Response to narrative: Porphyria's Lover

Response to narrative: Porphyria’s Lover.

Robert Browning, author and narrator of the story, is known for his dramatic monologues in the form of poetry, and ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is one of his well known ones. The pattern of the poem has an ‘A,B,A,B,B’ rhythm; and has four stresses to a line- known as ‘iambic tetrameter’. From the title, we gain the knowledge that Porphyria has a ‘lover’, whether that may be someone that she is having an affair with, or is a way of saying ‘wife’ in a loose context; it is not clear, so it could be either, or simply just a fling with the man describing her. The poem comes across as being very descriptive and begs a lot of questions throughout. Why does he not respond when she ‘call’d’ him? Why does she submit whilst he ‘debated’ what to do; and eventually concludes strangling her is the answer? Why is ‘God not saying a word’ relevant to how he feels? The large description associated with Porphyria about her actions, how she made him feel just by entering, how she ‘murmured’ I love you, how he uses the word ‘to-night’ gives the impression that they have a lot of confused history together. I think he is unsure of his own actions, but they both knew it would end in death eventually. He has a ‘sudden’ thought, but still ‘debates’ what to do, and they do not ‘stir’ all night; showing his content with what he has done. I think the line that sums up the whole poem is line 26; ‘but passion sometimes would prevail’...showing their relationship, why and in what way he killed her, how he can be sure that ‘she felt no pain’.