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Drama performance analysis
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A dramatic monologue is a poem in which a single speaker who is not the poet recites the entire poem at a critical moment. The speaker has a listener within the poem, but the reader of the poem is also one of the speakers listeners. In a dramatic monologue, the reader learns about the speaker's character from what the speaker says. Robert Browning is said to have perfected this form of writing. One of his most famous dramatic monologues is "My Last Duchess." The speaker in the poem is an Italian duke who ordered the murder of his wife and is at the offset of the poem showing off the portrait to his future son-in-law. Browning lets the reader know in a roundabout way that the duke only shows the portrait of his late wife to select strangers. In doing this, the speaker is able to show off his wealth to the stranger and he seems to enjoy telling these people the story of how he ordered her to death. The speaker tries to convey to the people that he shows the portrait to that he is in control of everything that takes place in his household. In lines 8-9, the speaker interjects "since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you…" In this line, the speaker is saying that he doesn't draw the curtain for just anyone. He has drawn the curtain particularly for his future son-in-law and he should feel privileged because the portrait can only be seen under the speaker's complete control. The Duke believes that he should be shown complete respect and be the center of attention while in his home. The Duke thought his wife should be for him and his pleasures only. He did not like it when Fra Pandolf, the artist who painted the portrait said: "Fra Pandolf chanced to say 'Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much,' or, 'Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat." to the duchess in lines 16-18. And then again in lines 27-28, the duke tells about how some "officious fool" brought her cherries from the orchard. The duke also could not stand the fact that the duchess treated everyone and every gift equally; "all and each / Would draw from her alike the approving speech, / Or blush, at least" (lines 29-31). The duke thought of his wife as one of his possessions and she could never be treated as his equal; "E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose / Never to stoop" (lines 42-43).
Importance of Character in Jan Beatty's Poem, A Waitress's Instructions on Tipping or Get the Cash Up and Don't Waste My Time
In 1851, Victor Hugo, a french writer, was exiled from France for writings that were deemed critical by the government by Napoleon. Many believed the exiling was unjust and expressed their views strongly, through opinionated letters, which revealed people’s stances on Hugo’s exile. Although some agreed and other disagreed, one thing they all had in common was the persuasive use of rhetorical strategies. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, an English poet, wrote a letter to Napoleon in 1857, but never mailed it. Browning’s letter incorporated strong word choice, repetition, and an appeal to emotion which overall was used to persuade Napoleon to pardon Hugo would benefit him and his people.
Kate the Great Literary Analysis In Kate the Great by Meg Cabot, Jenny realizes that she cannot let anyone bring her down no matter what. When Kate comes around Jenny feels as if Kate is her master and she has to listen to whatever she is told to do. Jenny did not want to hurt Kate’s feeling by not letting her in, this is exactly what Kate told Jenny, “Don’t be such a baby,” (Cabot, 33).
French writer Victor Hugo, was banished by Napoleon III, emperor of France, for writings that were critical to the government. In April of 1857, English Poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a letter to Napoleon, which she never mailed. Imploring Napoleon to excuse Hugo for writing a furious letter to the government.
led her to neglect her son at the end of ‘I’m the king of the castle’,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning follows ideal love by breaking the social conventions of the Victorian age, which is when she wrote the “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. The Victorian age produced a conservative society, where marriage was based on class, age and wealth and women were seen as objects of desire governed by social etiquette. These social conventions are shown to be holding her back, this is conveyed through the quote “Drew me back by the hair”. Social conventions symbolically are portrayed as preventing her from expressing her love emphasising the negative effect that society has on an individual. The result of her not being able to express her love is demonstrated in the allusion “I thought one of how Theocritus had sung of the sweet
Christopher Browning is a well- known historian and also a writer. His best known books are books regarding the Holocaust during World War II. During the Holocaust the men in charge of the killings were by the Nazi regime, whose leader was Adolf Hitler. Studies show roughly about six million Jews were murdered around this time. These murders were painful and unmoral. In the beginning of the book Browning starts by quoting facts about the holocaust. He quotes, “In mid- March 1942 some 75 to 80 percent of all victims of the Holocaust were still alive, while 20 to 25 percent had perished. The following year the numbers were completely reversed. The majority of the murders of Jews were taken place in Poland. Christopher Browning questions how had the Germans organized and carried out the mass murder of Jews. He also questions how Germany found the resources allowing the Nazi regime to mobilize, considering that Germany in the Treaty of Versailles had to decrease their military. For him to answer this question it led him to investigate, and while investigating he came across a group of m...
Love is a topic that is known worldwide and is greatly debated each and every day. Although not everyone knows what love is, it’s is constantly incorporated in literature. All of the best poets and writers know how to utilize that concept and does it well. Jane Brody explains the importance of love when she writes: “When people fall in love and decide to marry, the expectation is nearly always that love and marriage and the happiness they bring will last; as the vows say, till death do us part.” One of the oddest forms of this writing is from Robert Browning’s texts My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover. In My Last Duchess a man is talking to the painting of his wife, and describing how their love went cold. Porphyria’s Lover is about a couple who works in an odd way, but ends even worse. Through careful analysis of Robert Browning’s two dramatic monologues, the similarities of them include mental instability within the speaker along with strange love that is portrayed but they differ by the extremity of their actions.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning uses great rhetoric throughout her letter to Napoleon III to convey her position on the matter of the banishment of Victor Hugo. Browning uses many rhetorical strategies in the letter. Some of her strongest points in the argument are her ethos, tropes and schemes, and pathos.
I think that framing his former wife is a way for the Duke to prevent
The poetry of Robert Browning, who lived from 1812 through 1889, is representative of the fact that women have been viewed as the ‘second sex’ since the beginning of time. The inferiority of women changed at the turn of the 20th century, yet women remain an inherent second to men, who are representative of the leader aspect in society and within the majority of traditional households. This fact of women’s nature of being second is not a bad thing at all, some things women are naturally better at than man are, and vice versa. Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony began the women’s suffrage movement in 1848 at the Seneca
In the first stanza of the poem , the surrounds of the two people is discussed.
as far as to declare her love as the sole reason for her existence in
“O Rose! Who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet.” (A Dead Rose) Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an impenetrable hardworking person. Her passion for her work left her with the legacy she has today. “Amongst all women poets of the English world in the 19th century; she was admired for her independence and courage.” During her lifetime she endured several hardships. Those hardships included her childhood, marriage, and works. (Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature Pg. 87)
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.