At the time the Browning’s poem My Last Duchess was published, the concept of ownership in marriage was still very prevalent; Browning develops the central theme of his poem around these notions of inequality and male dominance in a direct attempt to explore the concept...
Introduction “We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.” When you see this quote, you can probably imagine people in society, in our everyday lives, telling each other stories of what they...
My Last Duchess
Robert Browning
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The poems “Ozymandias” by Percy Shelley and “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning are very different. However, they do have something in common – both poems are representations of their power. “Ozymandias” represents power as poem shows that human life is insignificant compared to the...
Robert Browning (1812 – 1889) was one of the most popular writers of Victorian era. He was best known for his dramatic monologues. He perfected this genre through his poems such as My Last Duchess, Fra Lippo Lippi, and Porphiria’s Lover etc. Browning is best...
“My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning is a Victorian poem that demonstrates the power of voice. This poem is narrated by the Duke of Ferrara who uses his voice to gain control of those around him. He even speaks for his deceased wife, only explaining...
Religious Authority and Hypocrisy in Browning’s Works Robert Browning’s ubiquitous examination of religious authority and its shortcomings becomes apparent within the very title of The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church. The religious reference to Saint Praxed carries ironic connotations, as while Saint...
Poetry can often be described as “painting with words.” It is a poet’s attempt to give linguistic form to thoughts and emotions, to create vivid imagery with only a minimum of language, achieved by any number of creative methods. In the lyric poem “Soliloquy of...
As scholars often note, the Victorian Period was known for its didacticism, especially the struggle between faith and moral decrepitude. Whereas the Romantics idealized their world, the Victorians questioned their surroundings, choosing to politicize their literature so as to be reactionary against the societal norm....
Browning’s dramatic monologues, Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess, serve as poignant critiques of the restrictive patriarchal values that defined Victorian society, stifling women’s quest for individualism. Similarly, Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House challenges the facade of an ideal marriage entrenched in social hierarchy through...
Women and Roses by Robert Browning explores the idea of dreams concerning love, in particular sexual love. The speaker imagines the three women of time as roses: the past, present, and future. Though this poem appeared within the repressive Victorian era, through the allusions and...
Poetry
Robert Browning
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Robert Browning wrote his poetry during the British Industrial Revolution, a tumultuous time in which society was going through major cultural and lifestyle changes. The modernization of England led to the distribution of newspapers and other literature that thrived on the scandals of others. This...
In both Porphyria’s Lover and Andrea del Sarto, Robert Browning explores the notions of love and its capacity to corrupt an individual’s character and potential through his signature diegetic form; the dramatic monologue. While the form of these two poems is based around an implied...
In both My Last Duchess and Andrea del Sarto, Robert Browning explores the notions of love and its capacity to corrupt an individual’s character and potential through his signature diegetic form; the dramatic monologue. While the form of these two poems is based around an...
With “Porphyria’s Lover” and “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” Browning provides two dramatic monologues of madmen in which the narrator’s sheer ignorance of his own insanity is a basic premise integral to the work. Throughout both these poems, the narrator is consistently unaware of the...
In Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue, “Porphyria’s Lover,” the love-stricken frustrations of a nameless speaker end in a passionate, annihilating response to society’s scrutiny towards human sensuality. Cleverly juxtaposing Porphyria’s innocent femininity and her sexual transgression, Browning succeeds in displaying society’s contradictory embrace of morality next...
The nature of God has been a controversial subject for writers throughout the centuries. In the poem “Caliban upon Setebos,” Robert Browning explores the relationship between deities and their subjects through the voice of Caliban, a brutish monster-servant adopted from Shakespeare’s Tempest. Though the cruel...
Though they come from the shores of different eras and the minds of different authors, the protagonists of Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Browning’s “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” and T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” are all knights in their...
In Robert Browning’s poems “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess,” the theme of obsessive love is intricately woven into the fabric of the narratives, revealing how distorted rationality can lead to devastating consequences. Both narrators, driven by their compulsive desires, attempt to exert control over...
My Last Duchess
Poetry
Robert Browning
Born
7 May 1812, Camberwell, London, England
Died
12 December 1889, Venice, Kingdom of Italy
Occupation
Poet
Literary monement
Victorian
Notable works
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Men and Women
The Ring and the Book
Dramatis Personae
Dramatic Lyrics
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics
Asolando
Quotes
“Love is the energy of life.”
“I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.”
“Ignorance is not innocence but sin.”
“Without love, our earth is a tomb”
Date
7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889
Activity
Robert Browning was a major English poet of the Victorian age, noted for his mastery of dramatic monologue and psychological portraiture. His most noted work was The Ring and the Book (1868–69), the story of a Roman murder trial in 12 books.
Works
“Bishop Blougram’s Apology”, “Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day”, “Dramatis Personae”, “Fra Lippo Lippi”, “Men and Women”, “My Last Duchess”, “Paracelsus”, “Pippa Passes”, “Rabbi Ben Ezra”, “Sordello”, “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church”, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”, “The Ring and the Book”
Themes
Robert Browning examines three key themes in his poetry. He strives to find new perspectives on familiar characters and historical figures, he constantly questions whether people should live in the past or seize the moment, and he is fascinated by dark comedy.
Style
Browning was one of the leading Victorian poets who have mastered the dramatic monologue. The striking characteristics of his poetry are irony, dark humor, characterization, social commentary, challenging vocabulary, historical setting, and syntax.
Legacy
During Browning’s lifetime, critical recognition came rapidly after 1864; and, although his books never sold as well as his wife’s, he thereafter acquired a considerable and enthusiastic public. He has, however, influenced many modern poets, such as Robert Frost and Ezra Pound, partly through his development of the dramatic monologue, but even more through his success in writing about the variety of modern life in language that owed nothing to convention.
Quotes
“I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and become yours forever.”
“My sun sets to rise again.”
“Love is the energy of life.”
“I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.”
