PLASTIC Poetry Notes – GCSE English Literature Past and Present: Poetry Anthology – Love and Relationships – Porphyria’s Lover p.18

Poetic devices and their effects – form (ballad,

sonnet, free verse, dramatic monologue), alliteration,

rhyme, rhythm, onomatopoeia,

Very tightly controlled eight-syllable lines, rhyming alternately but with a rhyming couplet every fifth line ababb

Establishes a relentlessly regular rhythm, suggesting some kind of inevitability which suits the subject matter of psychopath calmly slaughtering their lover! The five-line pattern is unusual and adds an uncomfortable tone – something is amiss.

Rhyming key words emphasise important ideas – ‘night’, ‘’spite’. The rhyming couplet every fifth line adds, ironically, disharmony

Although the rhyme scheme is very regular, it does not really fit the syntax. The rhyming couplets do not end a stanza, as is conventional, but occur in the middle of sentences, sometimes with enjambment. This is ‘masculine rhyme’ – only the last syllable of the words rhyme (‘endeavour’, ‘dissever’. All adds a sense of disharmony because the rules aren’t being followed.

Dramatic monologue Interesting because we are told the story from the perspective of the crazy psychopath – who sees his actions as completely normal. There is a silent listener implied here – as if he is talking directly to us, the reader. Or to himself? He is an unreliable narrator as there is no other viewpoint.

Language and its effects – what sort of words are in

the poem? Violent, loving, colloquial, archaic, semantic

fields, diction, religious, romantic language

Setting of stormy weather at the beginning establishes the uncomfortable tone

A certain amount of pathetic fallacy here – the weather perhaps reflecting the speaker’s passionate feelings about his lover, creates a threatening, ominous atmosphere.

Repetition of ‘mine, mine’ in line 36 – adds a hint of madness Here we hear the mad voice of the speaker with a hint of triumph as he has his idea to kill his lover and keep her. Until now, she has seemed dominant in the relationship, but this is all about to change.

Alliteration line 37 ‘perfectly pure’ sounds rather clipped and proper. However the title ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ emphasises that this is a forbidden relationship, an illicit affair.

Emphasises the perfection that the lover observes and wants to preserve for ever, which is impossible in life.

‘When glided in’ Poetic inversion – when the word order is not as you would expect. This emphasises the word ‘glided’ and makes Porphyria sound somewhat ethereal and other-worldly, but

PLASTIC Poetry Notes – GCSE English Literature Past and Present: Poetry Anthology – Love and Relationships – Porphyria’s Lover p.18

also very active and powerful.

Alternative interpretations – Can quotations be read in

two ways for different meanings?

‘yellow hair’ repeated lines 18 and 20 Could be describing her natural beauty, emphasising that she is a lovely blonde – yet ‘golden’ would be more beautiful – there is something unpleasant about the ‘yellow’; it is also a clue, this emphasis on the hair foreshadowing that the lover is about to strangle her with it.

‘too weak’ line 22 Could suggest she is physically weak, but also emotionally weak, that for some reason she cannot be with her lover because social pressures prevent it. Maybe she is of a higher social class than him and expected to marry someone of equal status.

‘’And yet God has not said a word!’ We don’t know what the speaker expects God to say – maybe to punish him for murder. Or to congratulate him for at last allowing the lovers to be together?

Structure and its effects – tonal shifts, pace, caesura,

what rhyme stresses, beginning, middle, end, repetition,

dialogue and where it happens, enjambment

Structured a little like a ballad, chronologically telling a story It is only at the end that we realise the speaker is narrating the story from the end point as he has sat all night with his dead lover’s head lolling on his shoulder. Very dramatic and horrifying for the reader.

Enjambment in many of the lines – ‘straight/She shut the cold out and the storm’

Suggests continuous movement, reflecting the motion in this case of Porphyria as she bustles about lighting the fire etc. Propels the story relentlessly forward.

Very clear progressions with each pattern of five lines – the setting outside; Porphyria’s arrival; her attempt to speak to the speaker; her act of putting his head on her shoulder; explaining how she cannot give up her life and be with him,; his realisation that she loves him; his idea and act of strangling her with her own hair; his preparation of the body – first opening the eyes; then untying the hair and propping up her head on his shoulder; his reassuring himself that he has done the right thing.

Chronological structure, simple narrative told in quite a charming style, making the actual murder all the more cold-blooded and horrifying to the reader, as the speaker narrates is as quite a harmless act ‘no pain felt she’. Ironically, Porphyria places her lover’s head on her shoulder at the beginning of the poem; he then does the same to her corpse’s head after he has murdered her. There is a clear shift in power from Porphyria to her lover.

‘And strangled her.’ Caesura emphasises the sudden and final nature of the murder, which until this moment is narrated in a very matter-of-fact way without a change in rhythm.

PLASTIC Poetry Notes – GCSE English Literature Past and Present: Poetry Anthology – Love and Relationships – Porphyria’s Lover p.18

Tone and its effects – talking about moods which are

evoked and where, narrative voice

Quiet, matter-of-fact narrative with an underlying tone of desperation: ‘with heart fit to break’ line 5; ‘struggling passion’ (foreshadows the strangling)

Exemplifies the psychopathic nature of the speaker – at once calm and yet with an underlying desperation

‘she shut… And kneeled and made’; ‘she rose… And laid… sat down… and called’

Initially all the action is Porphyria, with the narrator a completely passive observer – gives a sense of him stalking her somewhat, very unnerving. She seems very powerful – not the typical submissive Victorian woman.

‘tonight’s gay feast’ Sets up a contrast from the party Porphyria has come from to the odd, silent, ‘cheerless’ meeting place

Imagery and its effects - metaphor, simile,

personification, visual sense

Aspects of weather personified: ‘sullen wind’, ‘tore…for spite’ Perhaps reflects the speaker’s own feelings, as he also seems sullen yet violent

‘as a shut bud that holds a bee’ line 43 Very odd simile to describe the dead Porphyria’s eyes, as if the speaker is expecting something to shoot out of her eyes and hurt him…

‘blushed bright beneath my burning kiss’ line 48 Alliteration and the metaphor ‘burning’ is juxtaposed with the cold at the beginning of the poem, symbolises the killer’s passion, and is ironic as the corpse cannot blush now. His fantasy has taken over, perhaps. Here the lover lists Porphyria’s physical elements – eyes, neck, cheeks, head. This is conventional in a courtly love poem, but here takes a more sinister, ironic tone as she is a corpse.

Context – authorial, social and historical

Robert Browning (1812-1889) Browning was a very famous Victorian poet. This is important because the poem reflects Victorian attitudes to women (seen as passive and powerless often) and to class (very important – you did not easily marry outside your own class). ‘Pophyria’ is typical of Browning’s dramatic monologues – he often focused on twisted, morbid psychological states. ‘Porphyria’ is a disease that can result in madness, but which also can make the skin turn a purple colour.