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 quotes that back these up are, In the Laboratory. ‘Soon at the King’s, a mere lozenge to give And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live! But to light a pastille, and Elise, with her head, And her breast and her arms and her hands should drop dead!’ and in ‘ My Last Duchess’ it was ‘Too easily impressed; she like whate’er. The writer in the poems are trying to say relationships break down for one reason or another, in these cases it’s infidelity, one person casting off someone for others, and in ‘The Laboratory’ she is fascinated with the process of how the alchemist makes the poisons, she thinks the poisons are beautiful, but they are very deadly, she uses beautiful words to make the poisons seem beautiful e.g. ‘ And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue, sure to taste sweet,- is that poison too.’ She wants the poisons to be quick and effective, and if they suffer it would be a bonus. The poets wrote them this way because they are ballade, and use rhyme and rhythm almost as if telling a story, the poets use alliteration ‘which is the poison to poison her prithee’ and onomatopoeia ‘Grind, Mash, Pound’ and in ‘My Last Duchess’ he uses similes ‘look as if she
There are many similarities and differences between the two poems: “When We Two Parted”, written by Lord Bryon, and “La Belle Dames Sans Merci”, written by John Keats. I shall be exploring these poems and seeing connections and differences between them, so that I am able to compare them.
Comparing the Poems Kid, Havisham, The Laboratory and My Last Duchess The poems are all dramatic monologues about aspects of love and the feelings and emotions that evolve from that. Kid is a comical monologue spoken in the voice of Robin, Batman's sidekick. Simon Armitage imagines what would have happened after the story of Batman and Robin's adventures. Robin is bitter towards Batman as he abandoned him, yet he has succeeded out of it and is therefore grateful to Batman.
The speakers in these two poems both have issues with the people they have been with. In the poem “My Last Duchess,” the speaker, the Duke of Ferrara, is complaining about his last wife and how he
The two Duffy poems I have chosen to compare the way she presents the speaker’s relationship with the person she is speaking to are Havisham and Elvis Twin Sister. Havisham is in a form of a monologue. Choose two Duffy Poems. Compare the way she presents the speaker’s relationship with the person she is speaking to (or about) Most of Carol Ann Duffy’s poems are about love, but that does not always mean that they contain positive connotations. Some contain positive where as quite a few of them have negative.
“My Last Duchess” and “The Laboratory” are two very diverse yet similar poems written by Robert Browning within the period of three years. In this essay I am going to carefully consider the techniques, language and imagery that Browning uses in these two poems. I am also going to compare the two poems together and how Browning creates the voice and character of the persona in each poem.
In his preface of the Kokinshū poet Ki no Tsurayaki wrote that poetry conveyed the “true heart” of people. And because poetry declares the true heart of people, poetry in the minds of the poets of the past believed that it also moved the hearts of the gods. It can be seen that in the ancient past that poetry had a great importance to the people of the time or at least to the poets of the past. In this paper I will describe two of some of the most important works in Japanese poetry the anthologies of the Man’yōshū and the Kokinshū. Both equally important as said by some scholars of Japanese literature, and both works contributing greatly to the culture of those who live in the land of the rising sun.
In both these poems the men either have a wife or lover whom they kill, but for different reasons of their own. In the poem Last Duchess the man kills his wife out of jealously among other things. He was upset that his wife was giving other men the same attention that he was given. He believed that he should get more attention he aggressively says “as if she ranked my gift of a nine hundred year old name with anybody’s gift. (Line 34, 35) he is very upset that what is his is not fully his, this makes him particularly jealous. In the other poem there is a man and his lover. His lover has come to see him and he is thinking to himself and he thinks of how his love for her has made his heart swell, which tells us he had profound feelings for this girl. The difference between the two was
Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is a dramatic monologue about the Duke of Ferrara. In this poem, the duke shows off his painting of his late wife and recalls their past times together to a guest in his home. The duke’s comments about his late wife depict him as a jealous and controlling man.
Both, the poem “Reluctance” by Robert Frost and “Time Does Not Bring Relief” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, revolved around the theme of lost love. Each poet used a similar array of poetic devices to express this theme. Visual imagery was one of the illustrative poetic devices used in the compositions. Another poetic device incorporated by both poets in order to convey the mood of the poems was personification. And by the same token, metaphors were also used to help express the gist of both poems. Ergo, similar poetic devices were used in both poems to communicate the theme of grieving the loss of a loved one.
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 “My Last Duchess,” Robert Browning uses an excellent example of dramatic monologue. Browning uses a casual conversation throughout the poem which makes the reader feel as if he or she were overhearing it. As “My Last Duchess” unfolds, the reader discovers the central idea from analyzing the relationship between the lines and stanzas. The most explicit theme in the poem is one of power and jealousy which the Duke displays throughout. This theme is made apparent when the Duke stands in front of an agent for his fiancée’s family with a portrait of his last wife – who is now dead – and talks about her flaws. By the end, the reader realizes that the irony in this piece is that the Duke’s perceived “faults” of the Duchess were actually good characteristics to have such as compassion and courtesy to those whom served her. This being said, we can infer that the Duke is doing this to warn his future wife the consequences of not living up to his standards.
“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love” (Martin Luther King, Jr.). Throughout the dramatic monologue “The Laboratory” by Robert Browning many concepts and themes are revealed in order to convey a message of the harsh consequences of retribution and distrust. The persona in this poem, an unforgiving and rancorous woman, is attempting to take revenge on the women that the persona’s lover left for. This poem takes place as the speaker is at a local apothecary and is requesting the alchemist there to make a poison for her in exchange for a hefty sum of riches. The persona ultimately is planning on using this poison to murder the woman that took her lover. The speaker then progresses on throughout the entire monologue describing the process of the development of the poison and describing her true intention and ideas about how she is truly envious of that other woman. Robert Browning uses a series of devices in this poem, “The Laboratory”, in order to disclose the persona as an immoral, jealous, and irritated human being. Browning establishes this image of the persona through the usage of revealing word choice, conclusive juxtaposition, and alliteration.
revenge and perhaps even murder. I think the poems are about two lovers, one of which cheated on their partner and the other. wants to take revenge. The poem is very contradictory, as shown in the first. line "O Rose, thou art sick" A rose usually symbolises beauty.
may not be all that he claims to be- the use of the word ‘My’ is very
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.