Perspectives On Women In Browning's Poetry.

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Perspectives On Women In Browning’s Poetry

        One of the recurring themes in the poetry of Robert Browning, is that of woman, and it is this that I have chosen to focus on.

In The first of the poems I have chosen to look at, Porphyria’s Lover, Browning initially portrays the female character as the one with the power, although this in inevitably removed from her.

        In the opening lines of the poem:

        ‘The rain set early in tonight,

        The sullen wind was soon awake’

we gain a sense of forboding as the landscape of the poem seems to reflect the state of mind of the narrator, this is further explored in the next two lines where the speaker describes the weather as spiteful. All the narrator can do at this point in the poem is listen to the weather outside and he is completely helpless.

         ‘I listened with heart fit to break.’

However when Porphyria enters the poem, she alters the circumstances by replacing cold with warmth and seems completely unaffected by the weather even though it is she who has been out in it.

        ‘And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

        Blaze up and all the cottage warm’

Porphyria’s actions at this point in the poem seem effortless in direct contrast to the impotence of her lover.

Porphyria continues to take charge at this point in the poem by removing the evidence of the wet, cold weather outside, and even when her lover is unresponsive she manipulates the situation, moving his arm around her and placing his head upon her shoulder. We see at this point that her lover is the weaker of the two, but this is soon altered as in the lines:

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        ‘Too weak for all her heart’s endeavour,

        To set its struggling passion free

        From pride’

We finally see Porphyria described as weak, but this is not a weakness of the body or of action, but rather of spirit and we are led to believe that her lover sees her as too proud to love, and it is in this belief that he has been suffering and that is what has made him weak.

However, at this point her lover looks into her eyes and sees that she does love him:

        ‘...at last I knew

        Porphyria ...

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