Both ‘Porphyrias Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ are written in single stanza form but have a different rhyme scheme, ‘My Last Duchess’ is written in heroic couplets making it sound more rhythmic and methodical whereas ‘Porphyrias lover’ is written in the rhyme scheme:
A-B-A-B-B-A with eight syllables per line and ‘My Last Duchess’ has 10 syllables per line. Both poems are written as a monologue and from the first person point of view this makes the poems more personal.
‘Porphyrias Lover’ begins with a romantic and seductive mood but turns into a cold, calculated mood with little or no emotion showing through “while I debated what to do”. ‘My Last Duchess’ is quite formal which in itself is chilling as the first person speaker calmly explains how he has his wife killed when he discovers that he is not the only joy in her life “Then all smiles stopped together”.
‘Porphyrias lover’ is about a man who is completely obsessed with his lover, called Porphyria. The man could never bear to see Porphyria leave so in an attempt to preserve her and the moment with her, he strangles her, “All her hair in one yellow string I wound three times her little throat around and strangled her”. The fact that he strangles her is of course important. The way he does it however is more so. The lover does it in such a calm, calculated way, it is as if to him that was how it had to be, that there was no alternative and that he was doing what he had to do. To me ‘Porphyrias lover’ was a great success especially the impact caused as the lover without showing any signs of remorse, strangles Porphyria. This shows his feelings of obsession and possessiveness
‘My last Duchess’ is a poem about a very arrogant and egotistic duke who is showing his friend around his art gallery and in particular the portrait done by Fra Pandolf of his former wife. As the poem progresses we see how the Duke in his arrogance believed he owned his wife, that she was just another one of his possessions, that he thought she would do what he wanted and when he wanted it done “At starting is my object”. It displeases him that he is not the sole source of happiness in her life, whether it be other men or ‘The dropping of daylight in the West’. She was apparently ‘too soon made glad’ this means she was very easily pleased. It was because of these reasons he had the Duchess killed, yet his arrogance continues as he explains to his friend how his next wife has been treated no differently and is apparently once again, just another object in his collection.
To me both of these poems had an impact; with ‘Porphyrias Lover’ it was how unexpected and yet so calculated the lover murdered Porphyria. ‘With My Last Duchess’ the impact came from the arrogance of the Duke, also the way he coolly explains how he has his wife killed because she displeases him. These two poems are truly some of the best work written by Robert Browning it may be that his wife’s death influenced him to write such powerful poetry.
