Porphyria's Lover And Annabel Lee

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Poetry Compare and Contrast
Love and Madness
True love is the theme in the poem “Porphyria’s Lover,” by Robert Browning, and “Annabel Lee,” written by Edger Allen Poe. They were written in the same time period both having romantic notions, and share the same dramatic monologue style. Both are similar poems in their deranged views of love. However, the manner in which their beautiful lovers die and how they felt after their death, differ greatly. The men in both poems truly loved their women in the beginning, but by the end they had become obsessive, drove themselves to insanity, and slept next to the dead bodies of their lovers. God and the Angels played a role in the speakers mind, but in dissimilar ways, and both authors used some personification, one with the storm, while the other with the sea. Ultimately, love, true love, can drive you mad. The speaker in “Annabel Lee” describes his love for her as strong and powerful. He says “But we loved with a love that was more than love.” Their age had no determination on how much they loved each other; “But our love it was stronger by far than the love of those who were older than we.” In Porphyria’s Lover, the speaker describes their love more indirectly by saying she was “murmuring how she loved me.” This is very romantic, though she is still hesitant and can’t say it directly. Also, “for love of her, and all in vain” refers to the fact that they couldn’t be together for social reasons. I believe perhaps Porphyria is from a higher class than the speaker and their love is forbidden, no matter how much he loved her. Both speakers want to keep this moment forever. In “Porphyria’s Lover,” he didn’t know what to do to save this moment, “that moment she was mine, mine, fair,” almost saying he had won her in the battle. The speaker in “Annabel Lee,” although she had already passed, says, “Nor the demons down
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