My Last Duchess: Key Poetic Devices

Assonance and Consonance

Assonance and consonance are sibling concepts, in that they both refer to the repetition of certain sounds in adjacent or nearby words. Assonance specifically refers to the repetition of vowel sounds, whereas consonance refers to the repetition of consonant sounds. Browning makes ample use of both techniques, which gives the Duke’s speech a sumptuous quality that entices the reader and draws us in. From the very beginning, Browning weaves assonance and consonance together in a way that’s both subtle and beguiling. Consider the opening lines as a representative example. To begin, consider the predominance of short and long A sounds as well as short O sounds:

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.

These vowel sounds are very similar to each other, and their frequency in this short passage has a quietly lulling effect. Next, consider the L, TH, and W sounds threaded throughout the same lines:

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.

Once again, Browning uses repeated sounds with great subtlety, refusing to hit the reader over the head with obvious sonic effects. This subtlety endows the language with a sensuous quality that lures the reader in. Despite the Duke’s claim to lack “skill / In speech” (lines 35–36), he’s obviously a skilled orator.

Caesura

Caesura (say-ZHOO-ruh) refers to any interruption or break that occurs within a poetic line. Many of the verses in “My Last Duchess” feature two and sometimes even three breaks, cutting up the iambic pentameter lines in surprising ways. As a representative example, consider lines 35–45:

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?

Every line in this passage contains at least one punctuation mark that interrupts the flow of language. Most lines feature just one midline pause, and several have two. One line, however, contains a whopping four instances of midline punctuation: “Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt.” Browning uses caesura to give the Duke’s speech a natural, even conversational cadence. This technique is made especially effective by Browning’s employment of different types of punctuation. Commas, semicolons, long dashes, periods, and question marks imply different types of pauses, and so they vary the pace of the language in subtly different ways. This complexity sometimes gives the language a prose-like quality, which is appropriate given the fact that the poem is meant to be a monologue.

Enjambment

The poem’s overall effect depends greatly on Browning’s use of enjambment (en-JAM-ment), which refers to instances where one poetic line runs over to the next without stopping. Whereas end-stopped lines force the reader to slow down and pause, enjambed lines create a sense of acceleration. As such, when used in concert with end-stopping, enjambment helps to manipulate the pace of a poem’s language. Browning mixes these techniques in complex ways that—in combination with caesura—help give rise to the shifting cadences of the Duke’s speech. Consider lines 31–35 as an example:

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?

As this passage demonstrates, the use of enjambment has an equally important effect on the poem’s rhymes. “My Last Duchess” consists of twenty-eight consecutive couplets, all of which rhyme exactly. Yet the poem’s rhymes are sometimes difficult to hear, given that more than half the poem’s lines are enjambed. This fact effectively diminishes the force of the rhymes, which can pass by almost without notice since there isn’t a pause at the end of each line to emphasize them. Without the usual sense of closure that end-stopped lines bring, the poem’s heroic couplets seem decidedly unheroic. Hence, they comically subvert the Duke’s air of self-importance.

Repetition

Browning uses repetition to sinister effect in “My Last Duchess.” One type of repetition used in the poem is a refrain, which refers to any word, phrase, or line that gets repeated over the course of a poem. The refrain first appears at the beginning, when the Duke remarks on the living quality of his dead wife’s portrait (lines 1–2):

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive.

The Duke’s comment initially seems like an expression of undiminished love for his late wife. However, the reader is much more suspect when the speaker repeats similar words later in the poem. After implying that he orchestrated the late Duchess’s death, the Duke again remarks: “There she stands / As if alive” (lines 46–47). Here his words are distinctly less wistful and may instead imply a sense of guilt—or perhaps even pride at having successfully contained and controlled her. A second type of repetition in the poem is called polyptoton (puh-LIP-tuh-tawn), which involves the use of etymologically related words in different forms. As an example, consider lines 34–43:

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.

The variations on stoop here powerfully communicate the Duke’s anger at the idea of having to confront his late wife verbally. It’s precisely this anger that led him to have her killed.

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