AskEssays.com - Discover essay samples

Understanding "Porphyria's Lover"

4.9 of 5.0 (27 reviews)

Contains
683 words
Category
Poetry & Poets

Understanding
Understanding
Understanding
Understanding
Understanding
The above thumbnails are of reduced quality. To view the work in full quality, click download.

Trials and hearings take place frequently in our society today. In
a trial, it is the job of two lawyers to persuade a jury to see a situation
a certain way, regardless if it is the right way, the truthful way, or if
it is even the way they themselves see it. It is then the jury's
obligation, after listening to both sides of the story, to make a decision
based on the evidence presented, and in most cases, the evidence is either
not presented in its entirety or overwhelmingly slanted to fit one side's
particular case. Therefore it is up to the juror to be able to throw away
the false information, and to pick out the shreds of truth and make a
conclusion based on them. This process, which is extremely common in
today's society, was also common in the Victorian Age, in Victorian poetry,
in the use of dramatic monologue. Perfected by Robert Browning in the mid
nineteenth century, dramatic monologue very closely mirrors modern
society's legal institution. In comparison, the reader is the jury, the
speaker of the poem is the lawyer, and, thinking more abstractly, the
author, Robert Browning in this case, represents the case as a whole. The
decision the jury must make between what is actually right and what the
lawyers imply to be right is the same one the reader of a dramatic
monologue must make. Browning's Dramatic Lyrics is a collection of poems
in which many are written in dramatic monologue. "Porphyria's Lover" is a
poem from Dramatic Lyrics critics often cite when explaining dramatic
monologue. Because of it, the reader is pulled between what the speaker
thinks is right and what really is. Robert Browning's perfection of
dramatic monologue and use of a dramatic mask in his poem "Porphyria's
Lover" create in his audience a conflict between sympathy and judgement
(Magill, 335).
To fully understand and comprehend Browning's "Porphyria's Lover,"
one must understand dramatic monologue. Robert Langbaum makes a few
observations about dramatic monologues. One of his observations is that
speakers in them never change their minds. A second observation is that
the speaker uses his dramatic monologue to pursue a meaning for himself,
and learn something about himself as well as learn something about reality
(qtd. In Lucie-Smith, 16). In a dramatic monologue, "everything the reader
hears is limited to what the speaker sees, thinks, and chooses to tell"
(Magill, 338). Agreeing with Magill, Ian Scott-Kilvert says, "[the
reader is] provided with no reason tosuppose the speaker's words are not
to be taken at face value, even though [he knows] that [he is] receiving
one man's version of events, which is necessarily incomplete" (360). When
reading a dramatic monologue, the reader must come to a conclusion about
facts and issues raised in the poem by making use of material presented in
the poem (Scott-Kilvert, 360). A final textbook definition of dramatic
monologue is from John D. Cooke. He writes that a dramatic monologue ". . .
condenses a complex psychological study and a tense situation of conflict
into a single climactic speech" (157). In applying this concept to
"Porphyria's Lover," the tense situation of conflict is simply the fact
that the speaker just strangled the woman who loves him, and who he loves.
In the poem, the reader, observing only the perspective of the speaker, is
led to believe that his killing Porphyria was ". . .perfectly pure and
good" (Browning, 37). According to the speaker, Porphyria felt no pain
while he was killing her using her own "long yellow string" of hair (39).
Everything the speaker says, implies that his decision was the right one,
and the only one possible. Magill (338) says, "Exultant that he has done
the perfect thing, he [the speaker] ends his speech with the words, 'And
yet God has not said a word!'" Critics are quick ...

You are currently seeing 50% of this paper.

You're seeing 683 words of 1365.

Similar essays


Poema 15

Este poema "me gustas cuando callas porque est?s como ausente", es el n?mero 15 de la obra Veinte poemas de amor y una canci?n desesperada. Trata sobre los sentimientos que tiene el hacia ella. Para ?l lo m?s importante es ella. Este poema se podr?a dividir en dos partes: La primera parte estar?a comprendida desde el verso 1, hasta el verso...

197 reviews
Download
The Works Of Edwin Robinson And Paul Simon

Then two poets who are similar are Edwin Robinson and Paul Simon. They wrote about people of whom they were envious. This was their way of coping with their impoverished lives. Simon and Robinson were both unhappy with their socio-economic status. Examples of this can be found in both Simon's poem "Richard Cory" and Robinson's poem "Miniver Chee...

87 reviews
Download
Mending Wall and New Year Comparison

Introduction The poems `Mending Wall' and `New year' written by Robert Frost and Edward Thomas are both similar in the idea that they both revolve around encounters. Both poems have many similarities in their presentation and ideas but are also very contrasting. Both have encounters, presented in different ways, some of the key ideas however remai...

40 reviews
Download
Romantic Sonnet

The holds in its topics the ideals of the time period, concentrating on emotion, nature, and the expression of "nothing." The Romantic era was one that focused on the commonality of humankind and, while using emotion and nature, the poets and their works shed light on people's universal natures. In Charlotte Smith's "Sonnet XII - Written on the...

192 reviews
Download
All The World's a Party

All the world's a party And the people are merely guests They all have their ups and downs And the host can play many types of music Hoping that the guests will enjoy it The girls that think they're all that Are trying to get attention while faking intoxication While the jocks with their leather jackets Play beer pong while being loud and obno...

184 reviews
Download
E.E. Cummings

E. E. Cummings, who was born in 1894 and died in 1962, wrote many poems with unconventional punctuation and capitalization, and unusual line, word, and even letter placements. Cummings' most difficult form of prose is probably the ideogram; it is extremely short and it combines both visual and aural elements. There may be sounds or characters on t...

192 reviews
Download
Beowulf - A Noble

There are a two heroic acts that Beowulf accomplished that characterize him as being noble. One example of these acts is his altruistic behavior through out his life.When beowolf heard that the great king hrothgar and his knights were being attacked by the evil monster Grendel. Without even asking king hrothgar what was in it for him Beowolf got up...

68 reviews
Download
Beowulf

, an epic poem, was written around the ninth century A.D. more than one heroic tendency. each performs deeds for which they gain fame and honor, and each is seen, in their own respects, as a model of virtue. 's time heroes were confident, strong, and brave, , an Anglo-Saxon hero, has all three characteristics. His quest is to restore Herot, due to...

168 reviews
Download
Fire and Ice Thoughts

Joe Trev February 6th, 2021 Thoughts on "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost I read this poem in high school and found it very eerie; I didn't understand it at the time; therefore, it overlooked why the poem is so great. To me, the poem symbolizes the amount of self-destruction that haunts people every day. In the poem, fire represents desire, and I fin...

137 reviews
Download
My Childhood

I loved playing, Always having fun, We'd all laugh with joy, Until the day is done, When the long day was over, I held my mum tight, She'd tighten up the covers, And bid me goodnight, When the morning came and I awoke, With my morning glee, I'd feel my face shine over, As I ran and played so free, My teachers helped me with my prayers, I learnt s...

203 reviews
Download
Beowulf And Hrothgar: Anglo-Saxon Ideal Code Of Conduct

The epic poem of 'Beowulf' presents the characteristics of two heroes, Beowulf and Hrothgar. During this Anglo-Saxon time period, Hrothgar rules as the king of his Danish lands. However, this king faces many problems due to the disturbances of a monster known as Grendel. As an Anglo-Saxon warrior of the time, Beowulf hears of this creature and j...

25 reviews
Download
The Point Of View In "Porphyria's Lover"

"Porphyria's Lover" is an exhilarating love story given from a lunatic's point of view. It is the story of a man who is so obsessed with Porphyria that he decides to keep her for himself. The only way he feels he can keep her, though, is by killing her. Robert Browning's poem depicts the separation of social classes and describes the "triumph"...

129 reviews
Download
Essay Interpreting "One Art" By Elizabeth Bishop

In "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop, the speaker's attitude in the last stanza relates to the other stanzas in verse form and language. The speaker uses these devices to convey her attitude about losing objects. The verse form in "One Art" is villanelle. The poem has tercet stanzas until the last, which is four lines. In the first three stanzas, the p...

56 reviews
Download
Rich's "Living In Sin": An Analysis

In Adrienne Rich's poem, "Living in Sin," a woman, entering a life full of hope and promises with her lover, assumes that "no dust" will fall upon her home, nor her perfect relationship. Her life, however, does not fit this ideal. Both a deteriorating home and relationship afflict her life; these unexpected results of her efforts in addition to t...

26 reviews
Download
Atsisiųsti šį darbą