My Last Duchess

“My Last Duchess” is a dramatic monologue, a genre of poem Browning is famous for having mastered. As the name suggests, a dramatic monologue is a poem penned in the form of a speech delivered by a single character. The poem is thus rooted in a single scene but allows the reader insight into the speaker’s history, psyche, and character, by way of details revealed.

While the speaker is not explicitly named in “My Last Duchess,” he is revealed to be a duke owing to the opening lines in which he points to a portrait of his late wife and calls her his “last Duchess” (Line 1). Furthermore, the subtitle of the poem, “Ferrara,” has led to the assumption that the character of the duke is based on Alfonso II, the fifth Duke of Ferrara, whose life paralleled incidents narrated in the poem (See: Historical Context). Thus, the identity of the speaker is revealed at the start of the poem, as he seemingly innocuously calls the attention of an invisible listener to a portrait of his late wife.

At first, the duke appears to be commenting on the artistic quality of the painting. He calls the piece a “wonder” (Line 2), revealing the artist’s name, the fictional “Fra Pandolf” (Line 3). The name is evidently a prestigious one, as the duke assumes his listener to know who the artist is; additionally, he reveals that the name-dropping was intentional (Lines 5-6), a way for him to segue into talking about the character and history of the woman in the portrait. The duke has done this before, brought people to view the portrait and mentioned the artist’s name, garnering seemingly similar responses. He states that upon hearing the painter’s name and taking stock of his late wife’s expression in the painting, every viewer would wordlessly turn to him as if meaning to ask about the expression (Lines 6-12). Significantly, no actual question seems to ever have been posed, including in the present circumstance of the poem; rather, the duke assumes the people he brings to view the portrait will ask this question. Of additional importance is the duke’s assertion, presented within parentheses, that no one besides him is allowed to draw back the curtain covering his late wife’s portrait (Lines 9-10). Both these details seem to imply a degree of self-importance to the duke’s character and indicate that the story of his late duchess is a complicated one.

This is reiterated by the duke as he begins to discuss how his wife was easily pleased and impressed. He states that it was not solely his presence that brought about thed’s blush (Lines 13-15) but also simple, courteous remarks or compliments made by Fra Pandolf as he painted her (Lines 15-21). The duke asserts that his wife believed and understood such comments to be “courtesy” (Line 20), and yet thought it “cause enough” (Like 20) to blush. In acknowledging that his wife did not read further into such compliments than innocent courtesy, the duke suggest that he did not suspect her of infidelity. This underlines the degree of possessiveness the duke experiences, as even the innocence of the interaction does not erase his displeasure at his wife’s appreciative responses to common courtesy.

The duke clarifies as much in the following lines, when he remarks that his late wife had a heart “too soon made glad” (Line 22); he sees this as a lack of discretion on the duchess’s part, explaining that she was pleased by everything that came her way (Lines 23-24). This lack of discretion is a personal affront to the duke, as evidenced by his exclamation, “Sir, ’twas all one!” (Line 25). He goes on to list a number of things the duchess responded to with the same degree of pleasure: his demonstrations of love, a beautiful sunset, a gift of cherries collected from the orchard and presented to her by “some officious fool” (Line27), and riding on her mule around the terrace (Lines 25-29). The list is presented by the duke in decreasing order of importance, with himself being the most important; that he is delivered the same approving response as the everyday, mundane experience of a mule ride is nothing short of an insult.

The duke’s self-importance and possessiveness already established, further layers to his character are revealed. He expresses astonishment at his wife having equated the gift of his “nine-hundred-years-old name” (Line 33) with every other gift. The duke is aware of and takes pride in his particular history and lineage. The offense offered by his late wife’s behavior, thus, is more to do with the dynamic between husband and wife; it is about social hierarchy. This same awareness of and importance given to hierarchy, owing to the duke’s standing as a husband and an aristocrat, disallows him from “stooping” (Line 42) to directly address his wife’s behavior. The duke sees it beneath him to directly acknowledge what displeases him about his wife’s conduct, even if he were able to communicate his feelings precisely, and if she were agreeable enough to apologize and change (Lines 35-43).

This unwillingness to “stoop” (Line 43) is what drives the duke’s lack of direct communication, not his professed lack of communicative skill or ambiguity about his wife’s response. The calculated manner in which the duke has set up the context to deliver this monologue and the fluency and skill with which he seems to be narrating the story of his late wife, is a clear indication of his superior communicative skill. His own description of his wife’s mild and easily pleased nature strongly suggests that she would have been highly amenable to his suggestions about her behavior. Therefore, it is pride and self-importance that continues to fuel the duke’s displeasure with his wife as she continued to smile at everyone else in the same way she did at him (Lines 43-45). It is also what drives the duke’s actions: "I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together” (Lines 45-46). The manner in which the duke delivers these lines stands in sharp contrast to the vivid, verbose manner in which he has thus far described his late wife’s behavior and his displeasure with it. The brief, inexplicit description the duke provides here hints at a clear withholding of details on his part, leaving the listener (and subsequently the reader) to infer what may have happened to the.

Once again, the duke comments on how “alive” (Line 46) the late duchess looks in the portrait. While a repetition of how the poem opened, this particular phrase now takes on a chilling tone owing to the lines that precede it. The mood remains a disquieted one as the duke moves seamlessly from talking about the portrait to inviting his companion to go downstairs with him; the lack of pause is highlighted by the enjambment (See: Literary Devices) used in these lines (Lines 46-47). Now the identity of the listener is revealed as the duke comments on the person’s “master’s known munificence” (Line 48): the companion is an emissary of a count whose daughter’s hand the duke seeks in marriage. The duke goes on to imply that he understands the count’s known generosity as assurance that he will receive a significant dowry while simultaneously reiterating that he is marrying the count’s daughter for her “fair […] self” (Line 51) and not the money.

The revelation of the listener’s identity opens up a number of interpretations regarding the context of the monologue. One perspective sees the duke having unwittingly confessed to ordering the murder of his late wife. The emissary is someone far below the duke’s station, someone who poses no threat, thus allowing the Duke to be less guarded in what he says. The exact identity of the listener is therefore not as consequential as his social status. Yet another interpretation, however, points at the duke’s possible motivation for setting up the context of this monologue. The narrative, including the veiled confession, serves as a warning to the family of his potential future bride as to what the duke expects from a wife and the consequences that may follow if these expectations are not met. Here, the listener’s identity and his occupation play a key role in leading the duke to construct and deliver his monologue within the circumstances of the poem.

The poem ends with the duke pointing out to the listener yet another piece of art he owns as they proceed downstairs (Lines 53-56). The lasting impression this creates of the duke is that of a proud, acquisitive, and possessive man, deeply invested in status and social hierarchy and cold and exacting in his vengeance when he believes himself wronged.