Comparing Robert Browning's Dramatic Monologues My Last Duchess and The Laboratory

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Comparing Robert Browning's Dramatic Monologues My Last Duchess and The Laboratory Robert Browning was a Victorian poet who lived from 1812-1889. He mainly wrote dramatic monologues, this means you must have a speaker and a listener. Both "My Last Duchess" and "The Laboratory" were published in 1845. "My Last Duchess" was set in the Italian Renaissance and during that time to own large life size painting was a show of wealth. "My Last Duchess" was written in a time when women were to hold their husbands and everything that he did with the maximum respect and show little or no emotion towards anyone else. "My Last Duchess" is evidence that times were changing socially towards women. Women were becoming independent and free to make their own choices and become their own woman. In "My Last Duchess" the speaker was the 'Duke of Ferrara' and he was speaking to the Envoy (messenger) who is the silent listener, also "The Laboratory" has a silent listener 'The Chemist (Apothecary)' and the speaker is a mystery women. Both monologues have something in common, the speaker never interrupts. "My Last Duchess" is not about the Duchess but the Duke who is telling you of his late wife (Duchess). On the other hand in "The Laboratory you do find out about the title and not about the speaker. "My Last Duchess" is written as a story with one stanza, doing this 'The Duke' does not expect to be interrupted. While "The Laboratory" has twelve stanzas, these are used to portray the speaker's intension to kill the other women and to build up to the murder. Rhyming couplets are used in both monologues, they both also have iambic pentameter which means in each line there is five stressed syllables and five unstressed syllables. Robert Browning has also made a point of using enjambment which means each line carries onto the next line. The themes in "The Laboratory" are jealousy, love, hate and death. "My Last Duchess" has the themes love, death, mastery and control. The idea of death being a theme in both monologues is, "The

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