Browning Poems

Browning Poems

In the poem, "Porphyria's Lover" the narrator a person who has been craving the true love of someone and finally receives that love. The only problem was that he was scared of losing this love. Many would argue that he was just plain crazy for killing her, but is love not crazy in itself? The narrator was so proud of her as well as himself; he thought, "happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshipped me; surprise made my heart swell, and still it grew while I debated what to do." The moment was perfect, she was perfect ("that moment she was mine, mine, fair, perfectly pure and good"), and he did not want this perfection to be lost, so he used her hair to kill her. He convinced himself of the odd notion that she was not feeling any pain, and believed that this was the best way for her to die. He may be crazy, comparable with Andrea Yates even, but they, being the narrator and Yates, both committed their crimes for love of the innocence of the victim.

"My Last Duchess" is a husband's thoughts about his wife who had passed away. He seems to be jealous in a sense of the people who were treated in the same manner as himself. The narrator speaks a lot about her facial expression toward others as well as himself, stating "she smiled, no doubt, whene'er I passed her, but who passed without much the same smile? This grew." The narrator is a husband with a wife who appears to be a great, but is not (in his opinion). He is tired of her showing him the same emotions as she does all others. She appreciates him only the same as others. The narrator is in a sense jealous, and definitely frustrated.

"The Bishop Orders His Tomb..." was a challenging read. The narrator is a Bishop who had a lover in the past, not likely his "wife" as he is now a Bishop. He states that she "is dead long ago, and I am bishop