Biography

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England. His mother was an accomplished pianist and a devout evangelical Christian. His father worked as a bank clerk and was also an artist, scholar, antiquarian, and collector of books and pictures. His rare book collection of more than 6,000 volumes included works in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. Much of Browning’s education came from his well-read father. It is believed that he was already proficient at reading and writing by the age of five. A bright and anxious student, Browning learned Latin, Greek, and French by the time he was fourteen. From fourteen to sixteen, he was educated at home, attended to by various tutors in music, drawing, dancing, and horsemanship.

At the age of twelve, he wrote a volume of Byronic verse entitled Incondita, which his parents attempted, unsuccessfully, to have published. In 1825, a cousin gave Browning a collection of Shelley’s poetry; Browning was so taken with the book that he asked for the rest of Shelley’s works for his thirteenth birthday, and declared himself a vegetarian and an atheist in emulation of the poet. Despite this early passion, he apparently wrote no poems between the ages of thirteen and twenty. In 1828, Browning enrolled at the University of London, but he soon left, anxious to read and learn at his own pace. The random nature of his education later surfaced in his writing, leading to criticism of his poems’ obscurities.

In 1833, Browning anonymously published his first major published work, Pauline, and in 1840, he published Sordello, which was widely regarded as a failure. He also tried his hand at drama, but his plays, including Strafford, which ran for five nights in 1837, and the Bells and Pomegranates series, were for the most part unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the techniques he developed through his dramatic monologues—especially his use of diction, rhythm, and symbol—are regarded as his most important contribution to poetry, influencing such major poets of the twentieth century as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and Robert Frost.

After reading Elizabeth Barrett’s Poems (1844) and corresponding with her for a few months, Browning met her in 1845. They were married in 1846, against the wishes of Barrett’s father. The couple moved to Pisa and then Florence, where they continued to write. They had a son, Robert “Pen” Browning, in 1849, the same year Browning’s Collected Poems was published. Elizabeth inspired Robert’s collection of poems Men and Women (1855), which he dedicated to her. Now regarded as one of Browning’s best works, the book was received with little notice at the time; its author was then primarily known as Elizabeth Barrett’s husband.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, and Robert and Pen Browning moved to London soon after. Browning went on to publish Dramatis Personae (1864), and The Ring and the Book (1868). The latter, based on a seventeenth century Italian murder trial, received wide critical acclaim, finally earning Browning renown and respect in the twilight of his career. The Browning Society was founded in 1881, and he was awarded honorary degrees by Oxford University in 1882 and the University of Edinburgh in 1884. Robert Browning died on the same day that his final volume of verse, Asolando, was published, in 1889.

My Last Duchess

Analysis

Theme

The Duke’s speech reveals his character, and from his character emerges the theme of the poem. The Duke’s late wife displeased him, because he thinks she took joy in the simple pleasures of life at the expense of the attention and reverence she should have granted exclusively to him and to his “nine-hundred-years-old name.” His last Duchess chatted with Fra Pandolf, who painted her portrait; she loved the sunset; she loved the bough of cherries the gardener brought her; she loved riding around the estate on her white mule. The Duke believes, on the basis of no evidence, that his Duchess flirted with men. And so he “gave commands / Then all smiles stopped together.” He has her executed. The Duke reveals himself to be pathologically jealous, a product of his own deep-seated insecurities. And herein lies the main theme of the poem: the destructive power of jealousy arising from an arrogance that masks low self-esteem.

Form

“My Last Duchess” is a dramatic monologue. It is a monologue in the sense that it consists of words spoken by one person. It is dramatic in the sense that another person is present, listening to the speaker’s words, which are shared with a wider audience, the poem’s readers. A dramatic monologue is, in a sense, a very short one-act play.

This is a regular verse dramatic monologue, in rhyming couplet iambic pentameter.

Figurative Language

The Duke comes across as a blunt, plain-spoken man, not one to use imagery or metaphor. The striking image of lines 18–19, noting that a painter would have trouble reproducing “the faint / Half-flush that dies along [the Duchess’s] throat,” is in the voice of the artist. It does foreshadow the Duchess’s fate.

The bronze sculpture of Neptune taming a sea horse, which the Duke points out to the Count’s ambassador before they rejoin the other guests, is a symbol of the control the Duke intends to exert upon his new bride. He has an ulterior motive in pointing out the statue.

Irony, as an element of literature, is a behaviour or an event which is contrary to readers’ or audience expectations. We say it is “ironic” when the Chief of Police is convicted of a crime. “My Last Duchess” rings with irony. The Duke condemns his wife’s behaviour but reveals her to be an innocent free spirit. He believes he is an honourable man, acting appropriately in the interest of preserving the integrity of his “nine-hundred-years-old name.” Readers soon understand the truth: the Duke is an insecure control freak and a murderer.

Context

“My Last Duchess” was published in 1842, in Browning’s poetry collection Dramatic Lyrics. Browning was a student of the history, literature, and culture of Renaissance Italy, which is the poem’s setting, though he had not yet eloped with Elizabeth and settled with her in Italy.

Related Activities and Questions for Study and Discussion

Text Attributions

• Biography: “Robert Browning” from poets.org © All Rights Reserved. Biography reprinted with the permission of the Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY, www.poets.org
• “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning is free of known copyright restrictions in Canada.