The dramatic monologue My Last Duchess

 

While-reading

1) The Duke looks the painting of his former wife into two different ways: on one side he describes the woman as a wonderful person, on the other he critiques her because he thinks she had an earnest glance. So the Duke puts into evidence the way of living of his previous wife: she didn’t try pleasure in life.

2) The listener has an important role in the dramatic monologue because he/she helps the reader to be aware about the Duke’s actions and thoughts.

3a) The Duke finds offensive the behavior of his wife. The woman had good manners to everybody and it seems as an insult to the Duke’s social rank, because people followed the indication of the woman while they didn’t respect the Duke’s command.

3b) The Duke thinks that his wife was unfaithful to him because when she passed near a man, she smiled in a particular way, as she had a strange relationship with that person.

3c) The phrases that hint at the murder of the Duchess are: “I gave commands. Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands as if alive”

3d) We understand the importance of art in the Duke’s life from the language he uses when he refers to art. Besides he concludes his dramatic monologue talking about Neptune and his sea horse: it is a mythological figure that is used very frequently in art. This aspect manifests the importance of art in the Duke’s life.

Post-reading

4) The Duke has a violent and possessive personality. First of all he is jealous about his wife: he wants she stays away from the other man. Besides he is violent because he decides to kill his wife to resolve all the problems: he doesn’t use the reason and so he acts impulsively and in a wrong way.

5a) The Duke’s dramatic monologue is composed by 56 lines: they aren’t organized into stanzas because in the dramatic monologue thoughts and reflections are presented as they crop up in the character’s mind. It isn’t necessary divide thoughts into different parts.

5b) The main features of the dramatic monologue are:

- first person speaker (“I call”, “I said”)

- presence of a listener ( “Will’t please you sit and look at her?”)

- precise background (the text is about the story of a Duke and his wife)

- crucial point (“I gave commands. Then all smiles stopped together”)

-colloquial language and unusual syntax (the Duke’s dramatic monologue is different from the other dramatic monologues because it adopts a particular language and syntax based on the alternation of phrases without a grammatical order, and specific terms)

 

 

Summarizing

In My Last Duchess, a classical example of dramatic monologue, Browning portrays an eccentric character taken from the Italian Renaissance. The Duke (possibly Alfonso II of Este) is talking to the envoy of the Count of Tyrol, showing him the portrait of his beautiful young former wife. The portrait preserves an ideal image of his wife, who is now under his complete control while in life her innocent pride and love for people seemed to him unworthy of his nine hundred year old name. Browning aims at creating a character whose mortal faults come out of the situation: he ordered the murder of an innocent creature following his monstrous freedom (“I choose never to stoop”) and his own distorted view of life. This is reached through the skilful change of perspective between present and past and of a colloquial language which expresses the Duke’s force and rhetoric.

Linguistic devices

1.    Conversational tone-the language directs the listener

Example: “Will’t please you sit and look at her?”

So what? To establish a narrow relationship between the character of the dramatic monologue and the reader.

2.    Disjointed thoughts – his thoughts are frequently interrupted

Example: “She had a heart-how shall I say?-too soon mad glame”

So what? To put in evidence the nature of the poem: it is a dramatic monologue, so the speaking voice explains thoughts and reflections as they crop up in the character’s mind.

3.    Urgent continuous pace

Example: “My favour at her breast, the dropping of the daylight in the West, the bough of cherries some officious fool”

So what? To grow the reader’s  attention.

4.    Convoluted syntax

Example: “Since nove puts by the curtain I have drawn for you, but I”

So what? To indicate the complexity of human being’s thoughts.

5.    Uses strategies of argument and persuasion

Example: “That piece a wonder, now”…” Will’t please you sit and look at her?”

So what? The speaking voice adopts a series of narrative techniques to put in the reader’s mind a concept.

6.    Regular rhyme and rhythm

Example: durst-first, each-speech, had-glad

So what? To create a specific relationships between two different words, aspects or phrases.

7.    Use of enjambment

Example: “she had a heart”

So what? To create an effect of continuity in the meaning of the phrases.

8.    Blunt language

Example: “I gave commands”

So what? To express the main features of the character. In this case the powers of the Duke comes into surface (he decides the death of a person).

9.    Repetition

Example: “Its earnest glance”…”How such a glance came there”)

So what? To underline the message or the meaning of a phrase.

10. A dramatic monologue

Example: “That piece a wonder, now”

So what? The speaking voice expresses character’s inner thoughts.

11. Use of language

Example: “Will’t please you sit and look at her?”

So what? The speaking voice uses a colloquial language to establish a relationship between character and reader.