Talk:Porphyria's Lover

For more than a century Robert Browning's classical poem Porphyria's Lover has been misinterpreted. It has been totally misread as representing wanton acts of depraved sexuality by a madman. Nothing could be further from the truth. Porphyria's Lover is about euthanasia, plain and simple. The response from the literary world is the same as it was with my take on After Apple Picking by Robert Frost, (which can be found at http://whendarknessfell.tripod.com/ ) they have again chosen to ignore my carefully written essay because, I submit, it annihilates conventional interpretations regarding the death of Porphyria's Lover to correctly state a case for euthanasia. Thus, I have again elected to publish it myself, go to http://porphyriaslover.tripod.com/ By necessity, the essay is lengthy ergo the reason I have chosen to provide a link to all my hard work instead of massively posting it here. In an attempt to change history and in reference to the perceived feasibility of my argument I am herewith soliciting learned opinion by inviting comments, pro or con. Cheers, J.T. Best —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.61.152.48 (talk • contribs).

Sorry pal, but the literary world didn't ignore you because you're wrong, they ignored you because you're publishing from a tripod account. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.161.124.36 (talk • contribs).

My interpretation of the poem was that Porphyria isn't even a human at all. She is described, isn't she, as "gliding" towards him and causing him to heat up. Porphyria is a urinary infection, its most famous sufferer, of course, being King George III, and the reason for which he has always been referred to as "the mad monarch". It also occasionally causes uncharacteristic lechery and interferes with thought-process. If you read the poem that way, it is simply Robert Browning (or rather the narrator) suffering from an illness and "strangling", i.e., recovering, from it. Then of course Porphyria continues to sit, lifeless, next to him in the poem. The disease porphyria, truly enough, quite often doesn't leave one completely: it just lies dormant.

Just my thoughts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.81.33.39 (talk • contribs).