My Last Duchess

My Last Duchess

1. Duke is narrator

   • He creates the tone of the poem
     • Cruel
     • Ruthless
     • conversational style
     • almost as if talking to himself - trying to justify what he did

2. 10 syllables per line

   • iambic pentameter
   • Even structure of poem is controlled - like the Duke

3. Even through all his riches, the Duke cannot seem to find true love

4. 'Notice Neptune, though, taming a sea-horse'

   • Power he has over the sea-horse
     • metaphorically the Duke is Neptune and the Duchess is the sea horse
       • He sees himself like a God
       • Because he couldn't 'tame' her, he had to put her down

5. Duke of Ferrara

   • Dominant
   • Possessive
     • 'as if she ranked my gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name with anybody's gift'
       • He expects her to be only devoted to him
   • Narcissistic
     • 'since none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you, but I'
       • only he can look at the painting
   • Accidentally reveals some of his weaknesses
     • 'even had you skill in speech -(which I have not)-
       • He can't speak to her. Can't tell her that he disagrees with her ways

6. Language

   • 'My last duchess'
     • Ambiguous
       • last as in previous?
       • last as in never having another duchess/
   • ' as if she were alive'
     • ambiguous
       • is she alive?
         • confuses audience