An Analysis of My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
“My Last Duchess” is written as a dramatic monologue, which is a poem that is read as if on stage, talking to an audience or character in a play. This method of writing has been used because the poem wants to give one perspective, the Duke’s, in an effective manner. By using this technique, Browning is also silencing the antagonist, the
Duchess, and becoming the protagonist. The rhyming scheme consists of rhyming couplets, which give the poem a sense of order, and make the speaker, the Duke in this case, seem well educated and in control of their emotions and actions.
These methods of writing help show the character of the protagonist and the way he viewed the traditions during
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The Marxist view interprets the poem as if the Duke thinks of everything as his object, and the feminist viewpoint makes the Duke look as if he doesn’t treat the Duchess as he should. The Duke’s personality is revealed by different aspects in the poem, for example the rhyming scheme, rhyming couplets, makes the poem flow more easily, which leaves no gaps for interruption. This shows the
Duke’s love of being the centre of attention and being in control.
The Duke also shows this keenness of control when he says the painting is of “my last Duchess”, showing he treated her as just another article in his collection of art. The Duke also mentions Frà Pandolph in his conversation with the count’s servant, showing he is proud of the painting he has of the Duchess and he is showing off about having a great artist to paint this picture that he calls “a wonder”.
However, when he says he calls “That piece a wonder, now”, he says it as if he didn’t appreciate the Duchess until she was dead. The Duke is also purveyed as a very clever, well educated person, as he has the ability to speak very poetically, but he does pretend to be inarticulate at times to let the reader/listener fill in the gaps, for
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He is also very worried about the behaviour of the Duchess because he thinks that it will make him look bad to the rest of the Victorian high society, this is because the women of Victorian times were expected to be an “Angel in the House”, and to be the very symbol of virginity and if they were not, they were automatically classed as a whore.
The feminist view on this poem is that the Duke is silencing the
Duchess by talking in a monologue and not letting people hear the
Duchess’ opinion. The poem is highly criticizing the role of women in the Victorian times. The Duke basically disapproves of the way the
Duchess acted around other men because the women of the household were supposed to be the pinnacle of virginity and innocence during these times. However, the Duke did not like the uniqueness and independence the Duchess had, for example,
Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her, but who passed without
Much the same smile?
This indicates the way that the Duchess acted towards other men, and the Duke did not like it because she treated them the same as
Harte showed Duchess’s emotional side of her. Her “...pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears...” (Harte, 2) shows the Duchess as emotional, a drama queen, spontaneous and impulsive. This was before she changed, though. “The Duchess, previously a selfish and solitary character, does all she can to comfort and console the fearful Piney.” (Moss and Wilson, 4) Duchess's character reveals that people can switch their habits no matter what the circumstances
She questions “why should I be my aunt / or me, or anyone?” (75-76), perhaps highlighting the notion that women were not as likely to be seen as an induvial at this time in history. Additionally, she questions, almost rhetorically so, if “those awful hanging breasts -- / held us all together / or made us all just one?” (81-83). This conveys the questions of what it means to be a woman: are we simply similar because of “awful hanging breasts” as the speaker of the poem questions, or are we held together by something else, and what is society’s perception on this? It is also interesting to note Bishop’s use of parenthesis around the line “I could read” (15). It may function as an aside for the reader to realize that the six year old girl can in fact read, but also might function as a wink to the misconstrued notion throughout history that women were less educated and didn’t
know how much he loved her, by buying her beautiful dresses and jewelry. He wanted to
Compare and contrast what the poems My Last Duchess and The Laboratory are saying about human relationships. Compare and contrast what the poems ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘The Laboratory’ are saying about human relationships and how the poet makes the poems interesting. The laboratory is about a woman wanting to poison/ kill her rivals so she can be the kings mistress. My Last Duchess is about a man describing his last Duchess, and how the painter flirted with her, he describes her features that show the painter was flirting with her. Both ‘The Laboratory’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ are of anger and resentment, in ‘The Laboratory’ it is the discarded mistress who is jealous about other women flirting and dancing with the King, and in ‘My Last Duchess’ it is of the Duke, and he is showing dis-pleasure in the way the his last Duchess conducted herself with other men.
The topic of the poem in My Last Duchess is infact a painting, had it
The narrator in “the Book of the Duchess” is more than just a character unable to identify the truth behind the knight’s metaphors, he is seeking for something greater. The narrator has an ulterior motive to try and make the grieving knight discuss in greater detail of the tragic loss. In this paper, an argument will be make that the narrator has ulterior motives in regards to his interactions with the grieving knight. In particular, this paper will discuss the methods in which the narrator uses to better invoke an emotional responses from the knight. To clarify the thesis of this paper, narrator uses methods such as pretending to be ignorant of the situation or acting coldly towards the knight to extract more information about the loss. The
To begin with, the whole story is told from Irene’s perspective where we can see a considerable measure of dissatisfaction and disdain on her side. Throughout the story, Irene and Clare has a strange relationship. Even though they were high school friends, they were never close with each other. Irene considers Clare as narrow minded, cold and hard. While Clare utilizes her physical appearance as leverage in the bigot and sexist society, introducing herself as a question of sexual yearnings, Irene stays unobtrusive with her sexuality and never endeavors to utilize her magnificence to pick up favorable position in any means. Even though it is appeared throughout the book that Irene doesn’t care for Clare, it is obviously clear that Irene is hypocrite
Analysis of To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell and Sonnet by Elizabeth B. Browning
Comparing Robert Browning's Dramatic Monologues My Last Duchess and The Laboratory Robert Browning was a Victorian poet who lived from 1812-1889. He mainly wrote dramatic monologues, this means you must have a speaker and a listener. Both "My Last Duchess" and "The Laboratory" were published in 1845. "My Last Duchess" was set in the Italian Renaissance and during that time to own large life size painting was a show of wealth. "My Last Duchess" was written in a time when women were to hold their husbands and everything that he did with the maximum respect and show little or no emotion towards anyone else. "
...nche in a way that he has been unable to throughout the play so far, and by doing this, he is also cancelling out her aristocratic upbringing.
Both poems show men as being active, but only “To His Coy Mistress” shows. women as passive as the woman involved is showing her power to say no, but the duke's wife is sleeping around.
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.
In the early 1800s, the world was being introduced to a new type of writing that strayed from the scientific ideals of the Enlightenment Era and entered the world of Romance. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a highly influential person in this movement. She led a life full of oppression, which had an extreme impact on her writings. Browning’s life experiences through the adversity that she faced, influenced her career by providing inspiration for her works.
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.
Robert Browning was born on May 7th, 1812 in Camberwell, London, England. He is considered to be one of the two major poets of the Victorian era. His first poem was written when he was at the age of six. At the age of eight he attended a boarding school until he was sixteen. He then enrolled at the University of London in 1828. Having only stayed at the university for a few months, Browning decided to leave to follow his dream of becoming a poet. Most of his education came from tutors and the many books found in his father’s library. His love to write came from reading many famous works such as Alexander Pope’s Iliad of Homer as well as many romantic poems. His favorite poet was Percy Bysshe Shelley. The first official poem Browning wrote and published is “Pauline” in 1833. In 1846 he met his soon to be wife Elizabeth Barrett and quickly fell in love. They went to Italy where they would later get eloped, have a son, and live there till the death of his wife in 1861. After her death, Browning and his son moved back to England where published The Ring and the Book. It was a series of dramatic monologues related to a seventeenth century murder case. It was the book that essentially established his reputation. He continued on to publish Dramatic Idyls in the years 1879 through 1880 and received world-wide fame. Browning is most widely known for creating the dramatic monologue. In 1881 the Browning Society was built to study and analyze Browning’s poems and to celebrate his work. Browning died in 1889 in Venice, Italy and was buried in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.