Compare and contrast Porphyrias lover and My last Duchess
“Porphyrias lover” and My Last Duchess are similar in many ways, they
are both written by Robert Browning. In “My Last Duchess” the speaker
is an Italian Duke who is speaking to the ambassador of a count, whose
daughter he hopes, to marry. The Duke is trying to impress the counts
representative by showing him around his gallery and the painting of
his last Duchess. He openly speaks about having his last Duchess
murdered, because she did not show him enough respect. “Porphyria’s
lover” is a dramatic monologue that describes the events that lead up
to Porphyria’s death. A dramatic monologue is a description of events
being told by one person, this is also the case in “My Last Duchess”.
Porphyria is a higher class then her lover and can never come down to
his level in public. Her lover believes that the only way for them to
be together is for him to kill her. This essay includes similarities
and differences between the poems all under four topics; possession,
jealously, the way the woman are killed and different class of the two
people in each relationship.
Possession is very important in both relationships, in “My Last
Duchess” the Duke owns the duchess “that’s my last duchess” it is his
“my” that shows, he sees the Duchess as a piece of art not a person.
The Dukes love is materialistic, he thinks that she is only good for
looking good, like a piece of art. The duke has curtains on the
portrait of her “The curtain I have drawn for you, but I” he is the
only person who can look at her when he pleases, he chooses who can
look at her. He is in control.
In “Porphyria’s lover”, the lover craves her and is annoyed she does
not spend enough time with ...
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...else.
Both poems have many similarities and differences, “Porphyrias lover”
is more to do with the divide between the classes. While “My Last
Duchess” is more to do with the male being in control and possessive
over the female. “My Last Duchess” rhyme scheme is rhyming couplets
this portrays the control the duke is in throughout the poem.
“Porhpyrias lover” is different, it only has rhyming couplets at the
end. When he begins murdering her, when he is in control. When he has
no control there is no rhyme scheme at all. The differences do
outweigh the similarities, however the similarities may be few but are
still extremely important in the structure of both poems. The most
important difference of all is the difference in love Porphyria’s
lovers love, is a passionate love, while the Dukes love is
materialistic. But end result is the same, both women die.
Most people have fallen in love at least once in their lives. I too fall in this category. Just like any Disney movie that you watch, people fall in love with each other, and they get married and live happily ever after right? Wrong! In real life, there are some strange things that can happen, including death, divorce, or other weird things that you never see in Disney movies. Robert Browning’s literary works are great examples of “Non-Fairytale Endings.” Not only does Browning have endings in his stories that aren’t the norm in children movies, but he also has some twisted and interesting things happen in the story of lovers. In Robert Browning’s works, Porphyria’s Lover, and My Last Duchess, the speakers can be both compared and contrasted.
The composition of this painting forces the eye to the woman, and specifically to her face. Although the white wedding dress is large and takes up most of the woman’s figure, the white contrasts with her face and dark hair, forcing the viewer to look more closely into the woman’s face. She smokes a cigarette and rests her chin on her hands. She does not appear to be a very young woman and her eyes are cast down and seem sad. In general, her face appears to show a sense of disillusionment with life and specifically with her own life. Although this is apparently her wedding day, she does not seem to be happy.
In contrast to Macbeth’s love for his wife, in Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ there is an absence of the romanticised emotion of love. The Duke refers to his wife as ‘My Last Duchess. Here the use of the possessive pronoun ‘my’ gives us the idea from the outset that the Duke saw his wife as merely a possession. The iambic pentameter of ten syllables per line used in the poem also emphasises possession by stressing ‘my’ further in the pattern. Browning’s portrayal of love is one that is absent of emotional attachment, but instead something by which he could possess and have power over her. It could be argued that there are similarities in the way that Lady Macbeth also uses the emotion of love. Being in the form of a dramatic monologue, use
envy his beauty and "feign[…] the appearance of love" for him (Marie 24). Although the king
"Girl Before the Mirror" is created in 1932 and it is said that the girl in the painting is his at the time girl friend Marie Therese Walter. No matter who is drawn in...
The death of the female beloved is the only way deemed possible by the insecure, possessive male to seize her undivided attention. This beloved woman represents the "reflector and guarantor of male identity. Hence, the male anxiety about the woman's independence for her liberty puts his masculine self-estimation at risk" (Maxwell 29). The jealous and controlling males in Robert Browning's "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess" possess a fervent desire to fix and monopolize their unconstrained female beloveds. Due to a fear of death, both speakers attempt to achieve control and deny object loss; by turning their lovers (once subjects) into objects, they ultimately attain the role of masterful subject.
Comparing Attitudes Toward Love in First Love, Shall I Compare Thee, Porphyria's Love and The Flea Love is an uncontrollable emotion experienced by everybody at some
To His Coy Mistress is a poem written by Andrew Marvell which was published in 1681. This poem focuses on a speaker who seems to be confusing his list towards a woman as love and this poem is an eerie proclamation of the speaker’s ‘love’. Porphyria’s Lover is also a poem but it was written by Robert Browning and published in 1836. Unlike the speaker in To His Coy Mistress, this poem also centers on the speakers psychopathic version of what the speaker thinks to be love. Based on these two poems and the question at hand, the speaker in Porphyria’s Lover is more depraved.
On the other side, “Love Poem” is very different from the previous poem. This seven stanza poem is based on a man describing the imperfections of his lover. In this, the speaker uses stylistic devices, such as alliteration and personification to impact more on reader, for example as the speaker shows “your lipstick ginning on our coat,”(17) ...
My Last Duchess takes place in Italy, late Renaissance Italy which is over 300 hundred years before My Ex-Husband. You also see a reference to Italy within the poem My Ex-Husband. “You yet these lovely champagne flutes, hand blown, Imported from Murano, Italy” (Lines 52-53) Italy is yet another connection between these two paired poems. May it be the glorious and beautiful history or may it just be symbol of wealth between My Last Duchess and My Ex-Husband. The symbol of wealth is almost ironic because in the end who is really wealthy? They both have faced a sense of
In 1668, King Charles II had a painter, Peter Lely, create a piece of Venus and Cupid, but by taking a closer look the viewer can see that it’s actually a portrait of Charles II’s mistress Nell Gwynn. The girl in the portrait looks benignly at the viewers and showed “her submission to the owner’s feeling and demand.” (Ways of Seeing 52). The king hung the painting behind another landscape so he could unveil it and make “his guest envied him.” (Ways of Seeing 52). The painting makes Nell into a prize with no other purpose but to feed the King’s ego. Even the mythology theme says more about the King than Nell given that he had a whole series of mythology erotica painting made after Lely’s Venus portrait of Nell. Despite Nell being the subject of the painting, there’s no indication of her being an actress or a wit, she’s nothing but a
However there is an unexpected twist where the poet just calms down and thinks he can find love again. This shows the poet’s structure of the poem and how ... ... middle of paper ... ... ion and repetition. Another comparison between the two poems is we are both hearing the viewpoint from the poet not from anybody else.
Both of these poems can be used read from different points of view and they could also be used to show how society treated women in the Nineteenth Century: as assets, possessions. Both of these poems are what are known as a dramatic monologue as well as being written in the first person. The whole poem is only one stanza long, and each line in the stanza comprises of eight syllables. ‘My Last Duchess’ is about a member of the nobility talking to an ambassador concerning his last wife, who later on in the poem is revealed to have been murdered by the person speaking, who is about to marry his second wife. ‘Porphyria's Lover’ gives an insight into the mind of an exceptionally possessive lover, who kills his lover in order to capture that perfect moment of compassion. ‘Porphyria's Lover’ uses an alternating rhyme scheme during most of the poem except at the end. The whole poem is only one stanza long, and each line in the stanza comprises of eight syllables.
Also, we can see that when the Duke refers to the picture of his wife,
There is seldom a more deeply rooted bond than that between an artist and his masterpiece. However, in the poem "My Last Duchess", written by Robert Browning, it is not, in fact, the artist that possesses this bond, but the owner of the artwork. This dramatic monologue seems to be a tragic love story at first; however, as the story progresses, is it revealed to the audience that the grief-stricken Duke may have had some issues with his blushing bride. While addressing a representative of his future fiancé’s father, the Duke relays his thoughts and feelings on the untimely demise of his former Duchess. The Duke is not remorseful over the death of his bride but is instead bitter that she did not fit his expectations of a perfect wife. This is displayed through his lack of grief, his sudden remarriage, and his use of symbolic language to reveal his inner feelings.