21 pages • 42 minutes read
Porphyria's Lover
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Background
Historical Context: 19th-Century Views of Women
In the early-19th century, middle- to upper-class women’s sexual autonomy was limited. Virginity was prized and women were often categorized as mothers, daughters, or sisters rather than lovers. Their goodness was considered the moral center of family life. Behavior was prized if it was nurturing, saintly, or childlike and condemned if it was passionate, either temperamentally or sexually. Those who had sexual relations outside of marriage were shunned or even completely ostracized. Unwed women who became pregnant often were condemned as wanton, disowned, and had to turn to a life of prostitution or hard labor, having fallen from social standing. Middle-class romantic matches were generally arranged by the parents of both parties, sometimes for financial gain over emotional feeling. The speaker’s focus on Porphyria’s innocence and purity would be in keeping with the conventional standards of the time, whereas Porphyria’s actions would have been seen as transgressive. Without a chaperone, she enters a man’s cottage. She physically comforts the speaker and proclaims her love, asserting herself. Today, this would be acceptable, but it would have been very surprising to Browning’s audience. In his construction of the narrative—as the reader winds up horrified by the violence of the lover—Browning might have been asserting a suggestion that women should not be penalized for sexual feelings or actions.
Medical Context
Porphyria is the name for a group of medical disorders in which natural chemicals that are essential to the function of red blood cells build up to attack the nervous system. Mental changes caused by severe porphyria can cause anxiety, confusion, paranoia, and even hallucinations. Therefore, some critics have suggested that “Porphyria” in Browning’s poem is a personification of the disease itself, trying to seduce—or infect—the lover. Others have suggested that either Porphyria or her lover might have the disease. Porphyria, however, was not coined as a term for the disorder until 1889, well after the poem was written. In Greek, porphyria is a variant of the word for purple. Daniela Jose Wiita suggests it is far more likely that this “suggests [Porphyria] is a member of the nobility, since purple is commonly associated with royalty” (See: Further Reading & Resources).
There is also much speculation over whether the speaker has a mental health condition that causes his act of murder. Critics suggest the lover is experiencing a mental health crisis or sociopathic tendencies. However, the first major book about psychology—The Principles of Psychology by William James —wasn’t published until 1890, more than 50 years after Browning’s poem. This does not preclude a psychological analysis of the lover in the poem but does show that Browning would not have had medical language commonly known today to describe symptoms.
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By Robert Browning
