Porphyria’s Lover - Robert Browning

Question 1

Quick summary of poem ?

Answer 1

• meeting between 2 lovers
• girl leaves her engagement party to go meet her secret lover
• when she gets there the man is unable to cope with his emotions - so he strangles her!!!
• then he spends all night with her corpse, and he appears to be more in love with her when she is dead than when she was alive

Question 2

1st JUICY QUOTE:
‘‘The rain set early in to-night, the sullen wind, was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake’’

Answer 2

(quick note: the negative weather and setting displays the speakers own mood)
- pathetic fallacy, to show the negative weather parallels the speaker’s mood
- ‘early’ foreshadows surprising events to occur later in poem
- ‘to-night’ setting a creates a dark and sinister atmosphere, hints the speaker is in a pessimistic mood
- ‘sullen wind’ uses personification to show the speakers own misery and depression projected onto the weather
- ‘It tore the elm-tops down for spite’ uses personification to describe the aggressive violence. The wind is being malicious, reflecting the speakers psyche
- ‘vex’ is a verb, the wind is vindictive and the lake is a still and silent victim, mirroring Porphyria’s later passivity

Question 3

’ I listened with heart fit to break, when glided in Porphyria ‘

Answer 3

• his emotional instability as he listens to the storm outside, and his heart is ready to break is juxtaposed with the entrance of Porphyria - which is elegant
• verb ‘glided’ suggests how entranced he is with her - she is presented like an angel
• Porphyria immediately changes the speakers mood as well as the atmosphere in the cottage

Question 4

2nd JUICY QUOTE:
‘‘straight/ she shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;’’

Answer 4

• ‘straight’ is an adverb, which illustrates the immediate nature of Porphyria’s positive changes, and speakers mood is immediately uplifted
• sibilance of ‘straight she shut’ creates a soft sound to display Porphyria’s elegance, as if she has ethereal qualities OR it creates a frightening tone, foreboding his later actions
• references to temperature (‘cold’ and ‘warm’) show Porphyria is like a saviour figure as she warms up the cottage despite the cold outside. Metaphorically, she warms the speaker’s emotional state, reinforcing the fact that he finds her presence comforting
• the verb ‘kneeled’ displays the speakers power over Porphyria, also shows that she is submissive to him: Also contains Religious imagery, she is worshipping him and giving him this elevated status, which reveals his narcissism
• ‘cheerless grate