Love in Poems

Love in Poems

Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess” is based on a real story

about the fifth Duke of Ferrera in the Renaissance period. He married

a 14-year-old named Lucrezia and then left her for a two-year period.

She died at the age of 17. In this poem, the Duke is now looking for a

second wife-to-be. Robert Browning is one of the greatest poets in the

Victorian age. He writes romantic poems and he expresses love in this

poem as obsessive. The poem’s rhyme scheme is a, a, b, b. This is a

dramatic monologue. This is the kind of poem where there is only one

speaker. In this poem it is the duke. At the very start of the poem,

we are already given the idea that the Duke is a proud man especially

with his art collections. “That’s my last duchess painted on the

wall”, this quote tells us that he includes his last wife in his

collection. The “my” emphasizes the duke owning his last duchess. By

doing this, Robert Browning emphasizes the Duke wanting power

especially over his last wife. Her painting is behind the wall now and

the Duke shows it to a very few chosen strangers, “since none puts the

curtain I have drawn for you but I”. The painting was made by Fra

Pandolf. The Duke is jealous by the fact that the Duchess can blush by

receiving any compliments from just anyone. “Sir, ‘twas not her

husband’s presence only…into the Duchess’ cheek.” In this quote, the

Duke never treated his wife as an equal. But he considered himself

higher than her and he wouldn’t lower himself to tell the duchess what

she did that annoyed him. He thinks the duchess has no pride at all

because she treats everybody equally, “as if she ranked my gift of a

nine-hundred-years-old name with anybody’s gift”. He wants the duchess

for h...

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...n wants the mistress to understand

that it will never be a good idea if she will die a virgin. He is now

desperate to get her in bed. If she dies a virgin, the man’s “lust”

will just turn to ashes. The last part of the poem uses a more

passionate language and basically gives the mistress a more appealing

idea if the man makes love to the mistress. The whole of the third

part is describing how the man feels about making love to the

mistress. Andrew uses similes “like morning dew” to compare the

“youthful hue” of his mistress and “like amorous birds of prey” to

describe the way in which they should do the act of making love.

Basically, this part has more persuasion than the other parts. It is

similar to “The Beggar Woman” because it represents physical love.

However, we will never know if the woman agrees with the man. We are

left to decide for ourselves.