...Comparative essay on ‘My last Duchess’ and ‘Porphyria’s lover’ Robert Browning was born in May 1812 and died at the age of seventy. Browning was an English poet who has become known as the person to invent and popularise the dramatic monologue. This made him the foremost Victorian poet; two of his most successful dramatic monologues are those of ‘My last Duchess’ and ‘Porphyria’s Lover’. The reoccurring theme within the two monologues is murder as they show the idea of men killing a lover Dramatic monologues are significant in that there is only one point of view expressed throughout. In Victorian times dramatic monologues were very popular; Browning was seen as the innovator of this style of writing along with other eminent Victorian poets such as Rossetti and Tennyson. The dramatic monologue takes its style from Shakespeare’s soliloquies were a character speaks their thoughts and feelings aloud. This idea and style has been extended to the preset day, with Alan Bennett’s ‘Talking Heads.’ The speaker in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is the lover himself, residing in a cottage in the countryside at the beginning of the poem. The mood of the narrator is established right at the start as he talks about “the sullen wind’ ‘tore,’ ‘vex’ and ‘spite.’ He is clearly angry and unhappy. However as soon as Porphyria ‘glided’ in, the mood changes and she ‘ shut the cold out and the storm.’ The narrator feels warmed by her presence. At once the reader sees that Porphyria has taken control...
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...The story focuses on the key events of the painting, the marriage between the Duke and the past Duchess, the possible murder of the Duchess and the yet to be new wife. The story being told is of the relationship between the Duke and former Duchess. Browning adopts numerous narrative techniques. Browning uses the form of a dramatic monologue to help the story progress. For instance 'That's my Last Duchess' shows that there is one speculator although there is an implied audience. The effect of this is that it shows that the poem tells a story that consists of much more than the words spoken by the one giving the monologue. To evaluate, the dramatic monologue makes it engaging with the reader. Additionally, Browning uses rhetorical questions as part of form to help tell the story. For example, 'Who'd stoop to blame..' is a clear example of the Duke trying to persuade his audience. The effect is that it reveals more about the Duke's character as the rhetorical question reinforces the impression that the Duke is haughty and self-important. To evaluate, Browning uses rhetorical questions effectively, revealing more about his character. Browning uses a lexical field of jealousy, ownership, artistry and love in order to aid the progression of the story. For instance, 'my Last Duchess painted on the wall' shows that the Duchess is objectified. The effect of this is that it allows the reader to sympathise with the Duchess and forces the reader to think of the Duke in a negative manner...
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...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...
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...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 nature. The first instance in which the Duke’s selfish nature is reveal is in the fact that he has the picture of the duchess hidden behind a curtain. He exerts control by being the sole...
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...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...
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...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;...
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...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 the speaker’s reasoned self-presentation. This poem is a dramatic monologue, a fictional speech presented as the musings of a speaker who is separate from the poet. Like most of Browning’s other dramatic monologues, this one captures a moment after a main event or action. Porphyria’s already lies dead when the speaker begins. Just as the nameless speaker seeks to stop time by killing her, so...
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...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 the poet Torquato Tasso. The historical duke’s...
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...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 men and women over the past four hundred years are all explores. In Shakespeare's play "Much Ado about Nothing" we are also resented with these evident themes through two very different kinds of women with diametrically opposed attitudes to love and marriage. The position of Women has vacillated throughout history and from the 16th Century to the 19th Century in which the stories are set we...
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...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...
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...condition affecting the brain that influences the way a person thinks, feels, behaves, and/or relates to others and to his or her surroundings” (Amal Chakraburtty). According to the 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...
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...“Porphyria’s Lover” by Robert Browning contains perturbing imagery throughout the poem that leads to the main focus of control. Primarily, the controlling aspects that will be focused on are the murder of Porphyria, the lies that the narrator/ speaker tells, and possession. Describing these aspects will furthermore aid in distinguishing the control in the poem. The speaker in “Porphyria’s Lover” had thoroughly controlled Porphyria in many ways. First, the speaker takes control of Porphyria through murder. He wanted her for himself. In lines 21 to 25, “Murmuring how she loved me-she/ Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor, / To set its struggling passion free/ From pride, and vainer ties dissever, / And give herself to me for ever”, the speaker told of how Porphyria was full of too much pride to love him. He felt that she wasn’t all the way his; that she didn’t only love him. But, the speaker loved Porphyria, he wanted her forever, so he killed her. In lines 27 to 28, “A sudden thought of one so pale/ For love of her, and all in vain”, he felt that Porphyria loved him in vain. In other words, the speaker felt used for her affections, and that she didn’t really felt the way she stated. In lines 33 to 34, “Porphyria worshipped me; surprise/ Made my heart swell, and still it grew” he contradicts himself. He stated before that she may not love him like she says she does, but then he makes this statement as if she really is in love with him and he feels guilty for thinking she didn’t...
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...collection to show case and maybe there would not be a new fiancé after. Also the idea of a hard working rural man would probably not have murdered a wife because most are risen honest and kind. Browning was raised like a nobleman would be. He was tutored at home and taught arts and noble skills, such as horsemanship. He drew inspiration from his own up-bringing under an artistic father and his interest in Italian to make “My Last Duchess.” Browning is well-known for being one of the first to use dramatic monolog, which was part of what made his works unique. The feeling that a dramatic monolog in this poem gives is a kind of confessional feeling. The technique allows tension to build and does not allow a break in focus caused by switching viewpoints. It relies on the readers implicit reasoning skills and can in many cases be controlled by what the reader’s mind suggests. This is used by Browning to make the situation of the Duke and Duchess more personal. Another reason the dramatic monolog is used is to let the emissary’s point of view be up to the reader. Is the emissary completely oblivious to the previous Duchess’ fate? Is he just trying to judge the Duke by his wealth or is his sanity also part of the judgement? The reader is, in this poem, actually the emissary. The Duke is speaking to the reader as though they are in the emissary’s place. The mention of Neptune in the later part of the poem was in contrast to the portrait of the Duchess. The Duchess was a painting and...
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... Like a society lady that had been caught in a gust of wind, Rafaella smoothed her hair and brushed off her shirt -- oblivious to the mottled skin of her knuckles. The skin there was fractured, swollen, and red from the multiple encounters that had occurred earlier that day. The faces flashed before her, those she had harmed and those who had been harmed because of her -- because of her stupidity. To consider that a Montague would ever hold anything sacred was beyond her, at this point. They were heathens and damned to the Devil, so then why should they fear for the sanctity of their souls? Who was to say that they even had them? As she politely waited for the woman to steady herself ( unfortunate wrench acted as if she had never had a punch in her life, with the way that she was lollygagging about ) she wondered how she could have thought that someone, raised in a seemingly loveless family, cursed in a damning career, would ever be redeemable. Such an idea would have seemed almost tangible a few days ago. But now? Well, the laughter on her lips served as her answer. “That wasn’t the aim,” she replied, voice breathless from the laughter. “The aim was simply to exercise my anger at ever having been kind to you. Now that I’ve done that, I can inform you of what is going to happen next because --” In two strides she reached Celeste, the proximity not unlike how close a lion would get to a curious, harmless creature. A dung beetle, perhaps? “--as you said...
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...Gendered Violence in Browning’s Poems “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover”, both written by Robert Browning in 1842, contain strong elements of gendered sexual violence that is likely a product of the repression and censorship that typified the Victorian Age. While “Porphyria’s Lover” is much more graphic and obvious in its depiction of sexual violence, “My Last Duchess” contains a number of elements that are dark and disturbing in their own right. Most important of these is the objectification of the duchess, which reduces her identity to that of another display in a collection. Both similarities and differences between the poems will be analyzed, including theme, symbolism, rhyme scheme, tone, and the nature of the sexual violence itself. This will show that the gendered sexual violence present in Browning’s poems is indicative of their historical context, primarily the social norms of the time. There are strong similarities between the two poems, particularly in theme, where both poems display a preservation of the mens’ idea of the feminine in a form that fit their ideal. In “My Last Duchess” this is seen in the opening lines, “That's my last Duchess painted on the wall / Looking as if she were alive . . .” and a little later in lines nine and ten, when it is revealed that the Duke keeps the painting curtained so that only he can enjoy the sight and smile of his late wife (1-2,9-10). In “Porphyria’s Lover” the theme is present in the narrator’s desire to fix Porphyria...
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