My Last Duchess by Robert Browning

Context

* Spent most of his life in Italy
* Poems usually a political message or societal criticism
* Disguises meaning in a changed setting so people are more open
* Wives were possessions of their husbands
* Italian resistance

Language

* ‘my last duchess’
* Possessive pronoun
* Shows no autonomy
* Not wife, shows lack of affection

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* ‘her husband’s presence
* Dissociates himself
* Suggests psychological fracture

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* ‘Too soon made glad’
* Twisted to seem negative
* Shows his delusion

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* ‘My gift a nine-hundred-years-old name’
* He sees it as a transition of ownership

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* ‘Notice Neptune though, taming a sea-horse’
* Allusion to Roman mythology
* Sees himself as a God with control
* Perhaps the seahorse is his wife

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* Destructive and jealous tone

Form

* Dramatic monologue in continuous form
* Gives him total control
* No women’s perspective

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* Persona poem in first person
* Gives narrator total control of what the reader get

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* Iambic pentameter
* Gives tight control over rhythm
* Shows traditional views

Structure

* No stanzas
* Makes it overwhelming and tiring
* how he dominates the room

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* AABB
* Shows tight rhyme
* Need for control