4. Robert Browning

Dramatic monologue and Victorian society in "Porphyria’s Lover"

1. Introduction

I have chosen to write my fourth paper about Robert Browning because, in my humble opinion, he is the most interesting Victorian poet. The style of his poems is almost theatrical and they way he constructs his characters and plays with their minds is superb. His poetry contrasts greatly with his wife’s, Elizabeth Browning, who wrote mainly about lighter themes such as love and beauty. Robert’s "Dramatic Lyrics", published in 1842, contains poems that deal with extramarital affairs, moral hypocrisy, murders and other sinister themes that were quite shocking to the two-faced Victorian society.

2. About the Poet

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, London, England. His parents encouraged his education at home, so by the time Browning was fourteen years old he had already learnt Latin, Greek, French and Italian. He was dismissed from the first school he attended for being too intelligent. Because of this, Browning spent much time in his father’s library at home, which had thousands of books.

He enrolled at University College London but left the next year to study on his own. Shelley was the Romantic poet he admired the most and Browning decided to follow his footsteps and become a poet. His first poem was published in 1833 with the title "Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession". It didn’t fare too well and was criticized by the philosopher Mill for being too emotional and morbid. Mill’s words affected Browning and he began to write his poetry from the point of view of historical or imaginary characters, as in "Paracelsus" in 1835 and "Sordello" in 1840. Whereas "Paracelsus" was well received, "Sordello" was full of too obscure references to be understood by the general public.

Browning tried his luck as a dramatist and published some works written in verse such as "Strafford" in 1837 and the first two volumes of his Bells and Pomegranates series in 1841 and 1842. Browning didn’t success as a dramatist and turned once again to poetry. "Dramatic Lyrics", a collection of dramatic monologues, was published in 1842 but didn’t receive much attention.

In 1845 he met Elizabeth Barrett, a famous poetess whose recent work "Poems" had been well received. Elizabeth was an invalid and his selfish father refused to let her go, so Robert had to elope with her to Italy secretly. They married in 1846 and lead a happy life until 1861, the year of Elizabeth’s death. Elizabeth’s works were much more well received than Robert’s, whose poetry collection "Men and Women" sold poorly again. On returning to England with his son Pen, Robert was finally recognized in 1864 with "Dramatis Personae", another poetry collection, and his most celebrated work, "The Ring and the Book", a long verse novel published in four parts from 1868 to 1869. This last work allowed Robert to be considered one of the greatest Victorian poets. The last years of his life were very productive, with poems like "Red Cotton Night-Cap Country" in 1873, "Parleyings with Certain People of Importance In Their Day" in 1887 and "Asolando" in 1889. Robert Browning received honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh, and The Browning Society was founded in 1881 in his honour. Robert died in Venice on December 12, 1889.

3. Sex and violence in Victorian society

The Victorian era started in the 1830’s, when the first Industrial Revolution was already taking shape and many people had moved to big cities like London, which grew overpopulated. This excess of citizens brought about a significant rise of crime, which ranged from small burglaries that involved kids like those seen in "Oliver Twist" to more violent crimes such as violent robberies and murders in which the victims were usually prostitutes.

England underwent many political and social changes during the Victorian era. Some of these changes were positive, like the extension of voting rights to a little part of the middle class thanks to the Reform Act in 1832, while some others were negative, like the repression of sexuality. Moral purity was the norm and talking about sex was taboo. The only exceptions to this prohibition were newspapers, which became largely available to the public, and literary works, as long as the references were subtle.

Newspapers picked up sex scandals and murder stories every week and people became sort of accustomed to them. Shocking Victorians was difficult, and grotesque stories such as "Porphyria’s Lover" were the most appropriate to raise questions about people’s increasing interest in morbid stories. Another surprising fact of "Porphyria’s Lover" is that the dominating character is the woman, at least in the beginning. When it came to sex scandals, even if it was only a rumor, the consequences were much worse for women — they would be seen as whores and would be marginalized by society all of their lives.

4. Style

Most of Robert Browning’s poems are dramatic monologues, a very popular form among Victorians. A dramatic monologue is similar to a theatrical monologue in that there is no dialogue, only a single character voicing his thoughts. However, the difference is that the dramatic monologue takes into account the presence of one or more auditors, whereas the theatrical monologue does not. Because of this, the dramatic monologue adopts a subjective and persuading tone to convince the auditor that the character did the right thing.

This technique was based on ancient Greek drama and Shakespeare’s theatre, but it was Browning who perfected it in his collection of poems called "Dramatic Lyrics", published in 1842 which contains his most famous work, "My Last Duchess", usually cited as the best example of dramatic monologue. Other poems in this book are "Porphyria’s Lover" and "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister".

Alfred Tennyson also contributed to polish this form with "Ulysses", his most well-known poem, published in the same year as Browning’s "Dramatic Lyrics" and also frequently anthologized to illustrate this poetic form.

The three main characteristics of the dramatic monologue are:

1. The presence of a silent auditor

2. The use of argumentative, persuasive speech

3. The speaker’s speech needs to be interpreted and questioned by the auditor

First, the reason why the speaker presents his speech is the wish to justify his acts in front of an imaginary audience. In a theatrical monologue, the speaker is talking only to himself, he is voicing his thoughts without considering the presence of any listener. In some cases, like in "Porphyria’s Lover", the second auditor may be the speaker’s second self, as if the lunatic speaker was trying to ease his conscience by making himself believe his own story.

Second, to achieve his goal of convincing us or himself of his innocence, he uses a very subjective and persuasive language. In "Porphyria’s Lover" he is "quite sure" that Porphyria "felt no pain" (41) and that he granted her wish of being with him forever.

Lastly, the speaker has given his own account and now it’s the readers that need to interpret his words. They know the objective events, like the murder of Porphyria, but they may not agree with the biased motives told by the speaker, who by the end of the poem shows maniacal tendencies and proves to be an unreliable narrator.

Regarding other technical aspects of the poem, it’s written mostly in iambic tetrameter, that is, eight syllables per line following the pattern of unstressed-stressed syllable. However, this pattern changes at some points of the poem to match the speaker’s unstable state of mind. The rhyme scheme is constant throughout the whole poem: ABABB CDCDD etc.

5. Summary

A man is sitting inside his cottage on a stormy night. Porphyria, his lover, comes in, makes a fire, takes off her wet clothes and sits next to the speaker. The man doesn’t react, so she embraces him and puts his head on her shoulder. The speaker thinks that Porphyria is too weak to give up her wealthy life for him, but is happy when he realizes that she has left a fancy party to be with him. To immortalize the moment, he kills her and says that this was Porphyria’s wish. The two of them are now cuddled together and nobody has blamed the speaker yet.

6. Analysis

The first four lines describe the weather of that night: rainy and windy. Browning expands his description to make the situation appear more dramatic: the wind of that night is "sullen" and "awake" (2), "it tore the elm-tops down for spite" (3) and "did its worst to vex the lake" (4). Of course the wind has no feelings, so this personification of nature to match the speaker’s thoughts is a pathetic fallacy. The fifth verse confirms the speaker’s mood — he’s listening "with heart fit to break" (5).

In lines 6 and 7, Porphyria "glide[s] in" and "shut[s] the cold out and the storm". The mood of the scene has changed, suddenly the most apparent cause of the speaker’s gloominess has been left outside thanks to a mysterious woman called Porphyria, who has also "kneeled and made the cheerless grate / blaze up, and all the cottage warm" (8-9). Nothing is said about the woman’s personality, but she has been able to ease the speaker’s feelings in little time. Next, Porphyria takes off her wet clothes (10-13) and sits down next to the speaker, who doesn’t reply when she calls him (14-15). The speaker is a passive element as he hasn’t performed any action; Porphyria is the one who has to "put [his] arm about her waist" (16) because the speaker is just sitting there, distant, aware of the woman’s actions but without acknowledging her presence. In lines 17-20 we can find a physical description of Porphyria: her skin is "smooth white" and she has "yellow hair".

After making the speaker rest his head on her bare shoulder, she proceeds to "murmur" that she loves him (21), but the speaker isn’t satisfied. He thinks Porphyria is "too weak" and "pride[ful]" to set her "struggling passion free" and "give herself to [him] forever", because that would mean she would need to "dissever" "vainer ties" (22-25). However, she can’t resist fleeing away from "gay feasts" "through wind and rain" to meet her "pale" lover. These last lines give away the woman’s identity — she was supposed to be attending a gay feast, which means she comes from a wealthy family, but has left to see his lover, the speaker, who supposedly belongs to a lower class. Their relationship is forbidden and shameful, and even though Porphyria says that she loves him, she isn’t willing to give up her status to be with the speaker.

The speaker’s mood changes abruptly and one begins to suspect that he’s not in his right mind. When he realizes that she couldn’t resist being with him tonight, he begins to react; he assures us that he "looked up at her eyes / happy and proud" (31-32) and that "at last [he] knew that Porphyria worshiped [him]" (32-33), which surprised him and "made [his] heart swell". He says that he "debated what to do". In his euphoria, the speaker emphasizes the fact that Porphyria is his possession by repeating twice the pronoun "mine" (36). She isn’t weak anymore, now she is "perfectly pure and good" (37) because she worships him.

The speaker’s next move is unpredictable. He casually says that he "found a thing to do": twist the woman’s hair thrice around her neck to strangle her. The speaker doesn’t say anything about Porphyria’s reaction, he just says that he is "quite sure she felt no pain". Now Porphyria is dead and the speaker remains as calm as usual. The active role shifts to him and he proceeds to "warily open her lids" "as a shut bud that holds a bee". Porphyria is beautiful as always, but he’s afraid of looking at her eyes. He opens the lids and her eyes are "laughing" and "without a stain". His fear is gone because there’s no guilt, no blame in her eyes. Both of them are innocent.

In the last lines, the speaker emulates Porphyria’s actions. After untightening the tress, he places a "burning kiss" (48) on her cheek (the speaker’s cheek is mentioned in line 19) and puts her head on his shoulder, as Porphyria did. The speaker doesn’t refer to her as a person anymore, he calls her "the smiling rosy little head" (52) and assures us that he made her happy by granting "its utmost will" (53) (she’s not "her" any longer) and everything "it scorned" is "fled" (54), he has liberated her and gained "its love" (55) in exchange. She would have never guessed how "her darling one wish would be heard" (56-57).

The last three lines prove that the speaker was narrating the story just after it happened, they are "sit[ting] together now", "all night long" in this perfect moment, and what’s more, although he has justified his acts he still knows he’s guilty "yet God has not said a word".

7. Conclusion

Robert’s dramatic monologues are one of the many genres that flourished under Queen Victoria’s reign. For a restrictive society like the Victorian, such a wide range of styles and themes may seem paradoxical, but the causes behind this broad variety of choices will be explained in the next paper.