My Last Duchess - Exercises

1) Focus on the speaker.
The speaker is a character quite separate from the poet. He has drawn from history: he is the Duke of Ferrara, probably Alfonso II of Este.
The speaker is delineated against a precise setting in time and place: the setting is the town of Ferrara in the period of the Renaissance.

2) Now consider the following points.
a) The listener.
His presence can only be inferred from clues in the text: "Will't please you sit and look at her?", "Strangers like you", "not the first are you to turn and ask thus", "Will't please you rise?", "the Count your master's known munificence", "we'll go together down, sir".
b) The present situation.
The situation is of crucial importance for his life because the Duke is negotiating his next marriage and he hopes the Count would grant an ample dowry to his daughter.
c) The subject matter.
1. The monologue refers to a past and to a present situation. There is a relationship between the two because now the Duke is negotiating his next marriage to the niece of the Count, while the past situation refers to the last Duke's wife.
2. The monologue reveals the temperament and the character of the speaker.
The Duke is: - jealous, because he didn't want the Duchess' glance went everywhere;
- possessive, because he uses the word "My last Duchess" to refer to his dead wife;
- class-conscious, because he didn't accept his gifts "of a nine-hundred-years-old name" were ranked by the Duchess with anybody's gift.
3. The Duke thinks he is powerful and he feels superior to the others thanks his title of duke. But the monologue reveals to the reader his weak personality: he is proud, strong-willed, possessive and class-conscious.
d) The language.
The monologue displays various characteristics of the spoken language such as:
- Place: "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall", "We'll go together down", "Notice Neptune".
- Situation: "We'll meet the company below", "No just pretence of mine for dowry will be disallowed"
- Direct address: "Will't please you sit and look at her?", "Will't please you rise?"
- Contracted forms: "That's", "Will't", "'twas not", "'twas all one!"
- Paused, signalled by dashes: line 29, line 39, line 36, line 39, line 42
- Fillers: "How shall I say?", "I know not how"
e) The tone.
The tone of the monologue is reflective end menacing, even if it seems to be cool at the beginning.

3) The passage below is a simple comment on My Last Duchess.
In My Last Duchess the setting is the city of Ferrara during the Renaissance. The imaginary speaker is the Duke of Ferrara who is addressing an emissary 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 everybody including 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-year-old name. He is proud, class-conscious and possessive. He reveals himself as a tyrant who wants to have absolute control over his wife. As he was unable to, he "gave commands; then all smiles stopped together". As the men are going down the Duke expresses his confidence that the Count will grant his reasonable request for an ample "dowry", quickly adding "though his fair daughter's self is my object". His last remark is about a sculpture of Neptune "taming a sea-horse" which is a visual metaphor for the Duke's wish to tame those under his control.