21/05/2013

Robert Browning, My Last Duchess

The text My last Duchess is a dramatic monologue by Robert Browning. The speaking voice is also the protagonist: he is a Duke (maybe Alfonso II D'Este) taken from the Italian Renaissance. He is speaking to a messenger; the duke shows him the painting of his last duchess, painted on the wall, as a warning for his next wife.

Right from the title the reader finds important key words to understand the poem.

•-      The word "last" is different from the word "late": late means there will be others in future; last means there won't be others, it puts an end to something.

•-      The adjective "my" implies an additional meaning to the title. The speaking voice with this adjective, makes the reader understand his sense of possession towards his wife.

•-      The word "Ferrara" means the place in which the poem is set: in this way the reader should understand what the poem is about.

Right from the start the reader can see that the poem is different from a sonnet or from another form of poetry. It does not present "stanzas", it is not realised by the juxtaposition of scenes: it is different because it mixes dialogues and narration; there are a lot of parts of direct speech and there are also marks of an informal use of the language (the layout is different).

At the beginning of the poem the duke says "that's my last Duchess, painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive": the duchess is painted on the wall, she is a form of representation as all the other forms of art are. While introducing the painting the duke judges it saying "that piece of wonder, now". In this way the reader understands that the duke makes a positive judgement towards the picture, his behaviour means "i like it". The word "now" is important because it makes the reader realize that the duchess is dead. Moreover the sentence of the duke "and there she stands" makes references to space and time: the use of the language reminds that of speaking.

The request "will't please you sit and look at her" may seem an order: the speaking voice is speaking to someone and he is inviting the listener to sit down and look at the painting. Then the listener becomes a stranger: the speaking voice is talking to somebody who has never met before. The duke speaks with him about the duchess, but the stranger is not able to see her face (ha does not know the duchess, so he can't imagine her expression in which there are depth and passion).

Now the duke is saying the way in which the duchess looked at him. In this way he reveals his "ego pathology": speaking with the stranger about the duchess, the duke is revealing much more about himself. In this way in the mind of the stranger there is an idea of the duke's personality: he is very possessive. The nature of the duke's pathological I is the Duchess and her freedom: he can't possess her totally, so he decided to kill her. This is the Drama.

Robert Browning set the poem in Ferrara because everybody should know what happened there: the duke was Alfonso II D'Este who ordered the duchess' murder. So the reader understands that the text is about the nature of the human being.

The stranger is a messenger; he is by the duke to combine a marriage. The duke, showing him the painting, is giving him a warning: is future wife must not love any other man.

He exercised power towards the duchess because e wanted to know why is wife always smiled to everyone. But is request was impossible: he wanted wis wife to lose her identity. The duke was angry with his wife because he wanted her to love him only.

He did not support his wife's behaviour towards the others: she out on the same plain "my gift of a nine-hundred-years-old-name"  with a man who gave her a "bough of cherries broke in the orchard for her".

For this reason the speaking voice gave commands: "then all smiles stopped together". The duke ordered the duchess' murder.

At the end of the poem the quotation "as if alive" becomes a leitmotiv of the dramatic monologue: the reader finds it also at the beginning of the poem: "that's my last Duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive".