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Porphyria's Lover

By Robert Browning

The rain set early in tonight,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spit,

And did its worst to vex the lake:1

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;2

Which done, she rose, and from her form

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall,3

And, last, she sat down by my side

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

And made her smooth white shoulder bare,

And all her yellow hair displaced,4

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me – she

Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour,

To set its struggling passion free5

From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

And give herself to me for ever.6

But passion sometimes would prevail,

Nor could tonight’s gay feast restrain

A sudden thought of one so pale7

For love of her, and all in vain:8

So, she was come through wind and rain.

Be sure I looked up at her eyes

Happy and proud; at last I knew

Porphyria9 worshipped me; surprise

Made my heart swell and still it grew

While I debated what to do.

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good:10I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

I am quite sure she felt no pain.11

As a shut bud that holds a bee,

I warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

And I untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:12

I propped her head up as before,

Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still:13

The smiling rosy little head

So glad it has its utmost will,

That all it scorned at once is fled,

And I, its love, am gained instead!14

Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said a word!15

-1836

Works Consulted 

Poet Background

Robert Browning (born 07 May 1812 in Chamberwell, England) is considered to be one of the greatest poets of the Victorian period. Browning was extremely gifted and already excelled at reading and writing by the age of five. Most of Browning’s education took place in his father’s expansive library, and he dropped out of university because he wanted to learn at his own pace. Robert Browning married Elizabeth Barrett (a fellow poet) in 1846, and they had a son named Robert “Pen” Browning in 1849. Coincidentally, the date in 1889 that Browning died is the same date that his final volume of verse was published.¹

Relevant Context

(Original Artwork by Molly Crabapple)

“Porphyria’s Lover” was first published as “Porphyria” in the Monthly Repository. Browning was writing this poem around the same time that psychiatry was making its way onto the playing field of common thought. Modern scholars such as Ekbert Faas believe that this fact could contribute to the rise in well-read authors such as Browning and Tennyson portraying mental issues in their works, particularly their dramatic monologues. 

Explication and Analysis

“Porphyria’s Lover” has sparked quite a bit of controversy over how it should be read. To this day, some still believe that the poem is an example of erotic asphyxiation while others maintain the thought that Porphyria was actually killed. As with many of the speakers in Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues, the speaker in “Porphyria’s Lover” yearns for power and control particularly over the woman that he loves. This could be taken as an exaggerated critique on the way Victorians viewed the women in their lives. Women were to be viewed as property of men – either to her father or to her husband. Since the speaker in “Porphyria’s Lover” is neither Porphyria’s father nor her husband, he cannot have total control over her. She leaves his house and goes on with her life without him. For this reason, the speaker feels that he must exert his control over Porphyria in a different manner, and what better way to control a person’s life than to end it entirely.

1.      The description of the stormy night outside is symbolic of the stormy or dark thoughts going on inside the speaker’s mind.

2.      The fact that Porphyria invites herself into the cottage and immediately begins to make a fire supports the idea that she has been to the place many times before and is comfortable there. This leads the reader to believe that this is not a new relationship, that Porphyria and her lover have used this rendezvous point many times.

3.      The image of “soiled gloves” and loose hair, especially during the Victorian period, suggests that Porphyria is a “fallen woman.” This likely means that she is married to another man who is not her “lover” in this poem. Being a fallen woman was considered the worst social sin and was equated with the great sin of Eve in the Bible.

4.      Once again, we have the image of Porphyria’s fair being messy and disheveled, allowing the reader to view her as a fallen woman. The fact that Porphyria places the speaker’s hand on her waist and bares her shoulder to him reveals the sexual nature of their relationship.

5.      These two lines again suggest that the lover she is currently seeing is not the one she is supposed to be with. The speaker is the one whom Porphyria loves, but he is not the one to whom she is married. Her heart and her passion are with the lover in the cottage though her vows are likely with another.

6.      This is the first line in the poem where the reader may suspect that the speaker intends on killing Porphyria. The speaker’s need for ultimate control over Porphyria becomes more apparent in this line, as well. In order to have Porphyria “for ever,” the speaker must take her life. In this act, he can wholly “own” her life. This is the ultimate act of dominance or control for the speaker.

7.      In mentioning that Porphyria is pale, the speaker is also commenting on her likely nobility. During the Victorian era, having pale skin was the epitome of beauty and was seen as a status symbol since manual labor and working outside often results in getting a tan. The fact that Porphyria is pale probably means that she is upper class and spends a lot of time indoors.¹

8.      The speaker mentions that his love for Porphyria is in vain because he cannot have her except during their rendezvous times, which likely means never in the daylight and certainly never in public. He is her secret love affair, and he wants to be her everything.

9.      While there is a disease named “Porphyria,” the name was not established for the disease until after Robert Browning was dead, so it is impossible that he named his character Porphyria after the disease as a symbol that she was ill. Her name in the poem likely attests to her nobility as it comes from the Greek word “porphyr,” meaning “purple.” Purple is commonly identified as a royal color and is often associated with royal families and nobility.

10.  The repetition of the word “mine” and the fact that the speaker is commenting on how perfect she is in this moment further suggest that the speaker desires to fully control and preserve Porphyria the way she is when she is with him as opposed to the way she is outside of their love bubble.

11.  Here, the speaker is obviously trying to convince himself that he did not hurt Porphyria even though he has no idea whether she would have felt pain or not.

12.  These four lines are often used as evidence to suggest that the act was a consensual act of erotic asphyxiation and that Porphyria is not actually dead. Proponents of this theory propose that Porphyria’s eyes would be bloodshot if she were indeed strangled to death instead of being “without a stain.” They also offer that the blush returned to her cheeks once the ligature was loosened from around her throat. (It may be of note here that that is a biological function; her blush would return slightly once the blood was able to passively flow back to her face.)

13.  The fact that the speaker has to prop Porphyria’s head up on his shoulder furthers the proof that she is in fact deceased at this point. The speaker also mentions that her head continues to droop for a period of time after the incident has occurred, facilitating the idea that she no longer has muscle control and is dead.

14.  This begins the speaker’s justification of his actions. He is now trying to convince himself that what he did was just and right and that Porphyria wanted to be totally controlled by him (killed by him). He maintains that it was Porphyria’s will to be murdered by him because now all of her troubles and stresses have been replaced by her true love – him.

15.  The last line of the poem is possibly the most powerful evidence that speaker truly believes that he has done nothing wrong in murdering Porphyria, for if he had done something wrong, would God not have said something by now? 

Works Consulted

Anonymous. “Beauty Secrets of the Victorian Era.” History and Women. 20 Nov. 2015, www.historyandwomen.com/2015/11/beauty-secrets-of-victorian-era.html. Accessed 20 March 2017.

Best, J.T. “‘Porphyria’s Lover’ – Vastly Misunderstood Poetry.” The Victorian Web, 8 June 2007, www.victorianweb.org/authors/rb/porphyria/best1.html.

Browning, Robert. “Porphyria’s Lover.” The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory. Edited by Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle, Broadview Press, Ltd., 2005, pp. 312-313.

Crabapple, Molly. Porphyria’s Lover, 10 Dec. 2011. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Molly Crabapple Drawing Blood, mollycrabapple.com/new-print-porphyrias-lover/. Accessed 20 March 2017.

Faas, Ekbert. “The Psychological School of Poetry: Beginnings.” Retreat into the Mind: Victorian Poetry and the Rise of Psychiatry. Princeton UP, 1988, pp. 47–62. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7zvvw2.6.

“Poet – Robert Browning.” Poets.org, https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/robert-browning.

“Robert Browning.” Poetry Foundation, 2017, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/robert-browning.

Sirenmuse. “Ah, love let us be true…..” Wordpress, 19 Apr. 2008, sirenmuse.wordpress.com/. Accessed 20 March 2017.

Wiita, Daniela Jose. “The title of Browning's 1836 poem and first use of the medical term ‘Porphyria’ (1889).” The Victorian Web, 18 Sept. 2011, www.victorianweb.org/authors/rb/porphyria/witta.html.

Wikipedia Contributors. “Fallen Woman.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 02 February 2017, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fallen_woman&oldid=763328167.