A* Notes on Porphyria's Lover
Structure, language, form... + analysis
Dramatic monologue -> univocal perspective from an unbiased narrator
No breaks in stanzas -> narrative becomes a stream of consciousness
Rural, isolated setting -> typical of romanticism, but alternate eerie dimension created by danger posed from such seclusion
Iambic tetrameter and ABABB regular rhyme scheme -> to mirror speaker's obsessive desire for control
Unusual extra line added on to conventional ABAB quatrain -> lack of rhythmical symmetry represents narrators instability
Pathetic fallacy in lines 1-5 -> harsh t consonances + violence of elements sets tone for poem
Caesura ending first 5 lines -> reflects narrator's obsession for control
Porphyria's ethereal, delicate depiction with line of enjambement upon her entrance -> highlights her transience and elegant motions + disrupts rigid caesura scheme thus far created + indicates she is challenging his sense of control
Multiple allusions to her hair -> foreboding
Active verbs used in association with Porphyria -> sense of her agency, control and sexual confidence
Soft l consonances used to frame murder -> juxtaposes against macabre subject matter
Enjambement and monosyllabic regular rhythm of words during murder -> mirrors and evokes motion of winding hair
Blazon to describe her dead body -> disgusting and deeply disquieting objectification + sinister warping of romantic trope
Porphyria stripped of title/ name and becomes the object 'it' -> disturbing irony because she has become an inanimate doll for the narrator
Final line has a trochaic beginning, 'And yet god has not said a word!' -> disruption of rigidly controlled iambic tetrameter, reflecting a burst in confidence and enthusiasm
Didactic tone –> Browning condemning acts of violence against women, whereby agent and sexually confident women unfairly inevitably punished/ killed/ repressed.
Themes
Power dynamics
Narrative perspectives
Gender dynamics
Control
Violence
Love
Crime
Context
Written in 1839, 19th Century in Victorian England, where women expected to serve household and husband
Set in Renaissance era (15th - 16th century)
Porphyria has dual semantics -> 1. disease that causes weakness, fever, madness and delusion. 2. colour purple.
Traditionally hair is symbolic of femininity and love
Pygmalion Myth = the male delusion that women can only be pure and truly feminine when they are an art object and under total control of men