ROBERT BROWNING, My Last Duchess (1842)

Analysis from the beginning to line 20.

First of all, the reader is grasped by the title. The noun duchess is a social position’s reference, that is aristocracy, and the adjective last means there will be no more, so it strongly emphasize a definitive end. Finally, the adjective my conveys a possession’s idea.

Following the layout, after the title there’s immediately the setting: Ferrara, an Italian city. For this reason and for the story itself, the dramatic personae who’s speaking could be the Duke Alfonso II of the House of Este. But there are no specific data you could base on, so this could even be false.

Because of the speaking voice is the Duke’s one, the reader imagines that the Duchess is his previous dead wife and that he will discover the personality of the Duke himself, being this last point one of the Dramatic Monologue’s characteristics.

The second character is the silent listener, embodied by a messenger: the Duke makes the questions and answers them by his own. The Duke is showing him his dead wife’s portrait and he stresses the his privilege. Indeed there are just few who’re able to admire it, and they’re all designed by the Duke himself. In particular the Duke underlines between parenthesis it’s a privilege for him and he’s able to just because it’s a Duke himself decision.  

Therefore, a question is: Why, during the Renaissance, the Duke decided to show this so precious portrait to a messenger? In particular, which is the portrait view’s function? And why the Duke is constantly underling his “protection” on the picture that get he to show it just to few?   

Already at the description’s beginning, the Duchess seems to have a look of defiance to the Duke. Indeed he appears as a really frustrated man along the poem.

First she was always smiling to everyone without making any differences if her interlocutor had been the Duke or a servant. In particular, her smile creates in her face a spot of joy, like a malicious reaction. And these comments shows the possessive attitude towards the woman, that is an aristocratic characteristic.

Moreover, the continuous poet’s jumps from a point to another, makes the Dramatic Monologue as a juxtaposition without connection. For instance the references to Fra Pandolf in lines 3 and 6, have nothing in common with the Duke’s relationship.

As regard the language, it is the spoken one. For example the questions and the brevity of the sentences, such as they’d been written while the Duke was speaking.

In conclusion, up to now, the Duke appears as the one who loves and hates his dead with contemporaneously.