ROBERT BROWING, My Last Duchess

Analysis

To start with the title, what the reader could imagine the present text to be about is someone noble, since "duchess" is a noble title, while the speaking voice could be the duchess' husband, as the reader can understand by the adjective "My". The fact that the duchess is the "last" gives the idea that the duchess has only been one of the many.

Shifting now to the structure, it is the one of a dramatic monologue, like "Ulysses"by Alfred Tennyson. It is organized into lines but periods and sentences often do not coincide with the end of the lines. The text can be divided into two parts: a background where the narrator, the duke of Ferrara, is speaking with the envoy of another's noble, whose daughter the duke is about to marry; and the main sequence in which the duke talks about his last wife who's now dead.

So the two sequences define the content: the speaking voice is a duke who's going to marry a noble's daughter after his last wife has died, and almost the entire poem is based on the description of the duchess, inspired by a portrait on the wall.

Analyzing the sound level, the tone used by the duke reveals his vain personality ("And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst"), but it also reveals he's one who easily gets transported by passion. Another feature the reader finds out is his jealousy (" She thanked men, - good!") and his need to exercise his power over women ("My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name"). The tone is strictly linked to the semantic field of words used by the poet: they belong the semantic fields of love, kindness, used to express the duchess' personality during the narrator's descripion.

Despite the words used remind of something gentle, sweet like the duchess, what actually comes to the surface thanks to the use of language is that such features used to irritate the duke, who considered her behavours disrespectful to their marriage. Indeed, the reader understands by the words used that the duchess used to be emotional, teasing the duke's nerves. So even if the language suggests a kind figure, sentences such as "She had A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere" make the reader perceive the protagonist's irritation. Moreover, the lines "Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive." make the reader think that maybe the real cause of her death had been the duke himself.

On a syntactical level, it is not easy to find out a rhythm along the poem: the text is full of enjambements, pauses are not regular and periods are not always short. So it turns out to be a dramatic monologue. Moreover, one can notice that the poet often appeals to the language of sense impressions, in particular for what concerns colours, in order to describe the duchess' personality ("Half-flush that dies along her throat";"The bough of cherries"; "The bough of cherries"). In particular red and white generally remind love, passion, kindness and purity, her main features.

In conclusion, the overall effect is that the duke is a jealous, vain and full of himself character who necessarily need to control everything in front of him, since he's never been used to lose in his life.

Just like in Tennyson's "Ulysses" it is not easy to define an ideal reader. In particular, the text could be a reference to the objectification of woman, typical of the Victorian age.