Porphyria's Lover

Browning was known for his execution of the dramatic monologue, a poetic form in which a speaker addresses a silent listener. “Porphyria’s Lover” was his first poem in this style. In a dramatic monologue, the point of view is from a persona who is definitively not the author. In this case, the poem is fully in the voice of the murderous lover. The view of this persona is highly subjective and the reader never receives an objective sense of the persons, places, or things in the narrative. For example, the reader is left guessing as to Porphyria’s true observations of the situation. Lastly, the dramatic monologue most often functions as a meditation or confession of the persona’s actions or thoughts. ”Porphyria’s Lover” details the lover’s justification of his terrible act but serves as a way for the audience to question the social mores governing women and sex in the 19th century. Dramatic monologues have no set form, but Browning follows iambic tetrameter (eight beats per line, or four sets of unstressed-stressed syllables). His 60 lines can be divided into 12 stanzas of five lines, which rhyme ABABB; the poem is sometimes published in this form. Browning did not choose to use stanzas and might have been trying to indicate the overwhelming nature of the persona’s thoughts, which are pursued without pause. This, along with the voice in the dramatic monologue, enhances the speaker’s deflection of his own responsibility for the act.