LIT2 - Poetry - My Last Duchess Flashcards
Who wrote My Last Duchess? Give some context about the poem:
-Robert Browning
-written to present the Duke of Ferrara (Italy) as being a powerful aristocrat, but also to show his vanity/narcissism
-highlights the power that men had over women in the 16th C, which is when it was set (but written in 19th C)
vanity - excessive pride/admiration of oneself
Give 5 quotes from My Last Duchess:
-That’s my last Duchess
-she ranked/My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/With anybody’s gift
-I gave commands;/Then all smiles stopped together
-his fair daughter’s self…is my object
-Notice Neptune, though,/Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,/Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
That’s my last Duchess
-objectification in “That’s”
-possessive pronoun “my” to refer to his wife, which immediately highlights his possessive attitude towards women
-adjective “last” implies that it is his most recent wife, and intends to remarry in a dispassionate way, as if he collects women like his art
she ranked/My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/With anybody’s gift
-his wife “ranked” all gifts equally, and as far as he is concerned, only his own gifts should be valued
-focuses on his aristocratic power, and considers his supposed gift of an old name to be more important than love
-more possessive pronouns highlight his arrogance/self-importance
I gave commands;/Then all smiles stopped together
-noun “commands” reinforces his absolute power
-pause before moving onto new line creates shocking effect
-chilling sibilance is suggestive of his ordering to have her killed
-his revelatory statement is quickly dismissed after, showing how his wife was unimportant to him, being merely a commodity
It is quickly dismissed by the Duke, by asking the Count’s servant to rise and move on
his fair daughter’s self…is my object
objectification reinforces his attitude towards women, and connotes that the Count’s daughter will be another commodity in the series of wives he has had
Notice Neptune, though,/Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,/Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
-symbolic image of the Duke’s domination over women, suggesting how he views himself as a godly figure that controls the less-powerful women he marries
-noun “rarity” and pronoun “me” rhyme, highlighting his arrogance/self-importance
-ends in the exclamation “me!”, further exemplifying his self importance
Explain the use of structure in My Last Duchess:
-dramatic monologue used, and creates a narrator that may be unreliable due to the one-sided perspective of the events told, questioning the Duke’s validity
-written fully in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets, denoting the Duke’s overarching control
-one long stanza/enjambment/caesura suggests his lack of control, and his blurting of emotion
