My Last Duchess is a dramatic monologue, in which the dramatis personae is the Duke, the Duchess' husband.

The Duke of Ferrara shows a painting of his wife and invites his guest to sit and watch the picture.

The picture was painted by Fra Pandolfo, a fictional artist.

Then the Duke speaks about the attitude of Duchess and of his temperament.

This behavior was annoying her husband, since it was not suited to a noble environment.

The Duke said to have ordered the killing of his wife, without saying it so explicitly, making his guest understand.

Subsequently, the Duke speaks of other works of art, and he mention another fictional artist: Claus of Innsbruck.

                                                                                                                                                        Luca Visentin

ex. 1 pag. 27

In My Last Duchess the setting is the city of Ferrara during the Renaissance.

The imaginery speaker is the Duke of Ferrara who is addressing a servant of the Count whose daughter he intends to marry.

While negotiating the marriage, he shows him a portrait of his last wife and talks about her.

Two very different personalities emerge in the poem. The young wife flushes with joy at very simple things - the sunset, the cherries and the white mule; she is kind to everybodyincluding the people of lower ranks. The Duke finds it unbearable that she puts the same value on, for example, a "bough of cherries" as on the gift of his nine-hundred-years-old name. He is proud, class concious and possessive. He reveals himself as a tyrant who wants to have the absolute control over his wife. As he was ununable to, he "gave commands; then all smiles stopped together". As the men are going below the Duke expresses his confidence that the Count will grant his reasonable request for an ample "drowry", quickly adding "though his fair daughter's self is my object". His last remark is about a sculpture of Neptune taming the sea horse" which is a visual metaphor for the Duke's wish to tame those under control.

 ex. 2 pag. 27

It has been argued that the attention given to the dramatic monologue in the Victorian Age represents a contadiction against the inward loonking tendency of Romantic poetry, a wish to move away from the poet's own insights and visions into a more objective/historical sense.

In other words, the use of dramatic monologue undermined the Romantic inconveniences between the speaker and the poet and allowed the Victorian poet to widen his range of themes and tones, while achieving less self-expression.