“Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess

Robert Browning has a distinctive way of writing poetry; he uses many poetic devices to express what may be his own feelings. In “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My last Duchess” he incorporates the use of a narrator in the first person. In each poem the narrator delivers a dramatic monologue to an implied audience. By using this form, he is able to tell a story through the characters. In doing this, he is possibly trying to hide behind his characters and usi

Robert Browning continues to master the art of imagery by using various other poetic devices to attempt to explain the reasoning behind the pathology of the sexual and social ideals concerning the women in the poems. In “Porphyria’s Lover”, “She put my arm about my waist, and made her smooth white shoulder bare …/murmuring how she loved me”, Porphyria shows herself in a sensual and sexual way in order to show her lover that she loved him. However he felt that because of their two different societal backgrounds that she was “As a shut but that hold a bee” meaning trapped, so he felt he had to “free” her; which is also a good example of a simile in which Browning incorporates within the poem. In “My last Duchess” the Duke feels as if the Duchess “should derive pleasure essentially only from himself” (McCoy 3). She was looked at from other males as a sexually attractive woman. Even in a portrait that the Duke is showing a guest after her untimely death she has an erotic look in her eye but it isn’t necessarily toward the duke. He say’s that “paint must never hope to reproduce the faint half-flush that dies along her throat”, he is saying he never wants to be with another woman who is like her. She disgusted him by making herself open to others, “she thanked men, ---good!” and “had a heart…/too soon made glad, too easily impressed…/she looked on, and her looks went everywhere” (Browning 2029). The Duke wanted a woman who would only obey and pay the utmost, and strict attention to only him. Browning continues to print these descriptive pictures of the characters so that the audience will have to “think” about what is happening in each poem and draw their own conclusions (Ross 2).

In both of these poems, Browning uses a precise rhythm to create a distinctive atmosphere. The repeated rhythmic pattern of the two is one stressed and one unstressed syllable, known as an iambic rhythm. These devices allow the reader to feel what Browning might be trying to reveal. This pattern suggests the madness within each of the characters while still maintaining a sense of natural speech. This enables the audience to relate to the characters that Browning has created.

As an author, he seems to take the initiative and place his own beliefs into the mouths of his characters. The men in both of the p

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