Brittney Lynch “The Painting of the Duchess” “My Last Duchess” is a dramatic monologue written by Robert Browning in the year 1842, and was published in his collection Dramatic Lyrics the same year. In this poem, the Duke of Ferrara discusses his first wife while negotiating terms for a second marriage with a representative serving the Count of Tyrol. Browning uses characterization, setting, conflict, and symbolism to reveal the theme of the arrogant, authoritarian, proud mindset of the Duke. The speaker in the monologue “My Last Duchess” is the Duke of Ferrara. In this poem, the Duke states that he is entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate his marriage to the daughter of another powerful family.
The poem ‘My Last Duchess’ was written by Robert Browning in the year of 1842. ‘My Last Duchess’ was based on a true story about the narrator Duke Alfonso, who ruled Ferrara which was located in Northern part of Italy in 1559 until 1597. Lucretia was Duke’s wife who had died due to a suspicious event and which could have been poisoned by the husband Duke. The Duke is trying to convey a message through a picture of his later wife to his messenger, which in the message remarked her stained character. This is shown through the quote ‘will’t please you sit and look at her’.
My Last Duchess is written by Robert Browning in 1842. A dramatic monologue of the Duke of Ferrara presents his best side to the agent of the count of Tyrol when he tries to talk about his previous wife. Set in iambic pentameter, AABB rhyme scheme along with other techniques such as enjambment and caesura, the poem reveals qualities about the speaker and his situation. The reader might be drawn to the conclusion that the speaker has something to do with his wife’s death as revealed in his confusing speech and actions throughout the poem. The dramatic monologue exposes the speaker’s true personality and his situation more than he aims to say both to the agent and the reader The Duke of Ferrara seems to be controlling in nature; he tries to control everyone he is comes to term with, like he controls the actions of the agent : “Will’t please you sit and look at her”, “Will’t please you rise?” and “Nay, we’ll go/ Together down, sir” .
I will be analyzing the monologue/poem “My last Duchess” by Robert Lowry. The purpose of this monologue is to convey to the reader the Dukes sense of arrogance, spite and possessiveness towards his estranged wife, which is referred to in the title as his “Last Duchess”. In the first line, it says “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall”. This line gives the reader an idea that the setting of the monologue is taking place within the main characters quarters or house. It appears as if he is speaking to a person who is visiting his house for the first time.
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.
Having made this disclosure, the Duke returns to the business at hand: arranging for another marriage, with another young girl. As the Duke and the emissary walk leave the painting behind, the Duke points out other notable artworks in his collection. Form “My Last Duchess” comprises rhyming pentameter lines. Consequently, the rhymes do not create a sense of closure when they come, but rather remain a subtle driving force behind the Duke’s compulsive revelations. The Duke is quite a performer: he mimics others’ voices, creates hypothetical situations, and uses the force of his personality to make horrifying information seem merely colorful.
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.
Robert Browning uses the actions of the Duke of Ferrara, descriptions of the Duke’s late duchess, and style of courtship of the Duke in “My Last Duchess” to show that patriarchal society is an outdated and unfitting way to live. In “My Last Duchess”, the Duke of Ferrara begins by telling his guest, the servant of his newest prospective wife’s father, to look upon a painting of his late duchess. He has this portrait hidden behind a curtain and states, “none puts the curtain I have drawn for you but I” (Browning 9-10), meaning that only he, and those who he allows, can look upon this painting. The action of hiding his painting away for himself is representative of the view that men in a patriarchal society have towards women. They feel that women should be at home and should stay in their role in society.
She Walks in Beauty" is a poem written in 1814 by Lord Byron. One of Lord Byron's most famous, it is a lyric poem that describes a woman of much beauty and elegance. The poem appears to be told from the view point of third person omniscient. There are no hints as to the identity of the narrator, but it is believed that the narrator may be Byron himself. The poem is said to have been inspired by the vision of Byron's cousin by marriage in a mourning gown.
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. From this speech, his wife was popular, especially with men, and a passionate and pleasant lady (to the reader only). The Duke is telling of his intolerances of her actions, being that of flirtations with men, however innocent, and how she did not rate his ‘gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name’, but instead treated him as she did others. It is well hinted that her behaviour angered the Duke so he had his Duchess killed, ‘I gave commands;Then all the smiles stopped together.’ It would seem his speech is also for the purpose of letting the envoy know his expectations of his new wife, that being very different to the last. Because the poem is in the form of a dramatic monologue, the reader only shares the conversation of the Duke.