite. The fact that these final lines can be interpreted in such significantly different ways somehow intimates the true complexity of human passion and how even Browning struggles to verbalise it.
The second poem I shall discuss with reference to the complexities of human passion is “Porphyria’s Lover”. This piece initially seems to be a typically idyllic Victorian love poem, with a flowing musical rhyme scheme; the rhyme is in the pattern of ‘ABABB’. This is a regular and formal poem design, which complements the apparent pleasant, characteristic Victorian content. The title also leads the reader to believe that the piece is a typical love poem – this is conveyed in the word ‘lover’, and equally so in ‘Porphyria’, as this sounds incredibly beautiful and feminine. ‘Porphyria’ in actual fact is a hereditary disease in which the person who has it suffers from attacks of severe pain resulting in paralysis and temporary insanity. This meaning therefore indicates there could be an underlying theme of insanity or pain in the poem. This disease was common among the British Royal Family in the Victorian era, and therefore the poem could hold some reference to this.
The poem initially has a cosy, ‘loved-up’ theme, with intimate imagery:
“… and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And call’d me.”
The graceful and flowing language in “Porphyria’s Lover” suggests the gentle beauty of Porphyria, and the imagery allows the reader to form an angelic and maternal image of her. The reader assumes that this poem is depicting the simplistic pure love that Browning does not usually describe:
“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…”
This usage of imagery depicts a semi-erotic, intimate and gentle scene, and creates a vividly ardent image in the reader’s mind. As the poem continues, it becomes clear to the reader that the love in the poem is illicit. A popular interpretation is that the man is a servant to Porphyria, and she is having an affair with him – and so cannot stay with him. He, however, contemplates on what he could do so that his lover can be with him eternally. He struggles with the realisation that “Porphyria worshipp’d” him. This is a complex feeling to express, and Browning uses powerful, somehow tormented vocabulary to describe the psychological struggle he faces. He wanted her to “give herself to me forever” but it seems he felt that whilst she was his whole life, he was not everything to her.
The tumultuous conflict of emotion is expressed until it climaxes with the following lines, after he realises that Porphyria did indeed worship him:
“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.”
This is, of course, incredibly poignant and striking – Browning somehow conveys this brutal act of murder in a slightly disturbing yet beautifully moving manner. Browning’s choice of language aids this, as does the flowing style of the lines, with enjambment to represent how his feelings similarly flow on inexorably and uncontrollably. The murder is a complete shock to the reader, as no indication of the man’s intentions was expressed previously – most likely because he himself had not realised what he might do. This is an extreme complexity of human passion; most people do not experience such intense emotions, and certainly do not act upon them in such illogically violent ways. However, it does capture the essence of jealousy, possessiveness and the yearning for eternal unity that many people do feel. Browning has evidently taken this to the extreme effectively, as it is his style to shock the reader.
In conclusion, Browning uses many different techniques of conveying the complexities of human passion, and does this effectively from many points of view on love. However, it does seem that Browning usually has a slightly subdued, possibly even warped view of love and romance – and this could be because his own love life was publicly perceived to be ultimately perfect but retrospectively it appears his marriage with Elizabeth Browning was full of doubt and possessiveness, as seen in “Any Wife To Any Husband” which most critics believe to be based on the troubled relationship between the Browning’s.
