40 pages1 hour read

Robert Browning

My Last Duchess

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1842

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Introduction

“My Last Duchess”

  • Originally Published: 1842
  • Form/Meter: Dramatic monologue in rhymed couplets; iambic pentameter
  • Literary Devices: Form; meter; narrative voice; enjambment
  • Setting: Renaissance Italy
  • Central Concern: A self-absorbed and controlling duke, in conversation with a representative of his potential new wife’s family, alludes to his last wife’s inadequacies as he shows her portrait. The poem is a dramatic monologue based loosely on a historical figure, the Duke of Ferrara, who is the speaker of the poem.
  • Potential Sensitivity Issues: Murder; objectification of women

Robert Browning, Poet

  • Bio: 1812-1889; Victorian-era English poet and playwright; known for his use of the dramatic monologue form; very popular in his lifetime; secretly married the poet Elizabeth Barrett despite her father’s disapproval; buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner
  • Other Works: “Paracelsus” (1835); “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” (1842); The Ring and the Book (1868-1869), a novel in verse

THEMES

  • The Interplay of Pride, Power, and a Need for Control
  • The Exaggerated Importance of Social Status and Hierarchy
  • Values and Perceptions Surrounding the Victorian Woman
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