Porphyria's Lover

Common card · No. 471580

"Porphyria's Lover" is a poem by Robert Browning which was first published as "Porphyria" in the January 1836 issue of Monthly Repository. Browning later republished it in Dramatic Lyrics (1842) paired with "Johannes Agricola in Meditation" under the title "Madhouse Cells". The poem did not receive its definitive title until 1863. "Porphyria's Lover" is Browning's first ever short dramatic monologue, and also the first of his poems to examine abnormal psychology. Although its initial publication passed nearly unnoticed and received little critical attention in the nineteenth century, the poem is now heavily anthologised and much studied. In the poem, a man strangles his lover – Porphyria – with her hair; "... and all her hair / In one long yellow string I wound / Three times her little throat around, / And strangled her." Porphyria's lover then talks of the corpse's blue eyes, golden hair, and describes the feelings of perfect happiness the murder gives him and his surprise at God's subsequent...

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