English Literature Made Easy for Students

  ‘My Last Duchess’ is Robert Browning’s one of most famous poems. It is a dramatic monologue. A dramatic monologue  is a poem in which the speaker, who is like a protagonist as we have in dramas, is placed in a critical situation. The poet remains aloof (separated) from him. The speaker reacts to the difficult situation and thus lays bare his soul. He reveals his character to the readers or the audience. The presence of a listener or the interlocutor is also felt and it makes the situation dramatically. In this poem, the Duke of Ferrara is the speaker, whose wife is no more now. He is a widower and wants to marry the daughter of a neighbouring Count, from whom he also expects to receive a rich dowry. The Count has sent a messenger (an envoy) to negotiate with the Duke. The Duke takes the messenger to have a glimpse of his picture gallery. Actually, the Duke is the product of the Renaissance period that originally began in Italy. He has immense love for art. In the who...

  Comment on the use of irony in the poem. Illustrate your answer with examples from the text. Ans.  Robert Browning has very beautifully used irony in the dramatic monologue My Last Duchess. The Duke’s ironical utterances (words) help the poet to make characterisation more lively and effective. At the explicit level, the Duke seems to appreciate the qualities of the Duchess, but internally, he is disapproving of them. After describing the beautiful face of the Duchess, he proceeds to speak on her simple heart,  which easily impressed. He says She had/A heart …too soon, made glad/Too easily impressed… The Duke continues saying that she liked everything and her eyes went everywhere. After all, she was a Duke’s wife and she should have had control over her feelings. Here, the reader comes to know how class conscious the Duke was –Actually, he was a jealous husband He was unable to bear his wife’s looking at others and appreciating their small courtesies. This is appar...

  The tyranny, pride, and greed of the Duke have been shown in sharp contrast to the good nature of the Duchess. Explain.  Or The Duke’s Character Ans. The poem” My Last Duchess’ is in the form of a dramatic monologue. It very beautifully depicts the contrast between the characters of the Duke and his former wife, the Duchess. The Duke’s character has been an epitome of the evils like tyranny, pride, and greed, while the Duchess has been shown as a woman full of human values like kindness and sympathy. Let’s discuss both of these characters; in sharp contrast to each other. The Duke’s cruelty and tyranny come to the surface when he talks to the envoy about his previous wife, the Duchess. First of all, we find the Duke’s possessive nature,  which makes him a despotic husband. The use of the possessive adjective ‘my’ in the line ‘ ‘ That's my last Duchess” shows his possessive nature in the very beginning. He considers his wife his personal property. The Duke ...