Discuss the similarities and differences between Browning’s two monologues, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess.’

Pre-Twentieth Century Poetry

Coursework

Discuss the similarities and differences between Browning’s two monologues, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess.’

On a superficial level, Robert Browning’s two monologues are very similar, with the bright, innocent ladies murdered by their twisted, neurotic partners.

But on a deeper level there are large differences in the class and circumstances of his characters. In My Last Duchess, the pompous, cruel Duke murders his wife out of convenience. Whereas in Porphria’s Lover the lonely, isolated man kills his adoring lover so he can keep her with him – beautiful and loving forever.

The Duke chooses ‘never to stoop’ and is overly conscious of class and social etiquette. Porphyria’s Lover is a total contrast to this. Instead of trying to be magnificent and powerful and interested in something, like the Duke. Porphyria’s Lover is silent and eerie; he seems to be disinterested in life, sitting in the cold, with the ‘sullen wind’ and the door open. But the two male characters are alike in that they both seem to want to quash and defeat their almost perfect partners.

When reading Browning’s monologues, you can’t see why these two generous, easygoing women should be murdered for such insignificant reasons. But then you realise that Robert Browning is writing through the eyes of a psychopath. You realise that maybe the women weren’t so perfect.

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Porphyria in lines 21-30 is ‘murmuring’ how she loves her partner, but she was maybe above him in status so she cannot ‘set’ her heart’s ‘struggling passion free.’ And see him in public. She seems very arrogant and assured of his love. And yet in lines 15-30 the impression you might get of Porphria are of a sweet, caring girl who is besotted with her lover and is giving him a mini speech about how she loves him. She seems easily led and naive about him even if she is not about other things.

There are indications that something is wrong right from the first lines of both poems ‘that’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive’. This obviously means she is dead and you also wonder how many Duchesses there has been or will be. For instead of saying that was my Duchess, he says ‘last’ like she was one of many. The weather and lonely setting in Porphyria’s Lover seem to set the scene for badness. Porphyria’s lover just sitting there with the door wide open in the middle of nowhere in the gale and rain is also very weird and suspect. Both women are uniform in their cheerfulness, as the men are comparable in their callousness. The men are intense whilst the women light.

My Last Duchess is written in iambic pentameter, this gives the whole poem a stately, higher, grander approach. This immediately becomes apparent when comparing it to Porphyria’s Lover, which is written in eight syllables per line and has a more ordinary feel to it. Porphyria’s Lover seems to be talking to the reader in the poem whilst the Duke is lecturing his visitor. It is also strange and mysterious because both the psychopathic characters are anonymous; this seems to give them security.

The Duke being a collector creates the impression that the fact that he murdered his wife is oblivious to him, for he has her painting and to him it is much more important. The way he moves straight on to talk about another art piece after telling his visitor about his dead wife shows how unfeeling he is. It upsets the moral balance, but it is the end of both poems that I personally don’t like. Where you see that the Duke is incorrigible and going to marry again and will probably end up committing or give ‘commands’ and arrange another murder. Then you have Porphria’s Lover who almost challenges God when he says ‘and so we sit, we haven’t stirred and still God has not said a word.’ It scares you that murders can happen and the evil go on unpunished. It might make more pleasant reading for some people, if the victims were unjust, obnoxious and hard themselves. Pitiless instead of pitiful. This might make suppressing the women more justified in people’s minds, that although the murderers were remorseless and inexorable their subjects weren’t much better. But the portrayal of two such terrible, harsh killers and their victims simplicity and freshness only escalates the feeling of total lack of reason. Everything depends on the reader and their interpretation.