Porphyria's Lover Summary
Robert Browning

Porphyria's Lover Summary

"Porphyria's Lover," which first appeared as "Porphyria" in the Monthly Repository in January 1836, is the earliest and most shocking of Robert Browning's dramatic monologues. The speaker—or, perhaps more accurately, thinker—of the poem recounts how he killed his illicit lover, Porphyria, by strangling her with her own hair. He does so to keep her his forever, reliving his story to justify his actions and preserve the moment of her death. The simple...

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