Compare and contrast Robert Browning's dramatic monologues 'My Last Duchess and 'Porphyria's Lover', by examining the way that the characters speaking in each poem are revealed

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Fern Cosgrave Dramatic Monologues

Compare and contrast Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues ‘My Last Duchess and ‘Porphyria’s Lover’, by examining the way that the characters speaking in each poem are revealed.

Browning was writing at a time in the early Victorian Era, (around six years before Victoria came to the thrown) when most poets were moving away from traditional Georgian styles of writing and more into the recognisably modern literature. This allowed Browning and other such poets to take advantage of the new revolutionary alterations in the format of literature and break off from the more common plots and typical features present in poetry prior to Brownings era.

        At the time of Brownings writing, the moral stance of the populous, driven by the leaders of the time was tightening and the public in general public were becoming more serious. Responding to this narrowing of views, Browning wanted to shock the audience.

        Browning took most of the inspiration for his poems from discoveries and ideas developed in the Renaissance period (meaning rebirth) which spanned 1450-1600 AD. This period was characterized by the influence of an optimistic forward-thinking approach to the potential of humans, which in turn encouraged knowledge of the arts, languages, and a generally broad and active education. This led to a great spirit of confidence and the urge to explore the potential that language, literature, and philosophy could offer and the heights that humans could reach.

        Browning took these concepts from this much earlier time, and incorporated  them as background for his own writing when exploring human reactions and displaying the extremeties of insanity, for instance Porphyria’s lover.

        Browning explioted the ancient curiosity in the dignity of man and his perfection through his poetry by showing flaws, placing fiction above reality and revealing the unknown intentions of two extreme examples of the male quest for power.

        In ‘Porphyria’s Lover,’ Browning shows the lengths that people can go to, to prolong something that is dear to them, and in effect stop the pressures that time and society can bear; taking a hold and having lasting effect on someone’s life. The poem shows the Lover’s longing to preserve the moment at which he felt he had control over Porphyria and their situation.

Both poems are examples of Brownings most vivid dramatic monologues. ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is a fictional speech presented as a tracking of the thought processes and actions of a speaker who is separate from the poet, looking back to when the situation took place. Similarly, ‘My Last Duchess’ captures a time of reflection after the climax of the poem’s plot. For instance in ‘My Last Duchess’, the topic of conversation is a previous Duchess of the Duke; that he had dealt with according to how he saw fit, and in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’, Porphyria already lies dead when the speaker begins.

The central characters in both poems are similar in that they both posses the desire to have control: be that over a person or a situation. However they also pose stark contrasts to one another. The Duke chooses 'never to stoop' and is overly conscious of class and social etiquette. The Lover on the other hand is a total contrast to this. Instead of trying to be magnificent and powerful, like the Duke, the lover is silent and eerie; he seems to be disinterested in life, sitting in the cold, with the 'sullen wind' and the door open. The two male characters are alike in that they both seem to want to suppress and defeat the possibility of imperfections in their partners whom they so wish to become, and stay, perfect forever. As a solution to this they attempt to erase their frailties as though they never existed and in both cases, they see killing their partners as the only way to do so.

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The way that the characters kill their wives reveals a tremendous amount about the type of person that they are and their intentions. The lover in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ kills Porphyria by winding her long golden hair around her neck in what seems to be a spur of the moment, leap of faith, to consume everything that stands in the way of their complete captivation with one another. He mistakes her love for him as worship and he acts instinctively to preserve the moment at which he had no connection with the world around him and he and Porphyria were ...

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