The love of Elizabeth Barrett Browning did not faze Robert Browning when he wrote Porphyria’s Lover.
I found this poem engaging from the beginning. Love, a universal theme in poetry, was being turned around from the neck to see what was behind it. What it found was its behind and Browning’s uncanny wit. This poem is grotesquely beautiful in every sense. The elements of psychosis, love, and murder all bundled into a magnificent package. One feels compelled to read this murderous tale without flinching or condemnation.
Somehow, we experience the connection between the narrator and Porphyria.
“she put my arm around about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,” (662, lines 16-17)
The love triangle begins, and the scent of her lovely “displaced yellow hair” reaches out to me. I want to touch her and caress below her waist. And as she offers herself to narrator as a sacrifice, I want to offer her my life in place of hers, but the narrator frightens me.
How could he believe that when she offered herself to him forever that she meant for him to take her life? Did love or passion possess him so, that he wanted to keep her forever in death? I believe Browning is showing how love can overtake a sane man and make him irrational.
“in one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.” (663, lines 39-42)
But did she feel pain? I was shocked. I wanted to cry. I thought the love affair between Porphyria, her lover, and I could be immortalized in some manner other than her death. If she felt no pain, I felt it for her. I wept for her return.
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3 comments:
Chrishon,
Wow... You really put yourself into that poem (to the point of taking her place). However, you said "If she felt no pain..." That would be naive to think she did not get hurt. I believe he is saying that in order for him to "feel better" about what he did. That is not excusable to take someone's life and pretend that it was because you wanted to keep her next to you forever. I, also, am not sure he really has been sane once... I believe it just came out in that scene but someone able of such cruelty can not be sane in any ways. I like how you ask question to the things "unanswered." It shows you thought a lot about that poem. Great job!
Chrishon,
Very interesting and personal response to Browning's poem. I don't think it has much to do with his actual relationship with Elizabeth Barrett, but it certainly is a striking poem. My own preference would be for a little more objectivity and critical detachment, but I can see why you thought a subjective response was appropriate.
I love that you took this poem personally. What I found most intriguing about this poem was the the narrator did not speak to her when she came it. The two had a deep conection, that words could not express. Im not sure if it was that or if he was already planning to strangel her. Either way it got my mind working. Good job!
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