Psychological Complexity in "Porphyria's Lover"

Author(s): David Eggenschwiler

Source: Victorian Poetry , Spring, 1970, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring, 1970), pp. 39-48
Published by: West Virginia University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40001520

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

West Virginia University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Victorian Poetry

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Psychological Complexity in
uPorphyria's Lover"
DAVID EGGENSCHWILER

Abstract. Contrary to recent interpretations, "Porphyria's Lov

not primarily a narrative or lyric, but a psychologically compl
matic monologue. Although we are told little about the anon
speaker's character, we follow the elaborate workings of a min
struggles, rationalizes, distorts, and protects itself from an into
situation. To justify to himself his complex motives for murd
speaker mentally transforms the fickle, independent, forceful Porph
into a trite, tormented Juliet and then into a worshipper who
godlike, takes to himself by making her into an object he can m
late. By an act of will and self-delusion, he achieves an awfu
ness, which is both the consequence and the protective justificat
his crime. It is not necessary to appeal to Browning's morality
the poem or to the reader's normal moral sense in order to con
the speaker's justification of his act; the shifts of style and con
tions between revealed facts and the speaker's interpretation o
show the compulsions and distortions in the mind of this frenzi
ist, who is locked in a madhouse cell of his mind.

pORPHYRIA'S LOVER" has not fared well lately. Some of B

■*■ ing's best critics have decided that it has been overrated an
that it is not a true precursor of the later dramatic monologues
fine study of Browning's characters Park Honan wrote, "Chara
no more revealed in Porphyria than in the average tale of P
horror story itself is the thing, and in the case of this poem th
lyrical telling of an extremely good anecdote accounts for the
effect." Professor Honan did find value in the poem as a lyric or
rative, and he considered the "Shelleyan lyricism and vague char
ization" to be appropriate in such a form; but he obviously con
the poem a dead end and not the kind of character study in
Browning would do his best work.1 Similarly, Robert Langbaum

browning's Characters (New Haven, 1961), pp. 29-31. Citations from

Browning in my text are to the Complete Poetical Works, ed. by Horace E. Scud-
der (Cambridge, 1895).
39

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 40 / VICTORIAN POETRY

"In Porphyrias Lover the speaker is undoubtedly mad. He strangles

Porphyria with her own hair, as a culminating expression of his love
and in order to preserve unchanged the perfect moment of her sur-
render to him. But even here, Browning is relying on an extraordinary
complication of what still remains a rationally understandable mo-
tive."2 Both critics (as well as William Clyde DeVane, C. R. Tracy,
and Thomas Blackburn3) assume that the speaker, as speaker, is not
very complex and that one should pay attention to the murder rather
than to the monologuist talking about it. I hope to show, however, that
the speaker's mind is active and sinuous and that the style of the poem
is dramatically precise, helping to reveal the movements, conflicts, and
evasions of that mind.
As briefly indicated, most commentators accept the speaker's ex-
planations of his and Porphyria's motives, although they might differ
with him on whether she would have wished to have been killed. They
assume that she was passionately in love but restrained by pride and
that he acted out of love and frustration in order to prolong their per-
fect moment. Thus, the poem is said to anticipate two of Browning's
major themes: experiencing an infinite moment and seizing love's
chance in defiance of respectability and fear. Of course, it is not gener-
ally felt that murder is the best way to achieve love's goals; as C. R.
Tracy wrote, the speaker should have had the "strength of character
necessary to make her true to him" (pp. 579-580). These themes, how-
ever, occur only as parodies, mainly because the speaker's interpreta-
tion of what happened does not fit the facts of the narrative. We can
believe him when he tells what happened, but not when he explains
why- a technique fundamental to the dramatic monologues. Brown-
ing's speakers seldom lie, intentionally or not, about the overt facts of
their lives: we can safely assume that the Duchess of Ferrara did, in-
deed, blush when a bough of cherries was broken for her in the orch-
ard and that Brother Lawrence does not lay his knife and fork cross-
wise as does his fellow monk. Browning does not often concern him-
self with the kind of idealistic problems that question what he calls
"pure crude fact," and he does not create totally unreliable narrators.
The epistemological problems arise when the speakers interpret or

2The Poetry of Experience (New York, 1957), p. 88.

3William Clyde DeVane, A Browning Handbook, 2nd ed. (New York, 1955),
p. 126; C. R. Tracy, " 'Porphyria' s Lover'," MLN, LII (1937), 579-580; Thomas
Blackburn, Robert Browning (London, 1967), pp. 58-59.

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 DAVID EGGENSCHWILER / 41

judge the observable facts they have described, when they try to make
sense of the world for their listeners and sometimes for themselves. The
reader must determine the incongruities between fact and interpreta-
tion and try to understand the psychological pattern in the speaker's
distorted responses.
The most reasonable place to begin is with the character of Por-
phyria, since she is variously described, judged, and acted upon by the
speaker. The woman who is described rather objectively in the open-
ing twenty-one lines is not identical to the woman discussed later in
the poem or, for that matter, the character generally discussed by
critics. After she "glided" into the room (the figure is suited to the
speaker's state of mind, cf. lines 1-5), Porphyria set about with surpris-
ing efficiency to prepare the scene for her love affair. In a ten-line
sentence we are given a catalogue of twelve of her actions, yet the
effect is certainly not one of frenzy or even haste. "Straight / She shut
the cold out and the storm": the monosyllables, the excellent choice
and placement of "straight," the connotations of "shut out"- all suggest
the brusqueness of this woman, who immediately knelt down and
"made the cheerless grate / Blaze up," an act described in a way to
suggest her forcefulness. "Which done, she rose": again the style sug-
gests the quality of her actions and attitudes. The transitional phrase
implies a controlled sequence, a purposefulness, which is reinforced
by the brevity and rhythmic balance of the half -line. Next, Porphyria
took off her wet wraps. It is hardly surprising that a woman coming to
her lover out of the rain should get out of uncomfortable clothes,
yet this is part of the ironic point: her action is quite sensible and
calm. And perhaps more important than the action itself is the impres-
sion of it created by the verse, the methodicalness implied by the series
and choice of verbs: "withdrew," "laid by," "untied." "And, last, she
sat down by my side / And called me": there is much significance in
that "last," which is emphasized by the commas, the first of which
breaks the iambic foot. Not only does "last" reinforce the idea of a con-
trolled series of actions, it points out that Porphyria did not come to
her lover's side until she had finished with the fire and her wet cloth-
ing. In fact, from what we see of her from the speaker's point of view
she paid no attention to him at all until their surroundings were set
right. As she next began to cajole her sullen lover, she again performed
a methodical series of gestures, which again are precisely revealed by
the verbs, "put," "displaced," "made," and which certainly qualify her
murmur of love.

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 42 / VICTORIAN POETRY

In line 21 the poem breaks suddenly and begins a new ten-line

movement, as the speaker comments on Porphyria's character and ac-
tions. Correspondingly, the style becomes more emotionally height-
ened; there is more metaphor, and the syntax is more complex than in
the earlier compound descriptions. This development, however, seems
at first quite appropriate to a lyric poem. It looks like a standard pro-
gression from description to commentary; and, if one is reading the
poem as a lyrical narrative, one might accept this commentary as a
valid interpretation of what has preceded it. But Browning has done
something extremely clever, and not untypical, here, for the speaker's
rather scornful analysis of Porphyria does not fit his previous descrip-
tion of her. First, he claims that she was too weak to overcome pride
and follow her longings to be his forever, yet this is the woman who
had been dominant, active, and forceful throughout the scene. Then,
against her weakness of will he proposes her "struggling passion,"
which this evening had "prevailed," overcome restraints, and driven
her through wind and rain. Does this conception of a compulsive, vio-
lently passionate woman fit the actual Porphyria, who stops to tend
fireplaces and lay aside her wet cloak before coming to her lover's side?
The speaker interprets her as a Juliet, but we may be more inclined to
find her parallels in Restoration comedy.4
This interpretation may be a bit unfair to Porphyria in regarding
her as a woman of some position having a passing love affair with a
cottager. She certainly had some passion, for it brought her out on a
stormy night, but it does not seem to be of the "struggling" and com-
pulsive sort. Perhaps, however, her kindling of fires was a more
thoughtful action toward her sulking lover, and perhaps her coaxing
was more understanding^ loving than condescendingly feminine.
Nevertheless, the speaker's concept of the grand passion, of the help-
less and tormented woman, will not do in any case. Whether as co-
quette or mother-figure, Porphyria seems to have been quite in control
of her actions.

4It could be suggested alternatively that in lines 21-30 the speaker is repro-
ducing and mocking Porphyria's explanation, rather than creating his own fiction;
but this reading seems less adequate. First, since Porphyria was trying to placate
her petulant lover, she would hardly have reminded him at this point that she
could not stay long and that his love for her was "all in vain." Second, the
speaker could not scorn the explanation, for he needed it to justify the murder; it
was a necessary psychological bridge from the bitter opening of the poem to the
exultant passage beginning with line 31. Even if Porphyria was foolish enough to
suggest these causes for her actions, the speaker must have accepted and extended
them.

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 DAVID EGGENSCHWILER / 43

What Browning has done, then, has been to play ironically upon
the reader's expectations. Unlike a lyric, in which the speaker's point
of view coincides with the author's, this poem has progressed from in-
cident to misinterpretation and distortion, into a point of view that is
fundamentally- and not just superficially- dramatic. As with Brown-
ing's other effective dramatic monologues, the justification for this
ironic development is in the character of the speaker. The pathetic
fallacy of the opening four lines of the poem reveals his violence and
hatred, perhaps even a bit of paranoia. The opening line, "The rain set
early in to-night," might even suggest that these literal and psychologi-
cal storms are common, if unusually strong this evening. As shown in
the following description of Porphyria's actions, the heart-broken
speaker (as well as the reader) notes her self-control, the very quality
that would have taken her away again at the end of the evening. Then
as she comforted him and murmured her love, he began to construct
a self -justifying fantasy whereby he could consider her fickleness to be
uncontrollable vanity rather than a basic quality of her feelings for
him. Thus, by sentimentalizing her through a rather trite fiction, he
could save his own pride and elevate a somewhat tawdry relationship.
The impulse is common and adolescent.5
The speaker, however, was more desperate than most pining
young men who imagine their women as tempest-tossed heroines. So,
he continued to expand his fantasy until it finally resolved his psycho-
logical dilemma. In line 31 the poem again changes method; the
speaker resumes his description of the incident, but now the descrip-
tion is infused with interpretative coloring. Whereas previously he re-
lated Porphyria's actions in the cottage with a detached, and perhaps
somewhat bitter, objectivity, seeing her from the point of view of a
passive spectator, now he begins to describe her subjectively, inferring
states of mind and motives. He begins to see her as his fantasy-drama
requires, since he can escape from his dilemma only by transforming
his perception of the woman to fit his justification of her infidelity:
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me. (11. 31-33)

5I have preserved a rather confusing distinction in tenses bet

narrator and the past actor, although I think that the differe
largely conventional, as in "Childe Roland to the Dark Towe
shifts in tone show, the speaker emotionally relives the stages
ence and thus is both an active participant and apologist.

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 44 / VICTORIAN POETRY

Once again, the contrast between reality and wish-fulfillment is pa-

thetic. Although the speaker felt his revelation as a surprise, "at last"
suggests strongly that this perception had been struggled for and
achieved, that finally he had arrived at the way out. Porphyria had
progressed from a tragic heroine to a worshipper, and her lover had
elevated himself from a passive, petulant, oft-forsaken man to a god.
Even in these lines, however, we are made aware of the incongruity
between fact and pretense: "I looked up" reminds us that this god was
sulking upon the shoulder of his devotee, who was dominant in more
than posture.
It seems quite valid to stress the literal image of "worshipped"
here, for it betrays the mental progression that led to, and now tried to
justify, the speaker's subsequent acts. If Porphyria were to be the lover-
worshipper, purified from mortal frailty by her adoration, her sum-
mum bonum would be total union with her lover-god. And the grand
passion, as Denis de Rougemont has demonstrated, aspires inevitably
to death and transcendence. Correspondingly, the lover-god could
grant no greater boon than to take her to himself in death, a consum-
mation freeing her from "pride" and "vainer ties." So, he strangled her,
wrapping her yellow hair about her neck three times- an act that
nicely combined sensuousness with an appropriate touch of ritual.
Then, continuing his god-like authority, he animated his dead lover,
attributing life and assuming the manipulative role that she had as-
sumed earlier. Now he acted and she responded, like a puppet under
his control. More than ever, we are aware of the distortion; he speaks
of the eyes, glazed in death, as laughing and the cheek, reflooded with
choked-off blood, as blushing. He describes her propped head as smil-
ing, scorning, willing, and gaining; yet he repeatedly refers to it as "it."
Nevertheless, these actions and perceptions are not essentially different
from his treatment of Porphyria since line 21; they differ only in de-
gree. Increasingly, the speaker had reduced the real woman to an ob-
ject onto which he could project the qualities he required in her. By
killing her, he merely completed the process, for the dead Porphyria
could not contradict his fictional Porphyria. As Duke Ferrara's Duchess
could satisfy her husband's demands in a wife only by becoming a
portrait for him, so Porphyria could be the woman required by her
lover only by becoming a corpse. When the living women became arti-
facts (as painting or puppet), their men could finally become masters
without fear of opposition.

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 DAVID EGGENSCHWILER / 45

The speaker's change from passivity to action, objectivity to sub-

jectivity, and despair to exaltation is marked by corresponding changes
in point of view. Throughout his initial account of Porphyria's actions
he is not directly preoccupied with himself. In fact, line 15, "And called
me. When no voice replied," is a very effective example of psychologi-
cal detachment; the narrator seems so removed from his inert past self
that he sees it from a third-person perspective. Even as the style
changes in lines 21-30 and the speaker becomes more active as a com-
mentator, he still considers himself as an object in relation to Por-
phyria. Except for the introductory fifth line, he is not the subject of
any action in the first half of the poem. But beginning with line 31
there is an explosion of first-person pronouns: " I looked," "I knew," "I
debated," "mine, mine," "I found," and so on through the rest of the
poem, although "I" becomes an ironic "we" in the last lines. It is per-
fectly right that at the moment in which he asserts Porphyria's wor-
ship, in which he attains a climactic distortion of her character, he
breaks into the poem as subject and actor.
To conclude the discussion of the psychological drama in the
poem, I would suggest further that the speaker killed Porphyria as
much from hatred as from a desire for possession. His violent hatred,
which he projects onto the "sullen" and destructive wind in lines 1-4,
helped to destroy the fickle woman whom he understood in spite of
his desire not to. But, of course, he cannot admit this cause for the
murder; thus he has another reason for the involved rationalization.
Certainly the poem is less a lyrical narrative than an apologia, a des-
perate, complex, and compulsive defense. Unlike most of Browning's
best monologues, this poem has no specified listener to provide a mo-
tive for the speech, but it does not need one. Like Fra Lippo Lippi,
according to Professor Langbaum's reading of that poem (pp. 182-
184 ) , the speaker of "Porphyria's Lover" is primarily justifying himself
to himself. The last half of the poem several times betrays a strained
protesting. It begins with the revealing statement, "Be sure I looked
up at her eyes"; although "Be sure" is largely a colloquial idiom here,
it still suggests an effort to convince. He describes the idea of strang-
ling her as coming to him: "I found / A thing to do." After describing
the murder, he insists, "No pain felt she; / I am quite sure she felt no
pain"- again the emphasis on certainty. Then, during the following
nine lines he insists over and over that nothing important had changed
in their relationship, that her death was of no consequence to their

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 46 / VICTORIAN POETRY

love: her eyes "again laughed/' her cheek "once more blushed bright,"
her head was propped up "as before." Finally, he implies that the
silence of the night has shown God's approval of his actions.
This sense of strain and underplayed insistence is nicely qualified
by one of the most effective qualities of the poem, a feeling of child-
like innocence and calm that is shockingly incongruous with the
reader's attitude toward the scene. After the emotionally climactic tone
of lines 36-37, "That moment she was mine, mine, fair, / Perfectly pure
and good," the speaker subsides into terrifying understatement, especi-
ally in his description of the murder itself. In a bizarre simile he de-
scribes himself peering under her eyelid as resembling a child peeking
into "a shut bud that holds a bee," and he repeatedly describes the
dead woman as young and innocent, with a "smiling rosy little head."
In part, this calmness of tone reflects the speaker's feelings of release
and resolution. Appropriately, his point of emotional climax was not
the murder but his conclusion that Porphyria worshipped him and be-
longed to him; that point resolved his psychological conflict, and the
murder followed as a reasonable consequence of that self-deification.
But the tone is also rhetorical for the speaker; it is part of his effort to
convince himself that his act was natural and guiltless, that, in fact, it
liberated them from vanity and restored them to innocence. The need
for reassurance that occasionally betrays the calm tone shows that, to
some extent, he believes in his innocence by an act of will, that he
maintains the peaceful mood because he must.
Thus, while the aggressive, living Porphyria stimulated bitterness
in him, the imposed figment of his mind called forth gentleness,
thoughtfulness, and a revealing condescension. Since he could not ac-
cept the real woman and the relationship she offered and yet could not
entirely reject her, he found protection by closing himself up in an
idealistic shelter of the mind, where nothing contradicted longing and
where questions of truth, choice, and volition were irrelevant. Here is
the main significance of "Madhouse Cells," the title Browning first
gave to this poem and to "Johannes Agricola in Meditation." As com-
mentators have noted, "Johannes Agricola" is not about a literal mad-
man, but about a religious extremist who pursues his antinomian heresy
to repulsive limits. But both poems are about men who are locked up
in mental cells that prevent them from experiencing the outside world
openly and flexibly. Agricola, by his dogmatic preconceptions, and
Porphyria's lover, by his psychological needs, lose touch with an inde-
pendent reality. As the speaker of Pauline says about himself, they

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 DAVID EGGENSCHWILER / 47

have "Drained soul's wine alone in the still night" (1. 940), and it has
made them mad.

Much of this psychological value of the poem, however, could

easily be overlooked, since Browning does not use many of the tech-
niques of characterization found in the dramatic monologues of ten to
thirty-five years later. Most obviously, the speaker of this poem is not
given a public character. Unlike, say, the Bishop of St. Praxed's or
Andrea del Sarto, he has no nationality, vocation, historical period, or
definite social class. All that we know about his rather stock circum-
stances, apart from his relationship with Porphyria, is that he lives,
probably alone, in a cottage with a fireplace, near elm trees and a lake,
where there is likely a good bit of rainfall. Furthermore, his person-
ality is of no consequence except as it is directly involved in his states
of mind in this particular incident. Thus, we find no distinctive traits,
no stylistic fingerprints, that would characterize him in all circum-
stances; we have none of Fra Lippo's "Weke, weke's" or Andrea's
silver-grey tints. In fact, the speaker is not even given a name; he exists
for us only as Porphyria's lover, although his title is as ironic as "The
Faultless Painter" or "The Bishop of St. Praxed's." Since we do not see
the character in a situation that causes him to reveal his usual nature,
the poem differs from most of Browning's best later monologues. Not
only is Porphyria's lover seen in an intense crisis (both as present apol-
ogist and past murderer), but he is seen only in terms of that crisis-
whereas Andrea del Sarto, for example, is characterized in terms of his
relations to Lucrezia, King Francis, his parents, other painters, the
"Cousin" and in his attitudes toward art, love, money, religion, aristoc-
racy, filial duty, and so on.
But these statements do not mean that our, in many ways, anony-
mous speaker is simple and undifferentiated or that the verse is un-
dramatic. If the style of the poem gives no print of his usual character,
it does give an elaborate moving picture of his mind as it struggles,
rationalizes, distorts, and protects itself from a reality it cannot toler-
ate. And are not revelations of such mental and emotional processes
some of Browning's most important achievements, more important than
the period furnishings, or character furnishings, of his poems? In
"Porphyria's Lover" the dramatic effects of style range from the major
tonal shifts already discussed to matters as slight but subtly revealing
as the punctuation of line 50, "Only, this time my shoulder bore / Her
head," in which the additional emphasis thrown on "Only" underscores
both the speaker's pride in his new dominance and the absurdity of his

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 48 / VICTORIAN POETRY

contradicting claim that nothing significant had changed, "only" that

the dead woman could not hold up her own head.
"Porphyria's Lover" has not the violent shifts in style, the collo-
quial structure, or what Professor Honan called the "vigor" of Brown-
ing's later monologues. In one sense it is unusually lyrical for a dra-
matic monologue since it has a song-like quality in its quiet ease and
subtle modulations of tone. But this lyricism serves dramatic, not pri-
marily narrative, purposes. After killing Porphyria and sitting with her
through the night, the speaker has achieved a tenuous peacefulness re-
flected in the lyrical style. But since the dominant style is so incongru-
ous with the subject of the poem, it has an "anti-lyric" effect; it serves
to contrast the speaker's point of view with the poet's and thus helps to
create a dramatic, unreliable, deviant character.6 Furthermore, the
subtle qualifying elements that work within the limits of lyricism
greatly contribute to the dramatic value. They help to explain psycho-
logically the presence of this incongruous song and to demonstrate its
inadequacy as a human response to the incident. In fact, they make it
possible to condemn the speaker's self-justifying explanation without
any appeal to Browning's morality outside this poem or to the reader's
normal moral sense. That is, changes and slight contradictions in style
help to show the compulsions and distortions of the speaker's mind, and
they thereby suggest that the poem should be interpreted and judged
as a complex characterization and not solely as an instance of Brown-
ing's early "Shelleyan lyricism." In theme, style, and dramatic tech-
nique it is a respectable beginning of his most famous, experimental,
and influential work.

6Cf. William Cadbury's discussion of other monologues in terms of the rela-

tions between speaker and poet: "Lyric and Anti-Lyric Forms: A Method for
Judging Browning," UTQ, XXXIV (October, 1964), 49-67.

This content downloaded from

223.231.88.177 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 07:04:14 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms