Victorians! discussion
This topic is about
My Last Duchess and Other Poems
Poetry Archives
>
My Last Duchess - Browning
date
newest »
newest »
Linda wrote: "Why else would he be among "strangers Iike you" who have never looked on the countenance of a fair-skinned, rosy-cheeked girl?" I interpreted this phrase to refer to strangers as opposed to those closer to him--people he knows he can trust. The fact that his listener is a stranger places the speaker in a precarious situation does it not?
I think that the Duke may feel jealous but what does he do with it?? He could tell his wife to stop admiring the sunset and the mule. He could tell her he feels jealous. He could tell somebody else to tell her to stop smiling at the mule. He could say that the cherry trees are not to be touched.If he's jealous, he's overlooked many possibilities to resolve the problem and leaped into murder.
This is a dramatic monologue. The only point of view we get is that of the speaker who typically tries to win our sympathies but who also provides us with enough material to judge him or her.
Natalie wrote: "I think that the Duke may feel jealous but what does he do with it?? He could tell his wife to stop admiring the sunset and the mule. He could tell her he feels jealous. He could tell somebody else to tell her to stop smiling at the mule. He could say that the cherry trees are not to be touched."This is the dilemma of a gentleman. He is not free to apprise her of his feelings; he must follow social protocol. In a bit of irony, she is free to do these things that make her happy. He is in the prison of his pride and upbringing. He cannot stoop. Why? Because he has been taught not to stoop. Because society expects him not to stoop. What would his servants think? Would word get out? What would his friends think? So he breaks out of this prison which societal expectation has placed him in, in the worst way possible. He kills what he so jealously loves. Is Browning suggesting a solution here? 1) If he stoops, do they both live happily ever after? 2) Or, should our villainous hero swallow his jealousy rather than his pride and learn to live with her behavior? These questions make the poem a better conversation piece than the portrait.
This is a poem set in Renaissance Medici Italy, with all that may imply to a poet with the background of a man like Browning. He and Elizabeth had lived in Florence after their marriage.http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/r...
Jonathan wrote: "Linda wrote: "Why else would he be among "strangers Iike you" who have never looked on the countenance of a fair-skinned, rosy-cheeked girl?" I interpreted this phrase to refer to strangers as opp..."
I was tripped up, not surprisingly, by the syntax of the long sentence. Of course, to the Duke, "strangers" are people he doesn't know well or trust. Could he also mean people not high-born, aristocratic, like himself?
Linda wrote: "Could he also mean people not high-born, aristocratic, like himself?"You're guess is as good as mine. This could be exactly what he means.
Jonathan wrote: "This is the dilemma of a gentleman. He is not free to apprise her of his feelings; he must follow social protocol. In a bit of irony, she is free to do these things that make her happy. He is in the prison of his pride and upbringing. He cannot stoop. Why? Because he has been taught not to stoop."I disagree for the following reasons: she is his wife and it is his privilege to boss her around to his heart's content. He may be born a "gentleman" but he is NOT a gentleman. One of the big debates of English literature (of which Browning was a part, even though the poem was set in Renaissance Italy) is what precisely constitutes a gentleman and who gets to be a gentleman?
Family relations are different than those with friends or servants. In the family the husband / father is meant to be the example, the teacher, the guide. The gentleman always does get his way, but he is expected to guide and instruct his wife--not to kill her.
Natalie wrote: " The gentleman always does get his way, but he is expected to guide and instruct his wife--not to kill her...."So, what are you saying, Natalie? Are you buying into the possibility the duchess may have been killed by the duke or do you think not?
(I haven't traced it down exhaustively, but the sense I get from the links posted is that he may well have killed her, but it was never proven conclusively, or at least publicly. )
Lily wrote: "Are you buying into the possibility the duchess may have been killed by the duke or do you think not?"The poem doesn't say for certain. I have heard two possible interpretations of the line of his "command". 1) He ordered her murder. 2) He committed her to an asylum. (Get thee to a nunnery!) I get the impression he killed her. That's what I construe from the speaker saying that she looks as if she were "alive" in the portrait. If she were alive, then why would he make that observation. He would rather say something like, "looking as if she were sitting here with us".
I've loved Browning's poetry for many years, so am excited that we're discussing this great dramatic monologue. I agree that the poem suggests he has killed her - "Then all smiles stopped together" is surely too chilling for her to be still alive anywhere (except in the painting, with that last frozen smile).
The Duke is a monster of egotism, with "my" as the second word of the poem and "me!" as the last. He has turned his young wife into an item in his collection, admired in the same way as the bronze of Neptune.
I think that he ordered her murder. He probably did not want to get the blood on his own hands.What I meant is that the Duke is NOT a "gentleman". I agree absolutely with Judy's post above. The "gentleman" does not kill his wife; he instructs her in how to behave if her behavior does not meet his standards. I am, of course, speaking of the "gentleman" of the typical Victorian style.
As Judy wrote above: "He has turned his young wife into an item in his collection, admired in the same way as the bronze of Neptune."
Exactly, I think. The Duke is an art collector and he can absolutely control this collection. He can decide what is in it. He can decide with whom to share it. It's all about the "me" with him.
Natalie wrote: "I think that he ordered her murder. He probably did not want to get the blood on his own hands....Thanks for the clarification, Natalie.
Your assessment seems plausible; perhaps he was cunning enough that the order didn't even come directly from him. Based on the comments to the courier of the Count, the duke seems to have ways of delivering messages to those providing what he wants.
I won't even get into the discussion of what a "gentleman" is in what contexts, but I appreciate the posts here.
Natalie wrote: "What I meant is that the Duke is NOT a "gentleman".."I gathered that much, seeing as how his actions were the antithesis of your description of one.
Judy wrote: "He has turned his young wife into an item in his collection, admired in the same way as the bronze of Neptune."This is something I hadn't focused on before. She looks as if she's alive and she is under his complete dominion now. Those things which bothered him before are now within his control. He determines who sees her and who does not. This was an important issue for the speaker. He doesn't have to allow these inferior beings see her "spot of joy" anymore.
Lily wrote: "....."I have peaked ahead at the next poem. I'm going to need your help on stanzas 6 and 7 in that one. I smell a rat or a cherry!
As it is now day 1 of our "My Last Duchess" discussion, and there has been a two day lull in the pre-discussion, I will try to get things going again with a question. Did you like this poem? Did you gain any insight into relationships because of this poem or the ensuing discussion?
Jonathan wrote: "As it is now day 1 of our "My Last Duchess" discussion, and there has been a two day lull in the pre-discussion, I will try to get things going again with a question. Did you like this poem? Did yo..."Besides the delight of looking closely at the poem, my greatest fun was the Victorian page on Browning and who he was as a poet and student of literature and life.
Because English is not my first language, I have not read much poetry in English. Somehow it seems poetry speaks to your deeper feelings best in your own tongue. So I decided to follow this thread just to try to get into English poetry. I have enjoyed it very much.What have I learned of relationships and love? Well, this is about the kind of relationships you do not want. "Sleeping with enemy" comes to mind. The poem and the discussion has highlighted subtleties of controlling relationships. I think the one sided monologue was brilliant in making the duke sinister and scary.
Browning's dramatic monologues were very popular. Indeed, there were "Browning Clubs" all over the English-speaking world where people met to discuss his works (I have also been told that they were a great place for young "singles" to meet eligible other singles--a "safer" place to meet somebody than a tavern. We even see this in literature. In Ford Madox Ford's "The Good Soldier" one of the two primary couples meet at a Browning Club meeting in NYC.I digress. Psychology and psychiatry were fascinating to the Victorians. The Dramatic Monologue is usually a "psychological" puzzle: how do you figure out the psychology behind a person when you only have his (or her) point of view? How do people reveal themselves?
Browning does have some poems that are "lyrical" poetry; the dramatic monologues are "narrative poems", however.
So the dramatic monologue serves as a peep into the human brain, psyche, and the workings thereof of its speaker.
I like the poem very much because it's an innovative take on a new (at the time) genre. It is written with much craft and really gets the job done. It's also a great introduction to Browning's other dramatic monologues about "twisted" characters--though I cannot recall if we are reading any of those.
I read a really excellent article in last summer's journal, "The Wordsworth Circle" about "Porphyria's Lover" being a "reader-scandalizing flashpoint", a "shock trouper", which makes me sorry that we are not reading these poems in chronological order. It was written by the excellent Herbert Tucker. He calls "Porphryia's Lover" a "depth charge" and demonstrates how it provides the "shock tremors" to get into the rest of Browning's works. Tucker demonstrates how Browning anticipated Ezra Pound's dictum to "Make it new".
The dates of our poems are:
"Porphyria's Lover" 1835
"My Last Duchess" 1842
And then 1855 brought us "Fra Lippo Lippi" and "Andrea del Sarto".
But I am sure that Jonathan had a reason for presenting the poems in this fashion and order.
Mod
No question about it. The play on words, cultural references, nuances, etc., etc. are best understood in one's own language. Even after decades of living in an English speaking environment, if I read something in my native tongue there is a level of understanding there that I can never quite penetrate with English.
I will add that Browning's elaborate monologues are perhaps more difficult for non-native speakers to grasp. His sentence syntax can be daunting and his speakers often speak at a level of either formality or informality that makes them difficult to understand.I think you are doing a fantastic job.
Tennyson's "In Memoriam" should not be as challenging. Many shorter poems of the period are easier.
I recall when I was studying Russian literature how amazed I was at how EASY it seemed to read Tolstoy compared to Dostoevsky or Gogol. Tolstoy has a very straight-forward sentence structure (in the original, anyhow) that makes his works more amenable to a non-native ear.
Natalie wrote: "But I am sure that Jonathan had a reason for presenting the poems in this fashion and order. "No, there is no rhyme (excuse the pun) or reason for the order. I placed this one first, simply because it was the most popular in the nominations folder. Well, I guess there was a reason!
Natalie wrote: "In Ford Madox Ford's "The Good Soldier" one of the two primary couples meet at a Browning Club meeting in NYC."
I did not know this. Most of the background/biographical information I found focused on the fact that Elizabeth was more popular than him, which kind of diminishes his prominence in his own day.
Brit wrote: "So I decided to follow this thread just to try to get into English poetry. I have enjoyed it very much."Well, I hope you stick with it for a while. Poetry is more difficult to decipher for all readers. In Moral Philosophy, we learned about one philosopher who tried to quantify pleasure. He rated poetry as a higher pleasure than most other endeavors, but observed it took longer to materialize. It is worth it.
We will always make it a top priority to discuss obscure metaphors and difficult passages so that everyone can come to understand them. Also, it would be great if people would ask questions about the things that are harder to understand so that we can all weigh in on it and help.
I am not a poetry expert by any means. But, I had a couple of great professors who taught me a lot about poetry. Plus, there are many tools I learned to use, such as Shmoop!
Although this is the Browning poem I am most familiar with, it felt as fresh and raw reading it again. The line 'I gave commands/ Then all smiles stopped together' is such a powerful and shocking way of portraying the power this man has over his pretty young wife, and perhaps can be extended to show the control a patriarchal society has over women, which sadly still seems relevant seeing the recently elected President of USA and the way he treats and speaks about women.
This is an interesting article I came across with some references to 'The Last Duchess' and biography speculation:https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
Thanks, Clari. Interesting, but very odd - for instance this comment: "throughout his career he made a technical virtue out of never speaking in his own voice on the page." There are quite a few poems where he does indeed speak himself, such as "Amphibian" at the start of Fifine at the Fair, which is about his love of swimming and imagines Elizabeth looking down from heaven to see him in the water. I can't find it online unfortunately (except in garbled versions) but it is a lovely poem.
Judy wrote: "Thanks, Clari. Interesting, but very odd - for instance this comment: "throughout his career he made a technical virtue out of never speaking in his own voice on the page." There are quite a few ..."
I found 'Amphibian' in my anthology, thank you for the recommendation.
It is an interesting idea to try and look for what might be the authentic voice of Browning in his work as his fame seems to rest on his dramatic monologues.
Personally I find 'Memorabilia' touching, even though I am not confident that I fully grasp its meaning.
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/brow...
Victorians!
Books mentioned in this topic
Fifine at the Fair (other topics)The Wings of the Dove (other topics)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (other topics)
I totally agree with your assessment, but there are still a few unanswered questions. Is the Duke's jealousy justified? You seem to dismiss the possibility. But, others may see things differently. Moreover, isn't the purpose of the discussion to go beyond interpretation and consider how it implies to our lives and times?