This week in our composition class, we are analyzing several love and death poems. I have chosen to respond to a prompt about Robert Browning's "Porphyria's Lover." Specifically, I want to argue that Porphyria’s lover rationalizes his cold-blooded murder of Porphyria as an act of true love by romanticizing his violent and objectifying passion.
The speaker of the poem presents himself as a devoted if dejected lover. He waits for Porphyria's arrival in a lonely cottage with a "heart fit to break," perhaps because the weather will keep his beloved Porphyria away, or perhaps because he expects that Porphyria will break his heart at any moment. This expectation of heartbreak is further supported by his later description of himself as "one so pale/For love of her, and all in vain." Here we see the romantic lover suffering because the beloved will not break her "vainer ties" and give herself to him "forever."
This romantic view of himself then allows the speaker to regard murder as a means of saving Porphyria from the "vainer" preoccupations that keep her away from the perfection of true love. He interprets Porphyria's happy gaze as sign of her adoration for him, and wishes to keep her that way, as a [p]erfectly pure and good" woman deeply in love with him. By murdering her, he is allowing her to be with him “forever,” as she supposedly wished she could do if she were not "Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,/To set its struggling passion free/From pride." Her perceived “weakness” moves him to be “strong” for both of them. What we view as the perverse deed of a controlling megalomaniac seeking to prolong the perfect moment when he possessed the Perfect Woman, he represents as an act of true love.
 |
| The Long Engagement by Arthur Hughes From Guinilde |
The speaker of the poem presents himself as a devoted if dejected lover. He waits for Porphyria's arrival in a lonely cottage with a "heart fit to break," perhaps because the weather will keep his beloved Porphyria away, or perhaps because he expects that Porphyria will break his heart at any moment. This expectation of heartbreak is further supported by his later description of himself as "one so pale/For love of her, and all in vain." Here we see the romantic lover suffering because the beloved will not break her "vainer ties" and give herself to him "forever."
This romantic view of himself then allows the speaker to regard murder as a means of saving Porphyria from the "vainer" preoccupations that keep her away from the perfection of true love. He interprets Porphyria's happy gaze as sign of her adoration for him, and wishes to keep her that way, as a [p]erfectly pure and good" woman deeply in love with him. By murdering her, he is allowing her to be with him “forever,” as she supposedly wished she could do if she were not "Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,/To set its struggling passion free/From pride." Her perceived “weakness” moves him to be “strong” for both of them. What we view as the perverse deed of a controlling megalomaniac seeking to prolong the perfect moment when he possessed the Perfect Woman, he represents as an act of true love.
Works Cited
Browning, Robert. “Porphyria's Lover.” In Dr. Gallardo’s ENG102. 0000 class packet. LaGuardia Community College. Spring I, 2015. 22.
