Porphyria’s lover

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Porphyria’s lover

     ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ by Robert Browning focuses on the obsessive love of a man for a woman.

     Robert Browning conveys the love of the man for Porphyria through several methods. He sets the scene in the first few lines, describing the weather as ‘sullen’ and mentions how it tries to ‘vex the lake’. He writes life into the weather. The man the poem is listening ‘with heart fit to break’. This could be because he knows that the weather might prevent his Porphyria from coming to him.

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     As Porphyria enters the cottage she ‘shuts the cold out’, the very presence of Porphyria in the cottage generally brightens the atmosphere and helps the man forget the storm outside. Then Porphyria calls to him, but the man doesn’t immediately answer. ‘When no voice replied’ she started to act provocatively, ‘made her smooth white shoulder bare’.

     The poem implies the possibility of Porphyria belonging to another man, that she might have ‘vainer ties’, but when she comes to the lover, she wishes to set her heart’s ‘struggling passion free’. But sometimes that passion ...

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