Poetry Response- "My Last Duchess"

Anna Cantwell
Mrs. Jernigan
AP English Lit
8 February 2011
My Last Duchess
Through a little research, I discovered that Robert Browning’s intended speaker in his poem “My Last Duchess” is the Duke of Ferrara. This Duke addresses a duchess, presumably pictured in a portrait on the wall. While he initially looked upon her with countenance, now he gazes on her in wonder. He seems to appreciate this work of a so-called Fra Pandolf , a fictional painter. The 28 couplets of rhymed iambic pentameter provide a regular fluency that almost lulls the reader into a sense of trust for the entirety of the poem. Browning establishes ethos for the Duke by citing references to the Duchess from her portrait painter Fra Pandolf.
About a third of the way through the poem, the Duke switches gears—he begins analyzing Fra Pandolf. He dubs her “too easily impressed,” even though it sounds like it might be a little too difficult for the Duke to be impressed. Browning employs rhetorical questions and parenthetical asides to assert the Duke’s pompous pride. Additionally, Browning heightened diction creates an air of elevated rank. The Duke declares, “I choose to never stoop”; this is the point where the Duke loses any shred of the reader’s pity.
At this point Browning once again alters the focus and reverses back to the Duchess on the wall. The Duke beckons her from the paint and addresses her so firmly, calling her “[his] object”. He finishes the poem with a reference to Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, who tames a sea-horse, and the Duke reckons that he can tame this Duchess too, just as Fra Pandolf captured her in paint and Claus of Innsbruck cast in a sculpture. At the heart of it, this poem speaks to the unbridled human spirit in a time when all had to be kept under wraps, tightly wound, and stuffed away.