...Analysis of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” Melvin J Rogers L26599934 Liberty University Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess” is based on an incident in the life of the Italian Duke Alfonso II d’Este of the Duchy of Ferrara (eNotes.com, 2014). The use of the dramatic monologue is the most effective device to reveal what Browning believes to be the true nature of the narrator, the Duke. By allowing the narrator to tell his own story it becomes readily apparent to the reader that he is a flawed person; self-centered, arrogant, controlling and bordering on the narcissistic. In order to lead the reader to the pre-determined conclusion regarding the Duke’s character, Browning creates two tones, one for the Duke, and one for the poem overall. The tone of the Duke is one of arrogance or insolence; he is quite proud of himself in the way in which he feels he commands those around him and he feels that he is superior to them. Several lines in the poem paint this picture for the reader. The Duke feels that merely being a part of his family is something that should be celebrated and cherished (“- as if she ranked/My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/With anybody’s gift.”) (lines 32 – 34). The Duke refers to the artist who painted the portrait of his wife in a way that implies that not just anyone could secure his services (“I said/ “Fra Pandolf” by design …”) (lines 5 - 6). He is proud of the fact that he does not compromise (“- E’en then would be some stooping;...
Words: 926 - Pages: 4
...website WebMD Amal Chakraburtty, MD, Mental illness may be caused from many factors such as: Heredity (genetics), Biology, Psychological trauma, and Environmental stressors. The character Emily’s illness may be caused from either heredity, Psychological trauma, and or Environmental stressors. Porphyria's Lovers mental illness appears to be brought on by Psychological trauma. An analysis of Emily Grierson and Porphyria’s lovers emotional state will provide in contrast the reason that drove them both to murder. Robert Browning's “Porphyria's Lover” is a dramatic monologue poem about an insecure, possessive and egotistical lover who, upon finding a moment in which he is reassured of his partner’s love for him; attempts to preserve the moment by killing her. The poem has a very dark theme, being murder and insanity as the main idea in the poem. The poem begins with a description of the setting. There is a storm raging outside the cottage and the poem begins with "The rain set early in tonight, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake" (Browning). This description gives us a clue of what he is feeling and...
Words: 1782 - Pages: 8
...Personalities of the Duke in “My Last Duchess” “My Last Duchess" is a poem by Robert Browning, frequently anthologised as an example of the dramatic monologue. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Last_Duchess) In this poem, Browning establishes the personalities of its speaker—the duke indirectly but distinctly through his monologue alone. By reading the monologue, readers can find a duke who is apparently gentle and cultivated, but actually imperious and selfish. This essay is an analysis of the duke’s personalities and how does the poet establish them through monologue. At the beginning and the end of the poem, the duke shows the guest two of his valuable collections. The first one is the portrait of his wife painted by Fra Pandolf. The second one is the Neptune cast by Claus. By showing these valuable masterpieces, the duke wants to prove his love and pursuit of art and to show his good taste. He seems himself as a noble and cultivated gentleman. However, he shows his real personalities such as arrogance, jealousy, hypocrisy and selfishness through his monologue. The poem opens with the duke showing the painting of his dead wife to his guest. The duke calls “that piece a wonder” for his wife looks “as if she were alive”. And he specificly mentions that this painting was done by Fra Pandolf who is an imaginary famous painter. But he immediately says that he mentioned Fra Pandolf “by design” lest his guest fail to appreciate the significance of this painting. At the same...
Words: 748 - Pages: 3
...The similarities between Robert Browning's two poems, “My Last Duchess” and Porphyria's Lover, are ordinary, as they can be compared in theme, plot, style, language, perspective and various other ways. The two poems make the same statement concerning men and love and men and their relationship with women. In both poems, the male narrator looks like a jealous, overbearing tyrant and the woman a passive victim of circumstance. Neither poem makes men look very good. This is a single stanza poem. The structure used of “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. This poem provides a good use of Euphemism and Persona. The structural elements include iambic pentameter, the line, heroic couplet, strophe and stanza. Poets combine the use of language and a specific structure to create imaginative and expressive work such as My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. The structure used in some Poetry types is also used when considering the visual effect of a finished poem. The structure of many types of poetry results in groups of lines on the page which enhance the poem's composition. This poem provides a good example of Euphemism and Persona. “Porphyria’s Lover,” while natural in its language, does not display the colloquialisms or dialectical markers of some of Browning’s later poems. Moreover, while the cadence of the poem mimics natural speech, it actually takes the form of highly patterned verse, rhyming ABABB. The intensity and asymmetry of the pattern suggests the madness concealed within...
Words: 1603 - Pages: 7
...LAST DUCHESS he wanted to compare the poem My Last Duchess by Robert Browning with the poem by Geoffrey Chaucer called The Book of the Duchess. Thompson talks about the “obvious parallels” (Thompson) it has In his article he describes the differences and similarities between the two men in the poems. In lines 21-24 of My Last Duchess and lines 873-875 of Book of the Duchess there are resemblances. In both poems the speakers describe their wives, which similarly they were both duchess’s and both have passed away. Both poems deal with the gladness and the looks of the women, and even the word ‘glad’ appears in both excerpts in a line-final position. The descriptions, however, are incompatible as Chaucer’s poem praises the wife “for were she never so glad, Hyr lokynge was not foly sprad, Ne wildely, thogh that she pleyde” (Chaucer). In Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess, the duke does the opposite “She had/A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad—she liked whate’er/ She looked on, and her looks went everywhere” (Browning). Thompson goes on to compare the two poems by explaining the two men’s concerns with their wives’ and how beautiful both women in the poems were. The knight in the Chaucer’s poem worships his duchess while the Duke in Browning’s poem does not. Thompson also states how the Black Knight in Chaucer’s poem grieves for his dead wife and the Duke has no sympathy for his Duchess’s death. Analysis Lou Thompson relates the two poems in his article by explaining the differences...
Words: 464 - Pages: 2
...Literature Essay - Draft Throughout the four poems; "To his Coy Mistress" "My Last Duchess" "Porphyria's Lover" and "Havisham." there is a constant attitude towards women and themes such as violence, possession and patriarchal society are present. However these all differ in nature and theme despite the resounding attitude towards women. THCM is written in 17th Century and the poem depicts a man's urges to will a woman into bed with him. The poem has a light tone and humorous aspects throughout. In contrast MLD which is written in 19th Century has a much darker and menacing tone; it is about a controlling Duke and his previous duchess and unravels the dark story behind them. PL is a Victorian poem, the poem is gothic, crude and perverted in parrts with a man's strange insane intentions. However all these poems are linked by the idea of the male possessing and controlling a woman. H on the other hand is a woman's interpretation of a 19th century fictional character and how this character is left with feelings of violent hatred after being let down in marriage by her fiancé who has wed her to gain some of her riches. The theme of the poem is violent and confrontation but does compare and contrast with PL with the gothic nature. These four dramatic monologues do vary in storyline and tone however he same themes are made apparent in all of them and is what gives these poems a link and comparisons. Desire, death, domination and obsession as well as the balance of control between...
Words: 3218 - Pages: 13
...White Man’s Burden (Handout) Summary & Annotation: A straightforward analysis of the poem may conclude that Kipling presents a"Euro-centric" view of the world, in which people view society from only a European cultures point of view. This view proposes that white people consequently have an obligation to rule over, and encourage the cultural development of people from other ethnic and cultural backgrounds until they can take their place in the world by fully adopting Western ways. The term "the white man's burden" can be interpreted simply as racist, or taken as a metaphor for a condescending view of non-Western national culture and economic traditions, identified as a sense of European ascendancy which has been called "cultural imperialism". A parallel can also be drawn with the charitable view, common in Kipling's formative years, that the rich have a moral duty and obligation to help the poor "better" themselves whether the poor want the help or not until according to Europeans, "they can take their place in the world socially and economically." The term "white man's burden" is a phrase that became current in the controversy about the United States acquisition of the Philippines after the Spanish-American war of 1898. It was a concept that was the responsibility of white Europeans to bring "proper" European civilization to the nations (mostly brown, black, red or yellow) that did not have it. The underlying thought was that Europeans were correct in their beliefs and...
Words: 5749 - Pages: 23
...September 14, 2010 Poetry Analysis From the beginning of time, people were writing poetry, painting pictures, and telling stories about love. With this theme a lot of poets around the world wrote a huge amount of poems and stories. I chose to analyze a couple of Robert Browning’s poems and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s, his wife. Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812 in Camberwell, England. He was the eldest child of Sarah Wiedemann and Robert Browning, a wealthy clerk who was also a collector of books; his gigantic library was a great source of study for young Robert. Both his parents encouraged him to study and write, and he did start to write poetry at the age of twelve. In 1846 Robert Browning married fellow English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). They were devoted to each other, “for after their marriage they were never separated,” writes their son in his introduction to The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846. After they settled down in Italy and Elizabeth’s health began to get better she went on to write many highly acclaimed works. The few works Browning produced in the next fifteen years including Christmas Eve and Easter Day (1850), and Men and Women, which he dedicated to his wife Elizabeth (1855). (Merriman) I have selected two poems “Meeting at Night” and “Parting at Morning” by Robert Browning and one poem, “How Do I Love Thee?” written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The main theme in these...
Words: 1439 - Pages: 6
...Discuss Browning’s Presentation of Failure in ‘Pictor Ignotus’. Robert Browning’s ‘Pictor Ignotus’, which is Latin for ‘unknown painter’, is a poem detailing the thoughts of an early renaissance painter. The speaker is an old, traditional artist who is struggling to compete with the younger painters of the day and who seeks to explain his perceived lack of success. Browning explores the effects of fame, criticism and, crucially, failure on the anonymous artist whose thoughts are scrutinised as he discusses his life and work. Browning conveys to the reader the underlying bitterness of the unknown painter and his anger at the sense of failure which he feels. The dissatisfaction of the artist is made clear throughout the poem through his own speech. In describing how he chose his ‘portion’ in life, he also expresses the pain it now causes him as his ‘heart sinks’ whilst he paints repetitive religious works, an occupation forced by his failure to become a commercial success in the competitive art world of renaissance Italy. His bitterness s further emphasised through his aggressive manner of speech described by Browning’s use of sibilance. The use of sibilance, ‘saddens while it soothes’, gives the words of the painter a malicious edge as they are spat out venomously showing his frustration at his failure. The speaker’s asperity is also illustrated by his scornful remarks about his contemporaries. He belittles the success of another, younger artist whom he sarcastically alludes...
Words: 1092 - Pages: 5
...World War II, the Police Battalion 101 helped cleanse out Poland as part of the Final Solution. The Final Solution was Nazi Germany’s plan to execute all European Jews during the World War II. Most of the Battalion 101 were made up of working class or lower middle class from Hamburg area, with majority of them falling in the age between 37 to 42, which “would not seem to have been a very promising group from which to recruit mass murderers on behalf of the Nazi vision of a racial utopia free of Jews” (Browning, pg.48). As ordinary as the men of the Battalion 101 were, the question remains how most men in the Battalion became killers and what caused this behavior. Browning cities several theories to how such ordinary men could commit such atrocities, such as “wartime brutalization, racism, segmentation, and routinization of the task, special selection of the perpetrators, careerism, obedience to orders, deference to authority, ideological indoctrination, and conformity” (Browning, pg.159). Out of these theories, conformity is the most important reason how the ordinary men in the Police Battalion 101 became killers. The Reserve Police Battalion 101 was a group of ordinary men from Hamburg, with most men not having any experience in any kind of military service. Their main responsibilities were the ghetto clearing of Poland and the deportation of Jews. Their first mass execution took place at Jozefow. This event was the first time the Battalion 101 committed a mass murder...
Words: 1182 - Pages: 5
...My Last Duchess Robert Browning was in his 50s before he achieved universal popularity but the lean years prior to his recognition allowed the poet to experiment with genre, form and language. As well as poetry, Browning had a great love of theatre and one of his early ambitions was as a playwright but after failing to find success on the stage, he accepted that he lacked the skill to engage audiences for several hours. However, his apprenticeship was not wasted for Browning, honing his skills by endlessly editing scripts, took the dramatic monologue (a new genre of poetry invented by Tennyson) and perfected it. His preoccupation with individual introspection that was a disaster in theatre, once transferred to poetry, added richness and depth. And by employing dramatic techniques learned in the theatre, he created complete poems that could be viewed as vignettes of a larger text. In other words, he was able to successfully write shorter pieces but in a new dramatic fashion. My Last Duchess is not only an example of a dramatic monologue, it is also one of Browning’s most famous and, generally regarded as, his best work. Published in 1842, the poem is the influence of a month-long trip to Italy, a country where he ultimately spent a large part of his life, and can be considered one of his ‘Italian’ poems. The back story is usually considered to be that of the last of the Este line, the fifth Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso II, a Renaissance aristocrat who is famous for imprisoning...
Words: 1717 - Pages: 7
...Mr del Vecchio Name___________________________________________Form________________ From left to right, match the image with a poem from the anthology you havde studied Scaffold for an essay in response to the poetry question How do Carol Ann Duffy in Havisham and Simon Armitage in Kid and Robert Browning in ‘The Laboratory’ and ‘My Last Duchess’, present their perspectives on the theme of betrayal? Objective: how to achieve an A* in the Poetry question * Respond to texts critically, sensitively and in detail, using textual evidence as appropriate * Explore how language, structure and forms contribute to the meaning of texts, considering different approaches to texts, and alternative interpretations * Explore relationships and comparisons within and between texts, selecting and evaluating relevant material * Introduction: keep this brief and concise! * Avoid any description of what happens and cut straight to how the themes are treated similarly in the poems and where the writers’ treatments part company. | POINTLiterary Conceits are features of both poems, through which Duffy and Armitage convey the mental state of their characters | HAVISHAM QUOTATIONS“Havisham” | Both poems begin with and frequently employ strong plosives._____________________________________________For the development: * include that Havisham is an interior monologue; * how do the plosives express her state of mind? * In Havisham, the opening plosive...
Words: 1628 - Pages: 7
...Alejandra Barrera Villa 102 A Cine y Televisión Freaks Tod Browning EUA 1932 Tod Browning, director de la cinta FREAKS, quiso obtener con ésta el mismo éxito que obtuvo con Drácula. Sorprendentemente, Browning obtuvo un gran éxito con esta cinta que causó una gran sensación en ese tiempo. Esta cinta tuvo varias críticas, que se opusieron ante una filmación tan desagradable. Aunque FREAKS fuese una cinta que causó sensación en su tiempo, fue considerada no apta para todos los ojos del público, y es por eso que fue retirada de las pantallas. Esta cinta fue vista tan horripilante debido a la interpretación de sus personajes, cada uno contando con una deformidad real. Se utilizó poco maquillaje a lo largo de la cinta y esto hace de ella algo muy interesante, ya que no se utilizan efectos especiales para crear esta realidad. A lo largo de la trama podemos ver las distintas deformidades de cada personaje. En ese tiempo tales deformidades no eran bien conocidas y como su nombre lo dice eran considerados fenómenos. El guión, escrita por Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon y Al Boasberg, basado en la cinta Espuelas, es una crítica a la discriminación que existía hacía la gente que contaba con diferentes características físicas como por ejemplo la mujer barbuda. Durante toda la trama estos escritores le dan un giro al guión de una Comedia y es como tratan de tapar lo espeluznante de la cinta. El montaje y la escenografía estuvo bien lograda, realizando cada camerino de...
Words: 408 - Pages: 2
...Reading Between the Lines: Poetry is a mystery. Sometimes the reader must act as a detective and uncover the author’s true intentions through subtle clues in the writing styles and verbal cues. In Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess, the author employs interesting line breaks and enjambment to help the reader get a true sense of the Duke, despite the way the he portrays himself as an honorable, kind man who had no choice but to kill his young wife. The poem takes place in the sixteenth century and is loosely based on Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara, whose wife met an untimely death. In this dramatic monologue the Duke is speaking to an emissary negotiating another marriage. Portraying himself as a good man, and a worthy candidate for a new young bride the Duke takes the emissary on a tour of his house. He shows himself to be a man of good taste by “modestly” showing his collection of art work. When arriving upon a painting obscured by a curtain the Duke begins to reminisce about his late wife; as he describes her he tells of her disrespect. She constantly disobeyed him and even went so far as to flirt with other men by smiling at them and accepting their gift. The Duke is a wronged man whose wife took advantage of his position and generosity. As the monologue progressed however, the Duke begins to show his true colors. When one digs a bit deeper and reads between the lines it becomes obvious that the duke is a very controlling individual; all of his actions give away his true...
Words: 863 - Pages: 4
...adverse to the thought of having power over others; in fact the very notion of having it is welcome to us. Power and control is the main theme in the anthology we’ve examined; its message destroying the illusion of power being desirable. Power and control is explored in a cynical aspect by the writers; how it could distort individuals –even bring their demise. In “My Last Duchess”, Browning shows us how power can unhinge a person; create him into a monster devoid of emotions. Ironically the man born with the silver spoon is no different to the hawk in Hughes’ poem with the mind-set of sheer superiority. We see Tybalt in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and the man in “Human Interest” in a moment of passion kill; because of a trespass done to them. A moment, that ultimately leads to death of the former, and the latter rotting in a cell. Browning has written “My Last Duchess” in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets. The only difference in the otherwise organized structure is the use of enjambment. I believe this is a main factor on what makes “My Last Duchess” such a dramatic monologue. Browning has done this to create a very distinct persona of the Duke in his poem. The organized structure of the poem shows us his controlled demeanour; it gives off an impression of how the Duke acts as befitting his rank. The enjambments (as seen in line 9 to name one in many) make us see more of his character. He is unpredictable; beneath his charming exterior he is someone you should be...
Words: 483 - Pages: 2
