my last duchess robert browning

key themes

key themes

• death

• power

• love

• nostalgia

• male arrogance aka toxic masculinity

• jealousy

key poems to compare with MLD

-la belle dame sans merci

-the tyger

-sonnet 116

-remeber

-do not go gentle into that good night

FORM/STRUCTURE

-dramatic monologue (seems like we are being spoken to so we becoe the counts servant)

-iambic pentameter

-in media res

-cyclical structure

-caesura shows the breakdown of his mental state and her physical state

-sibilance’all smiles stopped”

-euphemism for death

-one long stanza which shows his dominance and need for control

context/ the poets message

based on a real duke: of ferrara. alfonso where he married lucresia then abandoned her and after two weeks she presumably died.then asked for the hand of barbara and her spokeperson was nikolous madruz which is the silent auditor.

• to highlight the flaws of society

• women in th 1500 treated as property whereas in 1842 ,when the poem was written, women were seen as free labour and love had no involvment in marraige

• browning wanted to critisize how women/marraige were veiwed and challange these patriarchial stereotypes

language

rhetoricle questions :willt you please look at her

first person: use of direct adreess target the reader and engages them

foreshadowing:’half flush that dies along her throat

metaphor:taming a seahorse veiws himself a god

posessive ponouns fixiation on posessing the duchess and maintaining control

masculaine symbol:neptune

feminine symbol:seahorse

summary

is negotiating for the hand of barbara and talks about his previous wife to her spokesperson/representative

shows the representative the painting of the duchess and implies that he killed her because he thinks she was unfaith full

then he point sto a statue of neptune taming a seahorse

speaker/voice

duke is the speaker and talking about his wife suggests he is comfortable with the concept of murdering his wife

key quotations

‘notice neptune thougt taming a seahorse”veiws himself as god, percieves her as wild and untameable, portrays the nature of their relationship, symbolises him controlling her

(since non eputs by the curtain i have drawn for you but i')aside, repreals he is a control freak,Now, he controls who gets to see her face, and doesn’t need to worry about other men seeing her as they used to.

paint must never hope to reproduce the half flush that dies along her throat’ euphemism for murder , implies hwo she was murdered

‘oh sir she smiled no doubt whenever i passed her but who passed withput much the same smile” rhetoricle quetsion show breakdown of societal veiw, implies she was sheeting, caesura, enjambment , jealousy

‘i choose never to stoop”