Robert Browning`S

“My Last Duchess” Essay, Research Paper

My Last Duchess

Essay written by Anonymous

A dramatic monologue is a poem in which a single speaker who is not the poet recites the entire poem at a critical moment. The speaker has a listener within the poem, but the reader of the poem is also one of the speakers listeners. In a dramatic monologue, the reader learns about the speaker’s character from what the speaker says. Robert Browning is said to have perfected this form of writing. One of his most famous dramatic monologues is “My Last Duchess.”

The speaker in the poem is an Italian duke who ordered the murder of his wife and is at the offset of the poem showing off the portrait to his future son-in-law. Browning lets the reader know in a roundabout way that the duke only shows the portrait of his late wife to select strangers. In doing this, the speaker is able to show off his wealth to the stranger and he seems to enjoy telling these people the story of how he ordered her to death. The speaker tries to convey to the people that he shows the portrait to that he is in control of everything that takes place in his household. In lines 8-9, the speaker interjects “since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you…” In this line, the speaker is saying that he doesn’t draw the curtain for just anyone. He has drawn the curtain particularly for his future son-in-law and he should feel privileged because the portrait can only be seen under the speaker’s complete control.

The Duke believes that he should be shown complete respect and be the center of attention while in his home. The Duke thought his wife should be for him and his pleasures only. He did not like it when Fra Pandolf, the artist who painted the portrait said:

“Fra Pandolf chanced to say ‘Her mantle laps

Over my lady’s wrist too much,’ or, ‘Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat.”

to the duchess in lines 16-18. And then again in lines 27-28, the duke tells about how some “officious fool” brought her cherries from the orchard.

The duke also could not stand the fact that the duchess treated everyone and every gift equally; “all and each / Would draw from her alike the approving speech, / Or blush, at least” (lines 29-31). The duke thought of his wife as one of his possessions and she could never be treated as his equal; “E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose / Never to stoop” (lines 42-43). Now her portrait is behind a curtain and he has absolute power over it, just like he thought he should have had over his wife while she was alive. In lines 54-56, Browning alludes to Greek mythology while making the comparison of how the duke tamed his wife like Neptune and the sea-horse; “Notice Neptune, though / Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, / Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!”

The duke tried to have control over his household at all times and it seems like he is trying to convey that to his future son-in-law. He is also talking to a servant as the reader finds out at the end of the poem. The reader could take that as the duke trying to tell the people in his household that he is the ultimate power of the house as well the people that live in it.