Robert Browning’s poetry - “My last duchess” Introduction His poem is based on historical events involving Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara, who lived in the 16th century. The Duke is the speaker of the poem, and tells us he is entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke’s marriage to the daughter of another powerful family. As he shows the visitor through his palace, he stops before a portrait of the late Duchess. The Duke begins reminiscing about the portrait sessions, then about the Duchess herself .He begins to act disgraceful: he claims she flirted with everyone and did not appreciate his “gift of a nine-hundred-years- old name.” As his monologue continues, the reader realizes with ever-more certainty that the Duke in fact caused the Duchess’s early demise: when her behavior escalated. Having made this disclosure, the Duke returns to the business at hand: arranging for another marriage, with another young girl.
Also, he is saying that she is about to become his wife. For Paris to express his feelings to Juliet in such a short scene would be very difficult for him. Paris is genuinely heartbroken when he thinks that Juliet is dead; 'Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew...The obsequies that I for thee will keep nightly shall be to strew thygrave and weep. Paris goes to visit Juliet's tomb and talks to her whilst she lies there in apparent death. He compares her to a flower, which seems to be his way of showing affection.
Robert Browning uses jealousy as a theme for most of his poems, claiming that the duke in the poem “My Last Duchess” was obsessed with the Duchess and kills her due to the fact that he does not want other men to be seduced by her appearance, and likeness. In relation to this in “Porphyria's Lover” Browning displays this theme in the poem by talking about how the Young man took this nice young woman into his house, and then strangled her and kept her corpse so he could be with her. In the poem “A Light Woman” Browning talks about a flirtatious woman who takes a man’s attention and then diverts her attention towards one of his friends who in the end wins her heart. The speaker unravels his jealousy as she changes her attraction to another man. He uses the characters portrayal in each of the poems.
It appears as if he is speaking to a person who is visiting his house for the first time. He is then showing him around the place, when the person notices a painting of a woman on the wall and is pondering on the thought of who it might be. This leads the main character/voice towards explaining to the person who the painting is of. This is the introduction of the poem The main voice within this monologue is that of the Duke. He is talking to a person, who is visiting his house.
Davaris Brown Professor Johnson English 1102 18 April 2012 Explication of “My Last Duchess” This narrative poem is about a Duke who is looking at a picture of his dead Duchess. He talks about the portrait on the wall of her, which he admires. The Duke thinks about how the Duchess compares everything to him. The death of the Duchess shows another side of the Duke which started to show while he’s talking and is unrevealed at the end. The Duke thinks he is bigger than God and also a jealous and possessive man.
In each stanza there are four sentences, split into a couplet, a pair of rhymed lines. This produces a beat within the poem, helping create the intensity of the narrator. The narrator in this poem is believed to be a woman, who feels betrayed by her husband or lover. The speaker is determined to get her revenge by poisoning the unnamed man’s new lover. We see into the mind of the speaker, sensing her raging jealousy and determination for revenge.
Critical Essay My Last Duchess – Ferrara Robert Browning has created a perfect blend of form and content in his poem, ‘My Last Duchess’. The poetic techniques used allowed me, as the reader, to become involved in this poem and also contribute to an engaging read. Through using key techniques Browning brought to me a deeper appreciation of this poem, and in this essay I will study these further. The poem concerns the character, the Duke of Ferrara who is giving a tour of his manner to an envoy, who has been sent to negotiate a dowry for the marriage of his master’s, the count’s, daughter to the Duke. He stops at a painting of his late wife, his ‘last Duchess’ and begins a speech of which he is recanting his thoughts of her.
It portrays the poet's jealousy of the death Woman because she died peacefully while others has to live and face the ordeals of life. Her preoccupation with death is seen when she states that her jealousy for the death Woman is “nearly infinite”. The next stanza talks about how the Woman passed away without much trouble. It took place in a short time and the whole experience “Jostled “her. This had a disturbing influence on the poet.
Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess is a dramatic monologue uttered by the Duke of Ferrari which highlights the jealous and sadistic nature of his character and the mysteriousness which surrounds his late wife’s demise. The poem starts with him drawing the attention of the person whom he is talking to, who is, as one later finds out, a messenger from the Count’s family whose daughter’s hand the duke seeks in marriage; to the portrait of his late wife on the wall. The duke praises the work of the painter, Fra Pandolf, who had spent a whole day slaving over the painting to make it look so lifelike. He instructs the messenger to sit down, and goes on to describe how anyone who has ever seen that picturesque expression on his lady’s painted face, has never failed to ask him, as he has always been present for no one dares to draw the curtain from the painting except him, the reason behind the lively expression. He then thinks about his late wife, remembering that it wasn’t just his company which made her blush.
In a conversation with the captain, she learns of the courtship between Orsino and Olivia. She decides to work for Olivia, but since Olivia is mourning, Viola seeks employment at Orsino's household disguised as a man and using the name, Cesario. However, Cesario falls in love with Orsino but fears revealing her identity. Orsino uses Cesario to entice Olivia, but the she falls in love with Cesario. In the second plot, Malvolio works for Olivia and mistreats the other workers.