My Last Dutchess Flashcards
Moods expressed in MLD
Sinister
Threatening
Sinister
metaphor for the murder of the duchess
”; I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together.”
Threatening
Dramatic irony
Suspicius reference to death
Defensive and blames the duchess for what he believes her to be blushing
“the faint / Half flush that dies along her throat”
ideas in My last Duchess
Power
Misguided belief that women are properties and that fundamentally, women are corrupt
Power
“as if she ranked / My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name / With anybody’s name”
Misguided belief that women are properties and that fundamentally, women are corrupt
Euphemism for her flirting with others but it could all be his faluse beliefs as he is not certain
“Too easily impressed; she liked wahte’er/ she looked on and her looks went everywhere.”
techniques used in My last Duchess
Iambic pentameter with enjambment shows how his temper gets the better of him and he starts to lose his eloquence
Caesurae and end stopping combined with a rigid rhyming couplet shoes his desperate attempt to control
Iambic pentameter with enjambment shows how his temper gets the better of him and he starts to lose his eloquence
Erotic suggestions hinting at the fact that she was too inviting
This makes him sound defensive charming and pleasant
“The bough of cherries some officious fool / Broke in the orchard for her the white mule / She rode around with around the terrace”
Caesurae and end stopping combined with a rigid rhyming couplet ehoes his desperate attempt to control
“and made excuses, / - E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose / never to stoop.”
Caesurae and end stopping combined with a rigid rhyming couplet shows his desperate attempt to control
“and made excuses, / - E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose / never to stoop.”
My Response
Browning in the poem condemns dangerous men utterly chillingly manipulates woman. Significantly, he sets the poem in a highly sophisticated time of the Renaissance. The juxtaposition of something enlightened to someone so crude. This tells us that even in a highly sophisticated time brutish behaviours can still flourish.
