Victorian_Poetry

Dominance is one of the key issues which is present in Victorian poetry. In the poem “Porphyria’s lover” by Robert Browning, Dominance is clearly portrayed. The issue of dominance in Victorian poetry characterize the females as objects and of lesser classes, the nature of the poem suppresses the female point of view and enforces codes of patriarchal domination. The speaker lives in a cottage in the countryside. His lover, a young attractive woman named Porphyria, comes in out of a storm and proceeds to make a fire and bring cheer to the cottage. She embraces the speaker, offering him her bare shoulder. He tells us that he does not speak to her. Instead, he says, she begins to tell him how she has temporarily overcome her social status to be with him. He realizes that she "worships" him at this instant. Realizing that she will eventually give in to society's pressures, wanting to preserve the moment, he wraps her hair around her neck and strangles her. He then toys with her corpse, opening the eyes and propping the body up against his side. This delusional act portrays the issue of dominance of Porphyria’s lover. The act of the speaker strangling her with her own hair shows how dominant the male is in this particular situation. Using her own hair symbolizes the power of his dominance over which Porphyria can’t control even though her hair is a part of her body. Furthermore the male feels obliged to exploit his dominance by toying with her corpse. Similarly in the poem “My last Duchess” by Robert Browning dominance is also seen. The Duke is a highly influential and dominant figure in Victorian society. The Duke begins reminiscing about the portrait hanging on the wall, then about the Duchess herself who passed away. His contemplations give way to the nature of his ruthless and disgraceful behaviour: he claims she flirted with everyone and did not appreciate his "gift of a nine-hundred-years- old name." As his monologue continues, the reader realizes with ever-more chilling certainty that the Duke in fact caused the Duchess's early passing: when her behaviour escalated, "i gave commands; / then all smiles stopped together." The sheer audaciousness of the comment made by the speaker represents the dominance over those who interact with the Duke and the duchess herself. An effective literary device which strengths the idea of dominance is Likewise in the poem “Remember” by Christina Rossetti the issue of dominance is portrayed in a subtle manner as opposed to Browning work. illusion casted upon Porphyria’s lover by Porphyria herself to manipulate the emotions of her unsuspecting man. The narrator goes on to describe the love he and Porphyria share. He recognises that he is still being controlled by Porphyria:“And, stooping, made my cheek lie there.”He wants to feel in control and this eventually leads him to kill her because he wants power over her. Thus showing how the idea of love is such a destructive force. Likewise in the poem “My last Dutchess” by Robert browning, Love is presented as a destructive type of love in that he could not control her smile and love for life and he considered her unfaithful. The responder infers that the duke may have killed her or gotten someone else to because of his delusional ideas of love. Similarly in the poem Remember by Christina rosette, Love is presented as –(find on the internet) The enjambed lines indicate the control that the speaker is exerting on the conversation and give the feeling that the speaker is rushing through parts of the poem.  When the Duke is speaking of the death of his wife, for example, the lines running over suggest that he is nervous about the subject.  The caesuras also suggest to the reader that he is hiding something or that he is pausing to think.