Complete Text
That’s my last Duchess painted on the
wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but
thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
Summary
This poem is loosely based on historical events involving
Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara, who lived in the 16th century.
The Duke is the speaker of the poem, and tells us he is entertaining
an emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke’s marriage (he has
recently been widowed) to the daughter of another powerful family.
As he shows the visitor through his palace, he stops before a portrait
of the late Duchess, apparently a young and lovely girl. The Duke
begins reminiscing about the portrait sessions, then about the Duchess
herself. His musings give way to a diatribe on her disgraceful behavior:
he claims she flirted with everyone and did not appreciate his “gift
of a nine-hundred-years- old name.” As his monologue continues,
the reader realizes with ever-more chilling certainty that the Duke
in fact caused the Duchess’s early demise: when her behavior escalated,
“[he] gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together.” Having
made this disclosure, the Duke returns to the business at hand:
arranging for another marriage, with another young girl. As the
Duke and the emissary walk leave the painting behind, the Duke points
out other notable artworks in his collection.
Form
“My Last Duchess” comprises rhyming pentameter lines.
The lines do not employ end-stops; rather, they use enjambment—gthat
is, sentences and other grammatical units do not necessarily conclude
at the end of lines. Consequently, the rhymes do not create a sense
of closure when they come, but rather remain a subtle driving force
behind the Duke’s compulsive revelations. The Duke is quite a performer:
he mimics others’ voices, creates hypothetical situations, and uses
the force of his personality to make horrifying information seem
merely colorful. Indeed, the poem provides a classic example of
a dramatic monologue: the speaker is clearly distinct from the poet;
an audience is suggested but never appears in the poem; and the
revelation of the Duke’s character is the poem’s primary aim.
Commentary
But Browning has more in mind than simply creating a colorful
character and placing him in a picturesque historical scene. Rather,
the specific historical setting of the poem harbors much significance:
the Italian Renaissance held a particular fascination for Browning
and his contemporaries, for it represented the flowering of the
aesthetic and the human alongside, or in some cases in the place
of, the religious and the moral. Thus the temporal setting allows
Browning to again explore sex, violence, and aesthetics as all entangled, complicating
and confusing each other: the lushness of the language belies the
fact that the Duchess was punished for her natural sexuality. The
Duke’s ravings suggest that most of the supposed transgressions
took place only in his mind. Like some of Browning’s fellow Victorians,
the Duke sees sin lurking in every corner. The reason the speaker
here gives for killing the Duchess ostensibly differs from that
given by the speaker of “Porphyria’s Lover” for murder Porphyria;
however, both women are nevertheless victims of a male desire to inscribe
and fix female sexuality. The desperate need to do this mirrors
the efforts of Victorian society to mold the behavior—gsexual and
otherwise—gof individuals. For people confronted with an increasingly
complex and anonymous modern world, this impulse comes naturally:
to control would seem to be to conserve and stabilize. The Renaissance
was a time when morally dissolute men like the Duke exercised absolute
power, and as such it is a fascinating study for the Victorians:
works like this imply that, surely, a time that produced magnificent
art like the Duchess’s portrait couldn’t have been entirely evil
in its allocation of societal control—geven though it put men like
the Duke in power.
A poem like “My Last Duchess” calculatedly engages its
readers on a psychological level. Because we hear only the Duke’s
musings, we must piece the story together ourselves. Browning forces
his reader to become involved in the poem in order to understand
it, and this adds to the fun of reading his work. It also forces
the reader to question his or her own response to the subject portrayed
and the method of its portrayal. We are forced to consider, Which
aspect of the poem dominates: the horror of the Duchess’s fate,
or the beauty of the language and the powerful dramatic development?
Thus by posing this question the poem firstly tests the Victorian
reader’s response to the modern world—git asks, Has everyday life
made you numb yet?—gand secondly asks a question that must be asked
of all art—git queries, Does art have a moral component, or is it merely
an aesthetic exercise? In these latter considerations Browning prefigures
writers like Charles
Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde.
