Romantic poetry can be written to promote pleasure in the reader, perhaps in the form of sonnet structure; set rhythm and rhyme scheme in fourteen lines. The technique is timeless because it is precisely set yet skilfully understated and subtle so that the writer keeps the original passion and love as though they have simply thrown together their deepest thoughts and feelings without a thought to structure, although they have.
Drama and tragedy can also be achieved through poetry, such as in the use of dramatic monologue structure. This involves a narrative story told from one point of view as a long speech. By keeping the storyteller as one solitary person and in a long speech, anticipation and drama gathers, retaining the mood and thereby enthralling the reader. This narrative usually involves striking atmospheres and dramatic events involving the more tempestuous and passionate face of love.
Another common literary form is that of the ballad. A ballad has a set rhyme scheme of four lines to a verse, with two rhyming couplets in each, and is similar to the ‘ballad’ style popular song, which has a chorus/refrain which is repeated at intervals throughout to emphasize powerful emotions. A ballad is often telling a sad story about lost or unrequited love. A ballad writer is likely to use effectual contrasts and words to show the passing of time e.g. ‘then’ and ‘now’.
I will look at four examples of such poems which use a variety of different literary forms to communicate their own diverse ideas about love and its themes.
‘Porphyria’s Lover’ by Robert Browning is a poem in the form of dramatic monologue and is a vivid communication of obsessive love. This poem is extremely unusual, through its shocking theme. It is written like a bizarre sexual fantasy from the point of view of a man so obsessed with keeping his young lover, that he strangles her to death.
This poem is in stark contrast to another poem by Robert Browning- ‘Meeting at Night’. Unlike ‘Porphyria’s lover’, this poem is much shorter and consists of 12 lines in two verses. It is about a young man rowing across a lake to reach his lover, and demonstrates their urgency for each other, as well as pace and passion. The verse begins with the poet setting the scene of romance and mystery; a beautiful landscape, reflecting the mood of the lovers.
Similarly, ‘Porphyria’s lover’ begins with the writer highlighting the scene of the situation, but the atmosphere of this poem is very different. This is a scene of turbulent weather and darkness suggested in the lines ‘sullen wind’ and ‘did its worst to vex the lake’. The personification of the lake in this line imagines that the harsh wind outside is deliberately trying to anger the lake, which emphasizes the powerful atmosphere. The weather and scenery also mirrors a surrounding mood as in ‘Meeting at Night’, but this time not of both the lovers, but the obviously sulky and ‘sullen’ male character, the dramatic monologue written from his point of view.
‘Meeting at Night’ involves the man’s journey firstly across the lake and later through land to find his lover. The ‘long black land’ from which he rows suggests a mystery to the figure, and contrasts to the ‘yellow half-moon’ which he rows towards. The poet refers to the water as having ‘fiery ringlets’ which is an interesting and imaginative image. He only reaches his lover at the end of the poem, where all the reader hears of her is the ‘quick sharp scratch’ and ‘voice less loud’ implying whispering secrecy, possibly of a furtive meeting.
‘Porphyria’s Lover’ also seems to portray a clandestine mood between the lovers, although this time the mood regarding secrecy is unhappy and the female lover plays a much larger part in the story. It is clear that the man is brooding and unresponsive to Porphyria’s advances. She calls out to him but ‘when no voice replied’ because of his surly mood, she begins to undress, ready to seduce him.
‘The Flea’ by John Donne also involves a seduction, similar to what Porphyria is trying to do initially with her unwilling lover. However, this poem consists completely of seductive passion and persuasion; a male lover trying to persuade his female companion to make love with him again using a flea in the bed as his main argument. The mood of this poem, in contrast to the Robert Browning poems, is light, witty and humorous.
Porphyria uses her femininity to seduce her lover by ‘smoothing white shoulder bare’, ‘her yellow hair displaced’. There is a dramatic irony here that Porphyria uses her long hair to tempt her lover, when her hair is exactly what he later uses to kill her. In contrast, the lover in ‘The Flea’ simply wants sex from the girl in the poem so there is no suggestion he may resort to murder through obsession. There is no romance in the poem, purely sexual attraction and influence. Also, John Donne shows the persuasion through clever intellect and verbal urging. ‘The Flea’ also has a strange theme like ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ because the man uses the example of a flea to get the woman to sleep with him. He states that in the flea, their ‘two bloods mingled be’ because it has bitten them both- ‘suck’d me first and now sucks thee’- so she might as well ‘yield’st’ to him i.e. sleep with him, because they practically ‘more than married are’.
‘The Flea’ is frivolously humorous in its theme however, in major contrast to the macabre image depicted in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’, as he ‘strangled her’ and ‘propped her head up as before’. The picture described to the reader in ‘Meeting at Night’ is of beauty – ‘warm sea-scented beach’, romance, ‘joys and fears’ and an all-encompassing love between two people. The representation in ‘The Flea’ is a blithe atmosphere of laughter and seduction, as the woman is evidently merely coy, and wishes to be seduced. The picture in ‘Porphyria’s lover’ is vastly different. This image is one that starts with a tense lover being seduced by a young woman, and ends in tragedy. The man seems to be convinced that Porphyria, although sharing sexual intimacy with him, has another man who loves her. This ruins his feeling of possession over her. Despite this, it caused his ‘heart (to) swell’ when he thinks of her braving the storm to find him ‘through all wind and rain’ and he ‘at last knew Porphyria worshipped’ him. He decides that as he makes love to her she is ‘mine, mine, fair’ at last, so he kills her to preserve the moment. Therefore, the image is of a chilling mood, especially as he ‘oped her lids’ and ‘propped her head up as before’ like a real but dead china-doll figure.
The structure of the three poems is different also in regard to sounds and tone. ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is in dramatic monologue form and therefore like a long speech, as if the man is speaking. ‘The Flea’ is a straightforward three verse poem, set as one argument in each stanza. John Donne uses an assortment of archaic language such as ‘maidenhead’, ‘thou, etc. This is significant in making the poem more powerful in its argument, and this poem also sounds considerably older than the others by Robert Browning. ‘Meeting at Night’ is the most powerful of the poem in terms of the sound of the words and general tone. Robert Browning uses cadences throughout the two short verses, achieving a striking effect which echoes the mood of the lovers through the tone. The poem is essentially about excitement and expectation, so the cadences mostly rise, as seen in lines such as ‘quick sharp scratch and blue spurt of lighted match’. This line mainly consists of sharp, monosyllabic words to add to the mood of urgency by building up the level of the voice if read aloud. The word ‘quench’ slows down the sound and ‘slushy sand’ uses alliteration and sibilance to vividly elongate the sound of the phrase, as though imitating the slow in pace of the lover’s boat as he goes through the sand.
Most poems have some reference to life and death as well as love. ‘Remember’ by Christina Rossetti is a poem which explores life, death and love in such a way. The poem has a vague sonnet structure and seems to have a mood of nostalgia. The poet asks her lover throughout not to ‘remember me when i am gone’ and ‘be sad’, but that she would prefer him to ‘forget and smile’. She depicts heaven as ‘the silent land’. Christina Rossetti is reflecting on life and loss through death, but the poem retains an optimistic mood. She is expressing her view that people should not grieve in misery, but remember the dead with a smile of reminiscence. This reminds me of words sung by The Mamas and The Papas – ‘dream a little dream of me’ or Cyndi Lauper- ‘after my picture fades and darkness has turned to grey, watching through windows you’re wondering if I’m ok’.
It is apparent in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ that Robert Browning is trying to convey the fact that the male lover wanted Porphyria with such an obsessive love that she had to die for him to recognise it. It also shows a cruel and chilling side of human nature, that love can turn to murder. The lover seems to be able to convince himself that Porphyria ‘felt no pain’ and almost that she wished for him to take her life so she could prove her love.
‘Meeting at Night’ refers to life not to such a full extent as ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ but the last line of ‘two hearts beating each to each’ is a provocative image of love and passion which relates to life. The heart is the centre of the body and from where life begins and ends, from its first beat to its last.
Despite the light-hearted mood in ‘The Flea’, references to life are still made in the poem. When the woman crushes the flea with ‘thy nail’, John Donne declares this to be the ‘blood of innocence’. This poem makes similarly to ‘meeting at Night’ some reference to blood and life, which is held in the flea. He states at the end of the poem that ‘this flea’s death took life from thee’. The lover tries to persuade that the flea died and was part of them, so if she could bear to end the life of the flea, then it will not hurt her to make love to him.
