Narrative Voice in Porphyria's Lover

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Narrative Voice in Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Browning Porphyria’s Lover was written in 1936 by Robert Browning, his first ever short dramatic monologue and a poem that despite going almost unnoticed throughout the 19th century, remains greatly studied, analysed and respected to this date. The poem demonstrates several of Browning’s defining characteristics as a poet; not only does it portray his criticism towards the traditional Victorian practice of self-restraint, he employs violence as a tool to elicit aesthetic excitement- but only at a superficial level, as he skillfully uses the bloody, aggressive actions of his narrator to represent human passion and the destructive tendencies of love. Narrative voice is perhaps the most defining characteristic of Porphyria’s Lover, enabling the reader to view the dark, evenly-paced series of events that occur throughout the poem through eyes distorted by the compulsory internalisation of the narrator’s forbidden love for Porphyria. Browning’s use of the dramatic monologue form is quintessential in shaping the narrative voice to become narrow and focused on exposing the narrator’s personality, as well as that of Porphyria herself, which will be explored in this essay. One of the various ways in which the narrative voice in Porphyria’s Lover can be described is as straightforward, reasonable- in a twisted, psychotic way; very smooth and with an odd matter-of-factly sort of tone to it. The eeriness of his calm tone is enhanced by his description of the unspeakable things he does to Porphyria. When the narrator realises that he must do something, anything, to preserve the moment in which he ‘knew Porphyria worshiped’ him, a shift in power is signalled as he calmly states that he ‘found a thing to do’. This slight, subtle unbalancing of the couple’s power struggle is further demonstrated by the way in which before the
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