My Last Duchess

Robert Browning
Browning on “My Last Duchess”
 Louis S. Friedland, a critic who published an article on “My Last
Duchess” in 1936 writes about how young Browning found this story.
 Browning was fascinated with the Renaissance period and visited
Italy in 1838. He had done a lot of reading about Italy’s history.
 He came across the biography of Alfonso II (1533 – 1598), fifth duke
of Ferrara, who married Lucrezia, the 14 year-old daughter of the
upstart merchant princes, the Medici, in 1558.
 Three days after the wedding, Alfonso left her for two years. She
died when she was barely 17 years old. People talked. Four years
later in Innsbruck, Alfonso began negotiating for a new wife with the
then servant of the then count of Tyrol, Nikolaus Mardruz.
 These people are all historical, but Browning’s interpretation of them
is his own.
 The painter Fra Pandolf and the sculptor Claus of Innsbruck are
fictitious, as far as is known.
Terms you need to know:
Dramatic Monologue: A poem in which a single speaker reveals his own nature as
well as the details (time, place, other characteristics) of the dramatic situation.
Only the main character of the poem discusses a topic and in so doing reveals
his personal feelings to a listener. (Mono – means single who presents spoken
or written discourse (logue) Made famous by Robert Browning,
 This poem is written in 28 rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter
 Title: The emphasis on the word Last is important, because as the ending of
poem makes clear; the Duke is now negotiating for his next Duchess.
 The poem is preceded by the word Ferrara:, indicating that the speaker is most
likely Alfonso II, fifth Duke of Ferrara (1533–1598) who, at the age of 25, married
the 14-year-old Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici, the daughter of Cosimo I de'
Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo.
 The portrait of the Duchess is a fresco, a type of work painted in watercolours
directly on a plaster wall. This portrait symbolizes the duke’s possessive and
controlling nature because the duchess has become an art object that he owns.
He has complete control of her now because ‘none puts by the curtain . . . but I”
The dramatic monologue:
 In a dramatic monologue the reader drops unprepared into a conversation about
which he or she knows nothing. In “My Last Duchess” the reader only has the
title and the speech prefix “Ferrara” to orient him or her to the time and character
in the poem.
 It is almost as if the reader has turned a corner in a long hall and has come upon
a private conversation in progress, and, as we come to appreciate, about a
murder and the perhaps killer’s search for his next victim.
 Readers who are familiar with Browning’s writing and who are sensitive to
nuance percieve the speaker’s pride and cold-bloodedness. However many
miss the point and are astonished and may not believe that the Duke has killed
the Duchess.
 A century or more ago, when Browning was still alive, readers presented him
with questions about the poem. He answered cautiously, almost as if he had not
written the poem but was seeing it himself for the first time.
 Initially Browning stated that “I gave commands” meant, quite possibly, that the
Duchess had been murdered. In his old age, however, Browning thought that
perhaps she had been put in a convent to live her life in seclusion.
Lines 1 - 5
Ferrara
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said

Notations: That’s: reduces the duchess to an object:

my suggests ownership; last suggests that
duchesses, to him, come in sequence, like
collectables.
painted on the wall – fresco, a painting executed in wet
plaster.
as if she were alive: is Ferrara talking about the
Duchess or the realistic qualities of the painting?
I . . . now – He refers not only to the painting but also to
his wife as she was in life, a mere object ( that
piece). Now indicates that he regards his wife as a
wonder in the painting but as something less than
when she lived
you – emissary from the Count of Tyrol
 Lines 6 – 10
"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
 Fra Pandolf: the painter- a brother in
the religious orders and a celibate
man ; by design: on purpose
 Strangers: like the emissary who
knows nothing of this place and its
people
 read: the speaker asks us to read
the face – the Duchess is as silent
as the emissary.
 pictured countenance: face.
 depth and . . .earnest glance: who is
the duchess looking at – the listener
does not ask – Ferrara implies that
her look does not always rise from
sexual passion but from general
emotion (she is very young 14 – 17
years old)
 none puts by . . . but I: only he
opens the curtain – he possesses
her completely now
 I: error – use to complete rhyme
scheme – pronoun should be me
Lines 11- 15
 durst: archaic form of dare
 such a glance: if they dare
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, ask the Duke how such a
glance came to be there he
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
suggests that it ‘twas not her
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not husband’s presence only
Her husband's presence only, called that spot implying that she did not
value his presence more
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
than anyone else’s presence.
 spot Of joy: blush;
enjambment – in which the
sense of one line of verse
carries into the next line
without a pause.
 Lines 16 - 20
Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
 reproduce that/ Half-flush. .
.dies along her throat: this
colour was reproduced as Fra
Pandolf was painting her –
perhaps she was just a young
girl who feels joy when she is
being looked at approvingly.
 such stuff/ Was courtesy, she
thought: this statement shows
the duke’s contempt for her –
unable to recognize ‘courtesy’
as insincere, she was made
happy by it.
Lines 21 -25
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
 She had . . .went
everywhere : she was too
easily impressed – she was
happy and enjoyed many
things.
 In these lines the more the
duke talks, the more his
contempt and self-justifying
anger show, the more he
endears the Duchess to the
reader.
Lines 26 – 30
 Sir, ‘twas all one . .
speech: The duchess
was just as pleased with
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
a sunset, a ride on a
The bough of cherries some officious fool mule, a gift of flowers
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule from a courtier as she
She rode with round the terrace—all and each was with the Duke.
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,  bough of cherries . . . for
her: a double entendre or
double meaning – a
suggestion by the duke
that the duchess may
have been unfaithful
 Lines 31 - 35
 as if she ranked . . . With
anybody’s gift: Her humility
and general good nature
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked disgusted Ferrara because
they seemed to
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked underestimate the value of
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name his own gift: a place in a
noble family 900 years old.
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame Lucruzia’s family, the Medici,
had their recent origins as
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill merchants, (and were
considered new money) , but
the Este family was very old.
 She lacked the cunning to
discriminate publicly, to flatter
Ferrara. She also could not
detect his outrage. For the
standing Duke to express
any outward concern would
have meant stooping, that is
lowering himself to her level.
Lines 36 - 40
 The duke attributes his
silence to lack of skill/ In
In speech—(which I have not)— to make your will speech which the poem
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this itself disproves. He is, in
fact, very adept at making
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, his thoughts known.
Or there exceed the mark"—and if she let  Here you miss, Or there
exceed the mark: archery
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set metaphor – literally
overshoot the mark.
Ferrara speaks of the
Duchess as if she were
one of his soldiers,
competing in a
competition for a prize
(his name), rather than
the Duchess who was
herself the prize.
 lessoned: put to school,
instructed; possibly a pun
on the word ‘lessened,’
which means diminished.
Lines 41 - 46
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
 forsooth: in truth (archaic)
 E’n then . . . Never to stoop:
He is too arrogant and too
proud to instruct the duchess
as to how she is to conduct
herself as a Duchess.
 He goes on to say that she did
smile at him but then she
smiled at everyone in the same
way.
 This grew . . . As if alive: This
elliptical chain of four curt,
bleak sentences brings Ferrara
back to where it started. If the
Duchess smiled everywhere,
could her smiles be stopped by
anything short of death or
execution:
Lines 47 - 50
 As if alive: Ferrara doesn’t say
exactly what his commands
were but the phrase “As if
alive” stated for the second
time in this poem sound more
ominous. At the beginning,
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet Ferrara could have been
The company below, then. I repeat, speaking just of the portrait, but
as is anger grows it shifts to the
The Count your master's known munificence Duchess herself.
 We’ll meet . . . below, then.:
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
When negotiating the dowry,
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Ferrara chooses to ‘stoop’.
 munificence: great generosity.
 No just pretence . . . Be
disallowed: the Duke will
demand a considerable dowry
from the count
Lines 52 - 56
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me
 daughter’s: In real life she was his
niece
 avowed /At starting: to repeat – the
duke claims that what he really
wants is a wife
 Daughter’s self . . .object: the
subjective complement of the verb
is is object. – Will, she too, an
objective achieved become a thing,
found on a wall?
 we’ll go/Together down: The Duke,
feeling magnanimous, offers to walk
with the lowly count revealing that
for all his obsession with his noble
lineage, Ferrara bargains with it
openly.
 Notice Neptune . . .a sea horse:
Neptune (god of the sea) taming a
sea horse – Does this mean that
Ferrara is hinting at his intentions,
that he has tamed one Duchess and
will do so again if need be?