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Critical appreciation of robert browning my last duchess
Critical appreciation of robert browning my last duchess
The life and works of robert browning
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‘My Last Duchess’ is a poem written by Robert Browning in 1845. It’s a
first person narrative of a duke who is showing the ambassador around
his palace and negotiating his marriage to the daughter of another
powerful family. As they are walking through the palace, the duke
stops and looks at the beautiful portrait of his lovely last duchess.
The duke speaks his thoughts about the girl, and as the poem
progresses we begin to realize that his last duchess had been
murdered. “…I gave commands, then all smiles stopped together,” This
metaphorical sentence tells us that his commands were the ones that
caused her death and her ‘stop of all smiles together’. The reason
behind this is that she was flirtatious with all men because “she
liked whate’er she looked on, and her looks went everywhere”.
The language techniques used in this poem emphasize the Duke’s Last
Duchess’s flirtatious character. They also hint to us the themes of
murder, jealousy, suspicion and the Duke’s psychopathic character. The
word ‘I’ is quite often used. “The curtain I have drawn for you, but
I…” Thi...
In James Poniewozik's "The Princess Paradox" (323-325) the author explains how the idea of a feminist, independent woman becoming a fairy tale princess is a paradox and that society is engaging in a paradox through the belief of it. He utilizes the recent bout of Cinderella retellings to show the paradox of how girls cannot be both completely independent and a fairytale princess, and yet society perpetuates the paradox through believing that this is not only possible, but realistically attainable as well. Poniewozik exposes the contradictions that surround these new Cinderellas to defy these "realistic" stories that society has come to embrace. By showing how truly constrictive and illogical these fantasies are, Poniewozik also shows how hypocritical society has become for idolizing them and why this new princess is a true paradox.
Love is everywhere in the world and the majority of the people will do anything for love. People will push the limits to what they do for love and it just makes you wonder of how much crazy people are out there and are willing to take it to that crazy level. Social media blows up everywhere when they hear about a story that the guy or the girl went crazy in the relationship and just did something crazy. Well there are two poems that author Robert Browning wrote about love and they are called “My last Duchess” and “Porphyria's Lover” and there are a couple things that you can compare and contrast about it like both have very jealous people and another is how crazy people can get and one that’s different is how they handle it.
The Princess Bride is a film that is a framework tale about a young boy with a cold, who is visited by his grandfather. His grandfather reads him a book entitled “The Princess Bride” in order to brighten the boy’s spirits. This book unfolds a comedic, yet heroic, journey experienced by a man named Westley, which follows Joseph Campbell’s archetypal Hero’s Journey model.
From climbing up 700 foot cliffs, fighting off unusually large rodents, and coming back from the dead, The Princess Bride is the story of an adventure that always keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. The journey is displayed through a Romance Narrative structure that is predictable, but engaging. The structure consists of aspects prominently displayed during the movie: innocence, initiation, challenges, the Underworld, and the Return. We follow the hero Westley as he makes his way through this mission fueled by his love for a woman named Buttercup and the lengths from which he will go to be with her.
France hoped the marriage of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI would strengthen the alliance between Austria, Frances’ longtime enemy. In 1774 Louis XV, Louis XVI father passed away. After the death, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were pronounced king and queen. According to the biography “Marie Antoinette: The Journey” and I quote, “Without these, she was nothing. For a fifteen year old girl accused of losing her youthful freshness, who was conspicuously failing to please the most important man in her life…” (page. 113). Which meant without looks she couldn't please her husband, the only way she could was through sex to please the most important man in her life at the moment. So indicating the marriage was distant to fall apart.
Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is a haunting poem that tells the story of a seemingly perfect wife who dies, and then is immortalized in a picture by her kind and loving husband. This seems to be the perfect family that a tragic accident has destroyed. Upon further investigation and dissection of the poem, we discover the imperfections and this perfect “dream family” is shown for what it really was, a relationship without trust.
“Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise” (Carroll 105). This and advice of this kind are often dispensed by the Duchess in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Alice, and like the transition from child to adult, the advice is generally rarely fully understood if not confusingly difficult to wrap logic around. Many illustrators have undertaken the task of conveying a clear picture of the struggle that Alice goes through in order to triumph over childhood and nonsense into the realm of adults and logic. Angel Dominguez shows Alice’s struggle to grow up and out of childhood, a major theme of the text, in such a way that the audience can almost feel her anxiety. The use of the body language of Alice, the Duchess and the supporting animals, in addition to compositional elements such as proximity and framing, is a principal mechanism of Dominguez in evoking Alice’s anxiety and emphasizing the uncomfortable passage into maturity on one’s own while dealing with the pressures and advances of an adult world.
Throughout "My Last Duchess," Browning uses diction to further increase the haunting effect of his dramatic monologue. His precise and scattered word choice is meant to make the reader recognize the underlying haughtiness in his speech to the Count's emissary. The Duke refers to his former wife's portraits "depth" and "passion" in order to place a cloudiness over the realism of the painting. This, along with the "faint" and "half-flush" appearance that "dies along her throat," brings about an overcast appearance to the poem. The Duke's "trifling" lack of "countenance" is evident in his jealousy of
The ideal of Justice in The Faerie Queene poem V is a whole disseminated into
Both of these poems can be used read from different points of view and they could also be used to show how society treated women in the Nineteenth Century: as assets, possessions. Both of these poems are what are known as a dramatic monologue as well as being written in the first person. The whole poem is only one stanza long, and each line in the stanza comprises of eight syllables. ‘My Last Duchess’ is about a member of the nobility talking to an ambassador concerning his last wife, who later on in the poem is revealed to have been murdered by the person speaking, who is about to marry his second wife. ‘Porphyria's Lover’ gives an insight into the mind of an exceptionally possessive lover, who kills his lover in order to capture that perfect moment of compassion. ‘Porphyria's Lover’ uses an alternating rhyme scheme during most of the poem except at the end. The whole poem is only one stanza long, and each line in the stanza comprises of eight syllables.
over his wife as he refers to her as a belonging; it also shows that
Another aspect of the duke’s character addressed in the poem is his condescending attitude. Two times in the poem the duke needlessly told the names of the artists who created the masterpieces that he owned (lines 3 & 56). He felt superiority over the emissary he was speaking to by dropping these names. The duke addressed the emissary as a “never read stranger'; (line 6). Not only was it patronizing for the duke to call him a stranger, but he called him unintelligent too.
I think the reason that the screenwriters and directors decided to make the character of Joan the Arc virile is because of the fact that all the things she accomplished were because of her powerful demeanor and both physical and mental strength. These characteristics are stereotypically given to males and I think that’s why the muscular word virile is so important. The overall feel of the the silent film and the film from 1999 especially seem to portray Joan of Arc as more of a virile character, just through her body character and the way she communicate with people, rather than a more ‘girl power’ character which I personally agree with more. I personally didn’t see a huge differences between the three films in the way that she was portrayed. She seemed to be represented as a powerful and religious
The Damsel has spanned throughout history as a popular archetype in literature, movies, and music. Through these forms of entertainment, The Damsel is portrayed as naïve, innocent, and feeble. In media, she eagerly awaits to be rescued and protected by a handsome prince, and live “happily ever after.” The Damsel has potential for greatness, yet only realizes it when guided by a prince. In addition to the naïve feebleness of The Damsel, the archetype originally symbolized purity, kindness, and an immunity to the taint of evil. In relation to romance, the light attributes of The Damsel encourages her to rely on herself, and recognize the qualities of a healthy romance. The shadow attributes of The
In "My Last Duchess", by Robert Browning, the character of Duke is portrayed as having controlling, jealous, and arrogant traits. These traits are not all mentioned verbally, but mainly through his actions. In the beginning of the poem the painting of the Dukes wife is introduced to us: "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,/ looking as of she were still alive" (1-2). These lines leave us with the suspicion that the Duchess is no longer alive, but at this point were are not totally sure. In this essay I will discuss the Dukes controlling, jealous and arrogant traits he possesses through out the poem.