ANALYSIS OF MY LAST DUCHESS

The aim of the present text is to give a personal analysis about “My last Duchess”, a text written by Robert Browning in the 1842.

Right from the title the intelligent reader is attracted by the words “my” and “last” which are very important because they give to the reader important informations since one highlights the relation of possession of the lady (duchess) probably by a man, and “last” underlines that maybe the lady died or she just left the man so that implies that she is his “last” duchess. Moreover the word Duchess conveys to the reader that the character the writer is going to write about is from an aristocratic class. Last but not least, the novel present a subtitle which is “Ferrara”. It is important because it gives to the reader the information of the place where the text is set. 

“My last Duchess” is a dramatic monologue, written in a first omniscient person narrator. At a first sight, the reader notices that the text is organised in only one stanza composed of 56 lines. First of all, considering the first two lines, the reader can understand that the person who is speaking in the text is the husband of the “Duchess”, the duke of Ferrara. He is watching at his last wife painted on a wall of his dwelling, which may be a castle since he is the duke of Ferrara. In the text, the duke is speaking about his wife, and he is doing it addressing to somebody who is not expected to respond to him, since the text is a monologue. While he is speaking about his wife, he let the reader understand that she died, and it is clear when he said “looking as if she were alive”. While he is talking, he is standing in front of the portrait, looking at her in her magnificence. From the first lines, he refers to the portrait like “I call that piece a wonder, now” and the adjective “now” is relevant since it implies hat the duke didn’t considered it so wonderful before he started writing about it, maybe because he has never admired it as well as he was doing in that moment. The portrait has been done by a subject of the duke and the writer nominated him a few times during the text. His name was "Fra Pandolf”, who has worked  “busily a day” in order to realised that painting. From the point of view of the character, that portrait was something really special and important for him that nobody could saw it except his subject, who has done it, and himself. The reader understands it when he said “for never read strangers like you”. Here the writer is clearly referring to the reader by using the personal pronoun subject “you” and the adjective “stranger”. It implies that this portrait is something really special and he has to protect it somehow from other people. The fact that he is letting the reader “read” that portrait, can be considered as a privilege since it is impregnated of two deep feelings  of  “depht” and “passion”, which seem to be two main characteristics of the Duchess “earnest glance”. Furthermore you can notice writer’s presence inside the text thanks to a sentence put into brackets where the writer speaks directly to the duchess. The reader understands it when he says “for you”, “you” as his wife. Just from these first lines it is evident the sense of possession and superiority of the duke, since he is so possessive with his portrait of the duchess. This suggests that he was this possessive even with his wife when she was alive and this can be the reason of her “earnest glance”.

Furthermore, in the following lines his obsession and jealousy towards his wife is almost at the peak since he was so jealous that he was acting like he didn’t want even that her cheeks were represented as “spot of joy” as they actually were. He was jealous even of the smile she was doing while she was being portrayed by “Fra Pandolf” . The duke was convinced that she could not be painted with that smile on her, otherwise it seemed as if what she had always reserved for him, now fixed on a painting, was for everyone and everyone could see it. 

Considering all together, the most relevant thing that comes to life during the poem is the possessiveness  and the obsession that characterised the duke of Ferrara. Going on, even if the text should be apparently about the Duchess, the reader at the end feels like he knows more about the figure of the Duke. This is highlighted by all the uses of the personal pronoun subject “I” in the text as “ I call, I said, I have drawn for you, I know and so on..”. This underlines a fundamental aspect of the Duke indeed he seems to be very full of himself and what he does. Therefore in this perspective, his wife seems almost an object in his possession, of which he can choose whether, how and to whom  show it.

Finally, talking about the use of  the language, Robert Browning uses many rhetorical figures to keep active the reader’s attention like assonances and consonances, which have the main purpose to focus the reader’s attention on the keywords of the poem. Than, very important is the use of symbols which are expressed in order to symbolise the innocence and purity of the woman, through the use of colours as “the faint half-flush” and “spot of joy” . Another important aspect is that the writer used many details to describe places so that those scenes can be recreated in the mind of the reader easier. Concluding, all the characteristics analysed before, from the feeling of possession of the Duke, to the materialisation of the woman, can be reconnected to the typical features of the dramatic monologue.