Robert Browning

Robert Browning was one of a kind. He was spoiled and rich and lovable. Elizabeth had the right pick for a husband. He was a well rounded individual. He had dance, boxing, and music lessons. So why would he not want to be known in his writings. I didn’t understand that part of his life. If I was in the line of the rich and famous, I would want to be known along with my work.

After reading some of Mr. Browning works, I can see why he wanted to be the unknown author. I went into his readings comparing them to Elizabeth’s. After reading through his poetry, I found out that his style of writing was different. Robert’s poetry kept your eyes glued to the book to see what the end was going to be. Elizabeth’s poetry was truly around the theme of love.

Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess are two pieces of Robert’s work that caught my attention. Both of these poems kept me in suspense to see what the end was going to be. I was really amazed at the unforeseen endings of both poems. My main attraction to both poems was passion. I felt that they both started off with passion for a woman in which a man had fallen in love with. In My Last Duchess, I felt he was yearning for her love and beauty. I interpreted infatuation and death with these two pieces of writings. In Porphyria’s Lover, she was killed by having her hair wrapped around her neck. The real question in this story is, did she commit suicide or did her lover kill her? I don’t think she committed suicide. It was like a fatal attraction movie. In My Last Duchess he wrote this poem based on a real duchess where poisoning was suspected of killing her. My Last Duchess was about an older man pursuing a younger woman. I don’t have a problem with older/younger relationships, but in the 1800s they were popular for dating teenagers. In our society now, you will go to jail for such a relationship and I do have a problem with relationships of this nature in our society now.

Another interpretation I retrieved from these two poems was the outer beauty of the two women. I felt that Robert included beautiful women in his writings to portray the kind of woman that he had. In Porphyria’s Lover, I interpreted a beautiful woman that was among the common population. Page 662 gave me a visual understanding of my statement, “She shut the cold out and the storm, …Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; … and laid her soiled gloves by, untied Her hat and let the damp hair fall.” My Last Duchess speaks for itself. A Duchess is known to be of the elite class and they are beautiful women as well. Whenever the Duchess of York is on TV, she is always beautiful.

In closing, I enjoyed both readings. Once again the lower class was knocked out of the running. This was the Industrial period and the lower class was able to work factory jobs but they still suffered. Even in our society today, you still see the same difference. The lower class suffers more than the upper class. And people are still prospering from the new inventions that keep the world running.