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Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” Essay
In Browning’s Porphyria’s Lover poem, the persona is giving a narration of what led him to kill his lover by strangling her with her hair. He begins the poem with a description of the weather, which reflects the persona’s mood. The overall descriptions that Browning uses to compare the persona to his lover Porphyria to give deep insight into the traits of the two are quite interesting. Bright colors, as employed here, describe the woman who is in most cases portrayed as active through the verbs used since her introduction.
The persona on the other hand stands out as dull and aloof since he stays almost all times inside his cabin and generally mad considering how he justifies the motives behind his killing of Porphyria. “The sullen wind was soon awake,” (Browning line 2). In this line, Browning uses personification to portray the general mood of the poem. This is majorly through his description of the environment, which is cold until Porphyria comes in and brings some life and warmth with her. This is a great poem, considering its time of composition when certain immoral things reigned with people still for the exposed kind of art.
Works cited
Browning, Robert. Porphyria’s Lover: The Oxford Book of English Verse. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
