Dramatic Monologue

"Porphyria's Lover" is a dramatic monologue, a poem in which a speaker talks to a silent listener about a dramatic event or experience. Browning is considered to be one of the earliest and greatest practitioners of this form, and "Porphyria's Lover" is his first poem in this style. The dramatic monologue offers readers intimate insight into the speaker's changing thoughts and feelings because he presents in his own words how he sees and understands the situation he discusses. However, as becomes clear in "Porphyria's Lover," much of what the reader learns about the speaker of the monologue comes not from the speaker's own revelations but from what he does not say. The speaker in "Porphyria's Lover," for example, never declares that he is mad, but the reader infers from his words that he must be. The speaker also means to convince (perhaps himself) that his actions are...