Knowledge Organiser / summary of My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. AQA GCSE English Literature Power and Conflict Anthology

1. Context: Poem and Poet
Browning was classically educated, and could read well in Latin, Greek
and French by the age of 14. The poem reflects his interest in art and
history. The speaker in the poem is most likely Alfonso II d'Este, the fifth
Duke of Ferrara (1533–1598), who, at the age of 25, married Lucrezia di
Cosimo de' Medici, the 14-year-old daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici,
Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo.
The poem is set in Italy in the late renaissance. In it, the Duke is
entertaining the emissary of the family of his prospective wife. The
speaker (the duke) draws by a curtain and shows him a painting of his
previous wife, inviting the emissary to admire the painting. He then
describes his last duchess, her flirtatious behaviour unbecoming of
someone of his illustrious name. After describing how ‘all smiles
stopped’, the conversation turns back to a conversation of their
wedding arrangements.
Main meanings and themes
- The Duke is presented as proud, pompous and overbearing.
- Power: The Duke’s desire to exert power and control over his last duchess (and perhaps the
emissary also. He exerts his power in a controlling and abusive manner.
- Jealousy: The Duke’s jealousy of his duchess’s wayward ‘looks’ and ‘smiles’ is significant as a
threat to his power and social status.
- Social Status: The Duke is keen to remind the emissary of his social status, mainly through
alluding to his possessions, artwork and ‘900 year old name’.
Structure and Form
- A dramatic monologue – significant in that the other speaker does
not get a turn – illustrating the duke’s pomposity
- Rhyming pentameter lines, with consistent enjambment lend to the
‘conversational’ tone
- The variety of punctuation, including colons and clear midline pauses
(caesura) also helps to maintain a more conversational tone
- Use of iambic pentameter also helps create the ‘educated’ and
pompous voice of the speaker.
- There are several interesting shifts in the poem throughout. Whilst it
begins, fairly jovial and pompous, with the Duke proudly sharing the
image, it later appears to anger him when he reminisces about his
last duchess’s behaviour. Then as the monologue returns to the
conversation of marriage, the casual noticing of a bronze statue of
Neptune leads the poem back into frivolity and pompousness.
Language, Imagery and tone
Power:
• The Duke directs the emissary: “Will’t please you sit and look at her?” and later ‘Will’t please
you rise” and “Nay, we’ll go together down, sir.’
• The Duke is keen to remind the emissary that this is his painting “since none puts by the
curtain I have drawn for you, but I’
• The Duke describes how the behaviour of his last Duchess was beneath him ‘E’en then would
be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop.’ He also discusses his attempt to educate her
correctly “if she let herself be lessoned.” Eventually, he demonstrates how he was able to
control this errant behaviour, stating “This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped
together.” This alludes to the death of the duchess or perhaps her being shut in a convent.
Jealousy:
• The Duke seems to be wary of why she looks so happy in the painting “Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek,” insinuating
some flirtatious behaviour between the painter and the duchess.
• There are several references to how she would react to others too easily or too approvingly:
“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.” And “Oh sir, she smiled, no
doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile?”
Social Status:
• From his name checking of the painter ‘Fra Pandolf’s hands worked busily a day’ to the
bronze statue ‘which Clause of Inssbruck cast in Bronze’ the Duke seems obsessed with
wealth, objects and social status.
• Significantly, his previous wife has also become an object, this painting represents his desire
to keep her as an object, even though she was, in life’ ultimately beneath him. “That’s my last
duchess painted on the wall” Indeed, everyone from the ‘officious fool’ to his new wife which
we describes as “my object”.
Links to other
poems in the
anthology:
My Last Duchess