Andrew's Wiki
Last Duchess

Content

• Like “Porphyria’s Lover,” a dramatic monologue where a man admits murdering his love (wife/lover)
• The speaker displays the painting of his wife (which he has behind a curtain to control its display: she only smiles for him now) and wants to explain (for the listener has asked) why she’s got such a deep, passionate look on her face: joy
  • She was “too easily impressed” and “her looks went everywhere,” so she’s got too much desire, too much sensitivity: making him sexually jealous. She didn’t like him enough or exclusively. (Not just liked men, but also cherries, her mule, a sunset)
  • He’s pissed off that his gift: a “nine-hundred-years-old name” wasn’t appreciated specially; and he’s too snobby (Won’t “stoop”) to tell her what’s angering him or to see herself LET herself be in a position to be corrected
• Who’s he talking to? He’s marrying a Count’s relation, and he’s talking with a go-between about the dowry he expects from the Count
  • The subtitle, “Ferrara,” suggests that the the speaker is the Duke of Ferrara, based on the true story of this Duke who poisons his first wife, a Medici, a nouveau riche who was beneath his social status, and then gets himself a new wife, a niece of the Count
• Browning himself on the death of the wife: when he says “I gave commands,” either refers to putting her to death or putting her in a convent

Form

• Like P L, is a long poem of one stanza, but simpler rhyme scheme, aabbccdd (rhymed couplets)