Robert Browning
"Prophyria's Lover" [1842]

OVERVIEW:

This dramatic monologue is a good example of Browning's use of the form. It has a rhyme pattern--a b a b b--but the informal phrasing does not emphasize the rhyme, so that we seem to be hearing the spontaneous thoughts of the speaker. A few details provide the setting: a stormy night, a cottage with a fireplace. But the speaker, since he is thinking, does not give background information, so that the reader must piece together various details to grasp the situation as a whole.

More than most poems, the dramatic monologue requires several readings before it becomes clear. Here, the lover describes how he waited, lonely, for Porphyria to visit him. She came in, having left a "gay feast" to be with him, tended his fire, and sat next to him with sweet affection. As they sat together by the fire, the lover was overwhelmed with pride ad pleasure that she loved him. He wanted the moment never to end.

In sudden madness, he decided to kill Porphyria and thus to keep her his forever. He strangled her with her own long, blond hair, assuring himself that she wanted to die at that moment and that he did not really hurt her.

As the poem ends the reader realizes with a shock that the lover is still sitting with the head of the dead Porphyria propped on his shoulder, waiting to see what God will do to him now..

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