My Last Duchess – Robert Browning

My Last Duchess was written by Robert Browning in 1842.

By reading the title, the intelligent reader understands that the poem is about a duchess. Furthermore, the presence of the possessive “my” gives the idea of possession or of affection and “last” means that there will not be another duchess, which produces a nostalgic atmosphere.

The reader finds another information before the beginning of the poem: “Ferrara”. So the reader understands that the poem is set in the Italian city.

The text can  be recognized to be a dramatic monologue since the speaker, who could be a duke, maybe Alfonso II d’Este, speaks to a silent listener, a messenger, and invites him to take a seat and to take a look to a fresco, a portrait of a young woman, hidden behind a curtain. The action of showing his gallery to a messenger is strange since it was not used to show galleries to people who were not nobles. While watching the fresco, the duke tells to the listener that nobody can watch it and that he is the first to whom he permitted to see it. Then, the duke proceeds telling about the woman, who once was his wife: the glance represented in the fresco was easy to see because she was too easily glad and surprised for everything she sees: her husband, the sunset, a cherry bough. The “Sir” which precedes the examples he gives, makes the intelligent reader understand that the duke finds her behaviour inadmissible because of her social status and maybe because he was jealous and wants that she would give that glance only to him.

Subsequently, the duke explains that he has never scolded her for her behaviour: lessoning somebody means stooping in front of him or her, action inadmissible for a noble man. This passage reveals how the duke is strictly linked to conventions given by society.

Then, the duke says to the listener that the lady died, maybe killed by his order because of her behaviour which could not be controlled by the duke. At this point, the intelligent reader understands what “My” means: it refers to the possession of the young lady who, however, did not always act like she was expected to be and could not be fully controlled. After her death, the duke is able to control her and her glance thanks to the portrait. Indeed the portrait has never been seen by nobody except the duke.

In the end, the duke invites the messenger to go on speaking about business: the marriage with another lady, daughter of the count who sent the messenger.