‘I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her.’ Although he talks in past tense, it is still as if he explains the story as it comes. The effect of which My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover has… Browning’s interpretation of jealousy and severe obsession and pain:
‘Only I discern- infinite passion, and the pain of finite hearts that yearn.’ Considering the poem ends on this line; it leaves you with a feeling of how terrible the end of love can be when Robert Browning layers it as brutally as that. Meeting at night on the other hand, is a poem/story completed within two, the follow up is Parting at Morning. It shows the love and ideas of a man who goes to meet his lover at night and he shows his mood of tense excitement by explaining in detail the scenery and the love:
‘A voice less loud, through its joys and fears, than the two hearts beating each to each!’ The feeling Browning creates is one of a happy nature. However Parting at Morning is from the viewpoint of the female lover… she explains how she sees him and how she is his prize and he is her man, of which she requires:
‘And straight was a path of gold for him, and the need of a world of men for me.’ The effect these poems have is one of which for me was surprising: firstly, this is lighter than Browning’s other poems, however, the views of each are very different:
‘As I gain the cover with pushing prow,’ shows his eagerness. Although, for his lover it becomes apparent that she merely needs a man in the ‘world of men’ and perhaps he cannot meet her requirement.
The time in which these poems are written shows me the difference between men’s and women’s status and behaviour towards one another, and how this is today. The man in a relationship during Browning’s time was obviously expected to take control and have his lady at his side as a decoration. This is made very clear in My Last Duchess: he is a man of great stature and power, therefore, when his Duchess ‘liked what’er she looked on, and her looks went everywhere’ the Duke took control and it is my interpretation that he disposed of her. He is a man with a ‘nine-hundred years old name’ and this shows he has great pride. This is similar to Meeting at Night and Parting at Morning, however, the man was eager to please his lover and she thought that he was not a man of high-morals and stature (like the Duke) and so she was not pleased. On the other hand, Two in the Campagna, the comparison between love and art comments on the difficulty of interpersonal communication. Just as the speaker can never really see through his lover's eyes, so too can he never communicate the subtle shadings of his thoughts through his poetry:
‘How you say, O my dove, let us be unashamed of soul’, this shows that this poem, however, does not show much ranking between a man and a woman. Perhaps Browning did not want to signify the hierarchy. Unlike in Porphyria’s Lover where the man becomes anxious once he has the love of Porphyria, so as a man, he takes control and preserves that moment:
‘And give herself to me for ever’, demonstrates how she is willing to ‘give herself’ away. It is not as if she wants to be in an equal relationship, but more one which she is the property of the man.
Two in the Campagna divides into five-line stanzas, the first four lines in tetrameter and the final line in trimester. The stanzas rhyme ABABA, although, because the sentence breaks do not necessarily coincide with line breaks, the rhyme undergoes a certain weakening:
‘I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul’s springs, -your part my part
In life, for good and ill.’ Sections of the poem come in fairly regular iambs, but this often breaks down: just as the poet can't quite capture either his ideas or his lover, he can't quite conquer language either. Porphyria's Lover, however, while natural in its language, does not display the colloquialisms or dialectical markers of some of Browning's later poems. Moreover, while the cadence of the poem mimics natural speech:
‘Murmuring how she loved me –she too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour,’ it actually takes the form of highly patterned verse, rhyming ABABB. The intensity and asymmetry of the pattern suggests the madness concealed within the speaker's reasoned self-presentation. On the other hand, My Last Duchess comprises rhyming pentameter lines. The lines do not employ end-stops; rather, they use enjambment - that is, sentences and other grammatical units do not necessarily conclude at the end of lines. Consequently, the rhymes do not create a sense of closure when they come, but rather remain a subtle driving force behind the Duke's compulsive revelations. The Duke is quite a performer: he mimics others' voices, creates hypothetical situations:
‘She rode with round the terrace – all and each would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men, - good!’ and uses the force of his personality to make horrifying information seem merely colourful. Meeting at Night includes two verses, the first of which explains the scenery of his journey and relates to his lover to meet:
‘As I gain the cover with pushing prow’; the second verse part explains the scenery once with his lover and the emotions he feels. The Rhyming pattern goes as ABCCBA, which is an interesting way of rhyming for Browning. The structure this forms reflects on the poem by allowing him to explain his surroundings with a peculiar, yet well-written, six-lined verse. Parting at Morning, however, contains one verse, as Browning required no more verses, for it’s the follow-on to Meeting at Night. The female lover explains the scenery and her emotions in a four-lined structure, with a Rhyming pattern going ABBA. The simplicity of this Rhyming pattern reflects on her own simple mind, and how she is so naïve that she requires the ‘world of men’.
Meeting at Night is an energetic couplet. The energy is active, too, in 'fiery', which is apt description, but doesn't reveal its full value till we come to 'quench' in the last line, the most interesting word in the stanza. That fire as well as thirst shall come in with the metaphor is ensured by the 'fiery', and in 'quenching' the speed Browning betrays (he probably couldn't have said why 'quench' came to him) how he has projected his own eagerness - his ardour and desire for the goal - into the boat, pushing on with his will, in a way that must be familiar to everyone, that which is carrying him forward.
‘Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach!
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!’ The nature of the energy that thrusts forward through the tranquil night has defined itself concretely by the time the second half of the poem has been read. Parting at Morning shows the parting of the lovers, it shows the type of love she portrays with her unintentional slightly sexist views. The connection between the two is that of a same story, however, the dissimilarity in perspectives is astonishing. She feels happy, but with high intentions.
In Two in the Campagna, Robert Browning shows the comparison between love and art. In nineteenth-century literature the Campagna also symbolized a sort of alternative space, where rules of society did not apply and anything could happen. I think Browning tries to use this example as what love is like. At the beginning of the poem the character seems happy and is joyfully enjoying his love and his surroundings:
‘We sat down on the grass, to stray in spirit better through the land, this morn of Rome and May?’ However, towards the end; he expressed much more pain and hatred towards love itself:
‘Infinite passion, and the pain of finite hearts that yearn.’ Perhaps Browning attempted to show the yearning that one man could have for his love and the pain it can cause. Indeed, he is described as a poet who was aware how the passing of time could change a relationship. Two in the Campagna I believe is a key example of that.
On the other hand, Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess are those of the male chauvinistic love for a woman. The love the Duke and Porphyria’s lover is/was very strong for their loves, although, their pride and obsession with power overcame that soul love. The Dukes behaviour in My Last Duchess clears the historical, social and cultural contexts:
‘Somehow – I know not how – as if she ranked my gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name with anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame this sort of trifling?’ as if to say, how dare she attempt a life of her own? I suppose the Duke assumed that the Duchess was merely his property and due to his enormous ego and pride, he could not have it that his property was abandoning her post as his mistress. The disparity in Porphyria’s Lover is that he doesn’t expect her to stay by his side, therefore, he takes this matter into his hands and stills her at the perfect moment in which she dearly loves her…
‘And thus we sit together now, and all night long we have not stirred, and yet God has not said a word!’ The Character suspects he may have done wrong, even though he doesn’t think upon it as murder, but as preservation. So he reassures himself: he is a man and is intelligent with good judgement, he does this by basically saying God agrees with me that I have done the rightful thing.
Robert Browning’s poems shocked amazed and intrigued me. Once I had finished Porphyria’s Lover (my favourite out of the five I have studied) I was left with this flabbergasted feeling. What first came to my head was: what in gods name was Browning thinking of when writing this poem? How could a man of high-class have such high obsession over one girl, furthermore, strangling her just as she admitted her undying love for him! However, the poem made me wonder about how deep love goes and indeed how aware Browning was of this. My Last Duchess on the other hand, I think shows no evidence of deep love. After reading that, my reaction was basically: what a conceited and egotistical man. I think this is a great poem that links back to the question in revealing the time in which Browning was writing: the men like the Duke must’ve been publicly despised! Meeting at Night and Parting at Morning I didn’t really get at first, however, once I read through them thoroughly… I realised that it was actually quite cleverly done and that Browning could have been a little clearer, but he’s not very obvious in any of his poems. Finally, Two in the Campagna I considered it excellent, I loved the way Robert Browning compared Love to art and how he used Campagna as the setting.
Since Browning's speakers are male, a discussion of male identity requires a yardstick i.e. an indication of his perception of a female identity, to base on in order to form a more concrete and persuasive argument. In "Childe Roland", the conspicuous absence of a female voice may suggest a representation of a specifically male identity through the speaker. On the other hand, doubts remain whether he intended to psychoanalyse the male identity for a particular poem, as no female voice exists for a comparison.
The central problem in Browning's love poetry is invariably one of communication between the sexes. The intangible influences that encourage or destroy intimacy between men and women elicit all his skill in psychological analysis; for love exists in and through human intuitions. Reference has already been made to the poet's belief that destined lovers recognize each other on first sight. But these moments of full and perfect communion are precarious; and, save for the most exceptional cases, the initial harmony does not survive social pressures or the importunities of individual temperament.