The Last Duchess

Overview

First published in the collection Dramatic Lyrics in 1842, “My Last Duchess” is an excellent example of Browning’s use of dramatic monologue. Browning’s psychological portrait of a powerful Renaissance aristocrat is presented to the reader as if he or she were simply “eavesdropping” on a slice of casual conversation. As the poem unfolds, the reader learns the speaker of the poem, Duke Ferrara, is talking to a representative of his fiancee’s family. Standing in front of a portrait of the Duke’s last wife, now dead, the Duke talks about the woman’s failings and imperfections. The irony of the poem surfaces as the reader discovers that the young woman’s “faults” were qualities like compassion, modesty, humility, delight in simple pleasures, and courtesy to those who served her.

Using abundant detail, Browning leads the reader to conclude that the Duke found fault with his former wife because she did not reserve her attentions for him, his rank, and his power. More importantly, the Duke’s long list of complaints presents a thinly veiled threat about the behavior he will and will not tolerate in his new wife. The lines “I gave commands; / smiles stopped together” suggest that the Duke somehow, directly or indirectly, brought about the death of the last Duchess. In this dramatic monologue, Browning has not only depicted the inner workings of his speaker, but has in fact allowed the speaker to reveal his own failings and imperfections to the reader.

Women were asked to “be” (to assume an ideal, unchanging perfection) rather than to “do” (to act in the public sphere). For this reason, the Duke in “My Last Duchess” seeks to deny women that ability to act. The Duke wants his wife to “be” perfect but must, paradoxically, kill her in order to ensure that she “does” nothing to betray that perfect love.

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This is probably Browning’s most famous dramatic monologue. It is often used as a prime example of the form. In this poem the speaker, the duke of Ferrara, is addressing a second character, an agent of an unnamed count whose daughter the duke plans