My Last Duchess

• "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning is a dramatic monologue
• The poem is about the Duke of Ferrara in Italy showing a painting of his former wife, the Duchess, to a guest
• The Duke points out the look on his wife's face, a kind of blush or a look of happiness
• The Duke explains how his wife disappointed him by looking at everyone else in the same way she looked at him
• The Duke was disappointed by his wife's behavior and gave commands, perhaps to have her killed
• The poem is written in iambic pentameter with a tightly controlled rhyme scheme
• Browning's use of the dramatic monologue form presents the Duke as powerful
• The Duke dominates proceedings and controls the situation in the poem
• The repetition of the personal pronoun "my" throughout the poem suggests the Duke's self-obsession and possessiveness
• The formal terms of address used by the Duke, such as "sir" and "you," present him as powerful and socially superior
• The questions the Duke asks of the envoy are actually demands, showcasing his superiority
• The poem contains little figurative language, but there are examples like the artwork of Neptune taming a seahorse
• Figurative language in the poem

  • Similes
  • Metaphors
• Metaphor in the poem

  • Neptune taming a seahorse as a metaphor for the Duke himself and his role over women
• Neptune was the Roman god of the sea, known as big, strong, barrel-chested, masculine, and domineering
• The poem "My Last Duchess" is set in the Italian Renaissance between the 14th and 16th century but was written and published during the Victorian era in 1842
• Victorian attitudes towards women during the time the poem was written: women became the legal property of their husbands upon marriage, seen as the angel of the house serving and entertaining their husbands
• Structural features of the poem suggesting a lack of control and power


  Enjambment where sentences run over lines, one long stanza reflecting continuous speech without significant breaks or pauses, sprawling uncontrolled speech of the Duke
• Poems that compare well with "My Last Duchess" in terms of misguided notions of power


  • Ozymandias, Extract from The Prelude, Kamikaze, Tissue
• The video is a recap for revision purposes and not intended to provide all the information about the poem