The purpose of this essay is to analyze and compare and contrast the two paired poems “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and “My Ex-Husband” by Gabriel Spera to find the similarities presented within the pairs. Despite the monumental time difference between “My Last Duchess” and “My Ex-Husband”, throughout both poems you will see that somebody is wronged by someone they thought was a respectable person and this all comes about by viewing a painting on the wall or picture on a shelf. The themes within the poems are very parallel. You see the theme of Self-importance or pride and Jealousy contained in both poems. “The Last Duchess” the pride and jealousy stems from the Duke himself due to the Duchesses supposed lack of attention to him. “E’en …show more content…
For Robert Browning’s poem it was a picture of the Last Duchess on the Wall. “That’s my last duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive; I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandol”(Line 1-3) On the other hand, Gabriel Spera’s poem starts with a poem of the “ex-husband” on the shelf. “That’s my ex-husband pictured on the shelf, smiling as if in love.”(Lines 1-2) These two poems are essentially a story, a story that begins with an image and delves into memory of both speakers. You could compare it to an inner monologue or a memoir. In analyzing both of the poems one will conclude that the pictures are symbols of memory and the past. This being one of the very first connections of similarity between My Last Duchess and My Ex-Husband. My Last Duchess takes place in Italy, late Renaissance Italy which is over 300 hundred years before My Ex-Husband. You also see a reference to Italy within the poem My Ex-Husband. “You yet these lovely champagne flutes, hand blown, Imported from Murano, Italy” (Lines 52-53) Italy is yet another connection between these two paired poems. May it be the glorious and beautiful history or may it just be symbol of wealth between My Last Duchess and My Ex-Husband. The symbol of wealth is almost ironic because in the end who is really wealthy? They both have faced a sense of …show more content…
On the other hand, the speaker in Spera’s poem is female. This is a slight variation between the two. The speaker of both the poems is pointing out how the wronged spouse was treated and you see that both marriages come to an end through the imagery provided within both poems, as well as the tone. In the poem “My Last Duchess” quotes such as “Herself be lessened so, nor plainly” (Line 40) and “I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together” (Lines 45-46) The Duke had the Duchess killed, which is the display of how he had wronged his wife because in his eyes the wife didn’t give her all of her attention and gave too much to other men. This implies jealously. Spera’s poems idea of being wronged in betrayed seems to lay within the sign of adultery which in the end ended in divorce. “How slobbishly he carried on affairs” (Line 30) The ex-husband committed adultery, this creating jealousy from women and causing the end of their marriage. You see the end of the betrayal with the following lines “So, I made some calls, filed some claims, All the kisses Stopped together.” (Lines
Initially, both speakers in the literary texts are similar because they killed their lovers. In Duchess, the duke that is the speaker says blatantly that he killed his last wife. As the speaker says in lines 45-46, “I gave commands; then the smiling stopped all together.” These lines mean that he told her to stop smiling, but she didn’t listen to him, so therefore he killed her, thus the smiles stopped all together. He explained that he did this such action because she smiled too much. In the same way, the speaker of Lover explained that he killed his lover too. The speaker grabbed his woman’s hair, and wrapped it around her neck three times, and strangled her to death! “I found a thing to do, and all her hair in one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her” (Lines 37-41).
There are few ways in which the two versions are alike. The most obvious is that they tell the same story, albeit with a slight variation at some points, but in essence, the story told is the same. They are both about a knight who committed a crime against a woman and was sent on a quest by the queen to learn “what women most desire.” Throughout his journey, the knight asked many women what they most desired and received varied answers. Dejected, the knight travels back to the kingdom to receive his punishment, but he comes across an old woman. She tells him what women most desire, the knight is acquitted, and he is forced to marry the old woman. In the end, the knight allows the old woman to choose whether she would like to be beautiful or faithful, so she becomes a beautiful and faithful young woman because the knight learned his lesson about women. Moreover, by glancing at the two poems, it is obvious that the length is similar.
Though they were written thousands of years apart, Sappho’s “Fragment 16” and Edgar Allen Poe’s “Bridal Ballad” each show how infatuation can often be mistaken for true love. In order to do this, each author depicts a character who is tormented by regret. In “Fragment 16”, Sappho points out that power can often become synonymous with beauty. Sappho is quick to disagree with this notion, instead arguing that love trumps power every time when it comes to beauty. To prove her point, Sappho uses the story of Helen to show how a desire for true love can lead Helen to abandon all that she knows. Similarly, “Bridal Ballad” depicts a woman who has made the fatal mistake of assuming that love should come with marriage, not the other way around. By contrasting this woman’s husband with the man she
“My Last Duchess” is written in rhymed iambic pentameter lines. It is about the inner thoughts of an individual speaker (Duke) who reveals a portrait of his former wife to the count’s agent and explains what happened as well as what led to her unfortunate fate. There are several hints of symbolism and imagery that play a key role throughout the poem, such as the portrait of the duchess, the smiling, and the stooping. Not much is said about the portrait except that is lifelike and captures the duchess’s emotional state. The Duchess’s smile and joyous state are the biggest signs of imagery in the portrait itself and the poem. According to the Duke, he thinks their worthless because ...
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.
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
My Last Duchess by Robert Browning is a dramatic monologue about a duke who is showing the portrait of his first wife, the duchess, to a servant of his future father-in-law, the Count. In a dramatic monologue, the speaker addresses a distinct but silent audience. Through his speech, the speaker unintentionally reveals his own personality. As such, in reading this poem, the reader finds the duke to be self-centered, arrogant, controlling, chauvinistic and a very jealous man. The more he attempted to conceal these traits, however, the more they became evident. There is situational irony (a discrepancy between what the character believes and what the reader knows to be true) in this because the duke does not realize this is what is happening. Instead, he thinks he appears as a powerful and noble aristocrat.
The various interpretations of The Wife’s Lament may argue on who the speaker is, but there is one thing that can not be denied. There is no doubt that this poem is about lamenting exile and the trials the speaker must face due to this exile. No matter who the speaker is, he/she is wroug...
They say true love only comes around once and one has to hold out and be strong until then. If such a time comes, how does one make sure their love lasts? The ideas of jealousy, guilt and trust all play major key roles through love and companionship with one another. But when one is betrayed, some seek out revenge. Back in the early 1500’s, revenge was seen by torture and or execution for such acts committed against a spouse. However, with such a dramatic change in the way we love today, revenge has taken on a whole new meaning. Therefore, looking into Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”, we see the speaker, also known as the Duke of Ferrara, tell the story of his last Duchess to the servant. We receive an in depth view of jealousy and the unfortunate consequences through the speakers calm unseen controlling and angry attitude towards the last Duchess.
In ‘My Last Duchess,’ the speaker is conveyed as being controlling, arrogant, malicious, and capricious. The Duke shows signs of jealousy and over-protection towards his first wife. On the other hand, the narrator in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is portrayed as who has lost touch with reality, someone clearly insane. There a few hints that this character may be lonely and withdrawn. After Porphyria enters the room he is in, the tension immediately drops and the mood warms.
In conclusion, Mr. Robert Browning depicts in ‘My Last Duchess” that the Duke is not an ideal husband by referencing how controlling he is over women and other people in his vicinity. Mr. Browning also references the Duke’s jealous and petty actions that make him seem desperate for a way to seek attention. That is why the Duke disposes of her since she was not giving him the proper care he wanted he decided that she was not worthy. The Duke is also not an ideal husband based on his views of how disposal women are to him. His jealousy and insecurity lead him to be an unhappy self-centered
First Love is about a shy guy who apparently has seen a girl to which
...his beloved's timelessness also appears in "Reconciliation." Yeats writes, "Some may have blamed you that you took away the verses," leading the poet to write about "kings, / Helmets, and swords, and have-forgotten things / That were like memories of you." These poems tie together the poet's vision of Maud Gonne as a woman misplaced in time, possessing, as Giorgio Melchiori writes, a "proud beauty and fire...in which a noble past clashes with a mediocre present."
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.
Both poems have many similar characteristics. They both talk about love and loss. How even after loss, love can still go on. And even though a love is gone it doesn’t mean it’s gone for good. That they can reminisce on the memories and happier times shared. Even though their physical being is no longer present. Poe seemed to do this through his literary works. And that is what makes him such a distinctive writer.