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Gender portrayal in literature
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My last duchess analysis
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“My Last Duchess” and “The Laboratory” are two very diverse yet similar poems written by Robert Browning within the period of three years. In this essay I am going to carefully consider the techniques, language and imagery that Browning uses in these two poems. I am also going to compare the two poems together and how Browning creates the voice and character of the persona in each poem.
My Last Duchess was written by Robert Browning in 1842. The poem is a dramatic monologue. The poem flows as there are mid-line pauses (caesura) rather than the poem coming to a halt at the end of each line. I think this is deliberate from Browning to make the poem flow more easily. The poem begins by the Duke merely showing his collection of art and various works to his emissary. He then comes to a lifelike portrait of his own wife who is now dead. In my opinion the Duke remembers her as no less than a piece of art that has been created by his orders. This is a general pattern throughout the poem where the Duke considers himself to be the most prestigious man who has ever lived. He believes that men are the dominant race above women. He is a complete image of sexism in his time. Browning keeps some of the imagery vague in the poem I believe this is to leave the reader of the poem to think themselves about the attitude of the Duke. You could perhaps say that he has a flirtatious wife who treasures others gifts as she treats the Duke’s. You could suggest that she may have had affairs with these other men but Browning leaves this to our imagination. I believe the Duke is an unstable man whose jealousy drives him to the limit to eventually finish his wife off. He believes that total control was a natural thing for him.
Moving on to the Laboratory. ...
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... the reader thinking about the poem in whatever way they like. Similarly with “My last duchess” Robert browning deliberately leaves some text vague yet some vivid to pose questions to the reader. He uses plenty of metaphors in both poems. I think this is again for the same reason which has been mentioned earlier. He is definitely trying to give the reader a thought but he leaves the thought abruptly for us to imagine about it. In my opinion this pattern is very frequent throughout the two poems.
To arrive at my conclusion all these techniques work together extremely well in both poems to give some of the greatest poems of his time. These two poems are especially recognised for the language, imagery and techniques that the poet uses to create a feeling of jealousy and disgust of the reactions of both the Duke in “My Last Duchess” and the Woman in “The Laboratory.”
Ingersoll, Earl G. "Lacan, Browning, and the Murderous Voyeur: "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess." Victorian Poetry 28 (1990): 151-157.
In the poem “Havisham”, Carol Ann Duffy presents the subject as an old, embittered woman with “ropes on the back of her hands”. In “The Laboratory” by Robert Browning the subject is a strong and determined, but very jealous and embittered, young woman. Both poems are written in the first person in the form of a dramatic monologue.
Have you ever fallen in love? Have you ever developed strong feelings for another? If problems arose between the two of you, were you able to overcome them? Well certain men in Robert Browning’s works couldn’t seem to. . . “overcome” these differences with their women. Browning grew up learning from his father’s huge library. His wife was much more successful at writing than him. Eight years after her death, his career turned around for the last 20 years of his life. During this time, he wrote many short dramatic monologues such as My Last Duchess and Prophyria’s Lover. These two very intriguing and disturbing Monologues, My Last Duchess and Prophyria’s Lover, by Robert Browning, involve two very messed up men whose actions are both alike in their idea of immortalizing their woman, but different in why they chose to commit the act between the two stories, and a conclusion may be drawn from this observation.
The purpose of this essay is to analyze and compare and contrast the two paired poems “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and “My Ex-Husband” by Gabriel Spera to find the similarities presented within the pairs. Despite the monumental time difference between “My Last Duchess” and “My Ex-Husband”, throughout both poems you will see that somebody is wronged by someone they thought was a respectable person and this all comes about by viewing a painting on the wall or picture on a shelf.
Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is a haunting poem that tells the story of a seemingly perfect wife who dies, and then is immortalized in a picture by her kind and loving husband. This seems to be the perfect family that a tragic accident has destroyed. Upon further investigation and dissection of the poem, we discover the imperfections and this perfect “dream family” is shown for what it really was, a relationship without trust.
New Criticism attracts many readers to its methodologies by enticing them with clearly laid out steps to follow in order to criticize any work of literature. It dismisses the use of all outside sources, asserting that the only way to truly analyze a poem efficiently is to focus purely on the words in the poem. For this interpretation I followed all the steps necessary in order to properly analyze the poem. I came to a consensus on both the tension, and the resolving of it.
I read a critical article on Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”. I confess it was harder to find something in the NCLC’s than I would’ve thought. There was a considerable accumulation of critiques on Browning’s work, but very little on “My Last Duchess”.
In conclusion, Mr. Robert Browning depicts in ‘My Last Duchess” that the Duke is not an ideal husband by referencing how controlling he is over women and other people in his vicinity. Mr. Browning also references the Duke’s jealous and petty actions that make him seem desperate for a way to seek attention. That is why the Duke disposes of her since she was not giving him the proper care he wanted he decided that she was not worthy. The Duke is also not an ideal husband based on his views of how disposal women are to him. His jealousy and insecurity lead him to be an unhappy self-centered
Another aspect of the duke’s character addressed in the poem is his condescending attitude. Two times in the poem the duke needlessly told the names of the artists who created the masterpieces that he owned (lines 3 & 56). He felt superiority over the emissary he was speaking to by dropping these names. The duke addressed the emissary as a “never read stranger'; (line 6). Not only was it patronizing for the duke to call him a stranger, but he called him unintelligent too.
Browning’s works were the primary model for the basic form of the standard Victorian dramatic monologue which was based around a speaker, listener, and a reader. Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess” became a model for the dramatic monologue form primarily because of the strict approach he took while developing the poem. One of the aspects characteristic of this work is the authors level of consciousness. Each element in “My Last Duchess” is thoughtfully constructed with form and structure in mind. This poem is filled with dramatic principle that satisfied the Victorian period’s demand for an action and drama that were not overtly apparent in the work. In the case of “My Last Duchess” the drama of the poem is how his character, the Duke, is introduced. In dramatic monologues the character’s self is revealed through thoug...
‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ are both poems by the Victorian poet Robert Browning. In this essay I will compare these two poems to find similarities and differences.
Is there a deeper meaning behind Byron’s poem? Kukathas states, “[a]t first reading, it might seem that the poem is merely a beautiful tribute to a lovely woman…which does not offer much else of intellectual interest. But, upon closer examination…another interpretation suggested itself that shows the poem to be far richer and subtler than most critics have allowed” (Kukathas 279). Both Kelly and Moran agree that going so far as to judge a person’s character based on her appearance shows something deeper about Byron’s thoughts. While Byron may have been writing about a simple topic, critics today view his poem as an attempt to understand the way people think.
In "My Last Duchess", by Robert Browning, the character of Duke is portrayed as having controlling, jealous, and arrogant traits. These traits are not all mentioned verbally, but mainly through his actions. In the beginning of the poem the painting of the Dukes wife is introduced to us: "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,/ looking as of she were still alive" (1-2). These lines leave us with the suspicion that the Duchess is no longer alive, but at this point were are not totally sure. In this essay I will discuss the Dukes controlling, jealous and arrogant traits he possesses through out the poem.
At first glance the pome “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning seemed stuffy to me but after a little research and rereading I realized it is anything but. This monolog could be in any modern day Italian mob movie. The Duke does intend to reveal a little about himself to the listener but I don’t believe he intends to reveal as much as he does. The things he may have intended to reveal are that he is a very particular person that likes things to be a certain way and has the power to make people bend to his will. The Duke mentions a curtain he has placed in front of the picture clearly a sign of a controlling person more or less saying I couldn’t control who saw your beautiful smile when you were alive but now I have total control over that.
Throughout "My Last Duchess," Browning uses diction to further increase the haunting effect of his dramatic monologue. His precise and scattered word choice is meant to make the reader recognize the underlying haughtiness in his speech to the Count's emissary. The Duke refers to his former wife's portraits "depth" and "passion" in order to place a cloudiness over the realism of the painting. This, along with the "faint" and "half-flush" appearance that "dies along her throat," brings about an overcast appearance to the poem. The Duke's "trifling" lack of "countenance" is evident in his jealousy of