The document discusses the poem "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning. It analyzes the character and voice of the speaker, the Duke. [The Duke takes the listener on a tour of a portrait of his deceased wife and reveals through his word choices that he secretly resented her easy manner with others and felt she did not properly appreciate him. The analysis discusses how the Duke's hidden feelings and insecurities are betrayed through his long-winded speech.]
1. Poetry Across Time: Character and voice
Key
Language: connotation, imagery, metaphor, simile
Structure and form: stanzas, type, patterns, contrast, juxtaposition
Poetic methods: alliteration, caesura, assonance, rhythm, rhyme
Character and voice: who is speaking and to whom? Tone of voice
Links: comparisons to other speakers, methods and themes
Immediate separation between the poet and
speaker â within the theatrical framework of
st Genre: plays with
Title (1 person): Sense of dramatic monologues.
gothic tradition of
ownership, sequences and examining the dark
aristocracy. Untold story hidden in secrets behind old
details of the painting â as money.
My Last Duchess with this poem. Similar to
Establishes Ozymandias â the
location (same significance of artefacts. Full rhyming couplets
as River God).
FERRARA throughout shows another
affiliation with
Thatâs my last Duchess painted on the wall, Shakespearean theatre.
Deliberate use of Looking as if she were alive. I call
ambiguity/ That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolfâs hands
Rhyming couplets are less
innuendo Worked busily a day, and there she stands. conventional for long
suggests Willât please you sit and look at her? I said narratives, which make
jealousy.
âFra Pandolfâ by design, for never read this feel contrived.
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
Metaphor - But to myself they turned (since none puts by
letting out of
the curtain I have drawn for you, but I) Archaic diction evocative
secrets.
And seemed they would ask me, if they durst, of character â clearly
How such a glace came there; so not the first dating the speaker as a
Repetition of distant figure.
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, âtwas not
full name
suggests Her husbandâs presence only, called that spot
obsession/ Of joy into the Duchessâs cheek: perhaps The characterâs secrets
fixation. Fra Pandolf chanced to say âHer mantle laps are betrayed by
Must never hope to reproduce the faint semantics as he
Half flush that dies along her throatâ: such stuff chooses words from an
Browning obviously violent field.
makes it clear
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
that meaning For calling up that spot of you. She had
is to be gained A heart-how shall I say? âtoo soon made glad, Dukeâs politeness slips
through Too easily impressed; she liked whateâer as source of his hidden
interrogation of She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. turmoil is revealed
euphemisms. through Browning listing
Sir, âtwas all one! My favor at her breast,
his grievances.
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
2. C&V themes â what do each of
Dukeâs self-interjections become a sign of the characters in these poems
his instability or inability to conceal his guilt. value most? Speaker is born
She rode with round the terraceâall and each into a wealthy
lineage,
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
cementing the
Or blush, at least. She thanks menâgood! But thanked gothic nature
Emphasis on SomehowâI know not howâas if she ranked and creating a
the importance
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name sense of
of keeping up
With anybodyâs gift. Whoâd stoop to blame superiority.
appearances â
a character This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
who values In speechâ(which I have not)âto make your will
this over Quite clear to such a one, and say, âJust this
human life. Enjambment, as with
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss
âriver Godâ shows an
Rhetorical Or there exceed the markââand if she let inability to fully collate
question Herself be lessoned so, not plainly set and separate his
suggests Duke
has no real
her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse stories from his
--Eâen then would be some stooping; and I choose emotions.
awareness of
who he is Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt
Ambiguity â
speaking to or Wheneâer I passed her; but passed without Duke thinks he
his vast Much the same smile? This grew; I gave her commands; has been
impropriety.
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands cleverer than he
As if alive. Willât please you rise? Weâll meet has â
Browningâs
Browning hints the company below, then. I repeat
comment on
at a sense of The count your materâs known munificence arrogance and
guilt behind Is ample warrant that no just pretence wealth?
the tyranny? Of mine dowry will be disallowed Voice: clear distinction between
Though his fair daughterâs self, as I avowed public and private conversations.
At starting, is my object. Nay, weâll go
Chooses art
appealing to Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Browningâs evocation of
his Taming a sea horse, thought a rarity,
an extreme patriarchy
vanity/desire Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! (comment on Italian
to be god-like.
Preoccupation with artists and prestige. society?)
Structure: we only find out who the listener is at the end to give a
sense of the Dukeâs contrived behaviour and also for a bleak, comic
effect in realising who is being told all this info.
Interpretations of the poem:
ï§ A commentary on the arrogance of wealthy and powerful men
who see the world as a series of things to be possessed.
ï§ A study in how our own subconscious betrays the secrets we
keep when we allow ourselves the vanity to talk at length.