Robert Browning, a modern, experimental poet of the nineteenth century Victorian Age, presents the problems with mankind and morality and attempts to solve them through his dramatic monologues. He wrote about Victorian themes, where his characters explored problems of faith and morality and the role of the artist in the modern world. He used startling expressions, shocking his readers with the darker side of life. He was widely recognized for his ability to create such unusual characters that come alive and speak for themselves.
His dramatic monologue, My Last Duchess, incorporates these qualities and reveals his problems with social tyranny, predominately over women, by probing the psychology of an immoral and controlling duke through art and discussions of heritage. Typically in Victorian literature, writers express problems with the modern world coexisting with their longing to escape to the past. Browning escapes to the past in this dramatic monologue by depicting a scene from the fourteenth century. He subtitled his monologue Ferrara, which is a reference to Alfonso II (1533-1598), duke of Ferrara in Italy.
He was married to a young woman, Lucrezia, who mysteriously died after three years of marriage. Four years later, Alfonso began negotiating for a new wife with an agent, the Count of Tyrol. In Brownings rendition, he represents the duke as addressing this agent for a new wife. The title is a reference to a painting on the wall that the duke points out to the agent as he discusses his marriage to his last wife and her significant death. Browning illustrates through art the dire need for male domination over woman, which was common in Victorian society with their strict Puritanical codes of conduct.
The duchess vied with these codes of conduct She had / A hearttoo soon made glad, / Too easily impressed; she liked whateer / She looked on, and her looks went everywhere (1353). She did not live up to the duke or societys expectations. Her free spirit was contained within a tiny spot of joy upon her cheek, a permanent image contained within the portrait, an image that even paint cannot reproduce. She was a free-spirited woman who lived according to her own convictions; no man could eliminate her individuality and sense of self.
However, the duke put an end to her life because he found her joyous attitude and behavior offensive to his aristocratic pride: Whod stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech— (which I have not)—to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, —Een then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Wheneer I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. (1353). The duke was an art collector his love for art stems from his ability to control it. Many immoral men, such as the duke, exercised their power and domination, primarily over woman. He preserves his last duchess through a work of art, which he places a curtain over in order to conceal her sneering smile. He announces to the agent, none puts by / The curtain I have drawn for you, but I as he shows him the portrait (1352).
The opening and closing of the curtain symbolizes the dukes ability to control the duchess and whoever views the painting. The duke was unable to control the duchess when she was alive; therefore, he gains great pleasure in controlling the art that represents her image Looking as if she were alive (1352). He brings the agents attention to one final piece of art that he had specially made, a statue of Neptune taming a seahorse, because the duke is a tamer of women. Ironically, however, the portrait of the duchess is still considered a greater and more powerful form of art.
W. David Shaw states, Some of the best commentators of the poem believe that the Duke delivers his speech as a warning which he wants the envoy to convey to his future wife (536). This image of the powerful Neptune controlling the seahorse demonstrates the dukes desire for a dominating relationship between all women. When the duke requests that the agent walk downstairs with him he is essentially controlling the agent in a sense, denying him the ability to warn the new duchess of her future husbands controlling and evil nature.
There is an artistic contradiction being displayed, one form being superior and dominating over the other. The duke came from a respectable, well known family with a history that dated back centuries before this scene takes place. Being a descendent of this family, he had high expectations of his duchess, which was typical during the Italian Renaissance and the Victorian Age. He expected her to live up to the strict moral codes of conduct in order to maintain the respectable image of his nine-hundred-years old name, which he considered to be a gift for his duchess because her family name doesnt date back nearly as far (1353).
He would watch his wife as she would vie with his word and disgrace the family name; and he requested for her to change. Because of his need for total domination, her going against his word led him to kill her because he insisted that he was never to stoop to her level (1353). He is the master of the household, essentially a tyrant, and when someone disobeys him, they must be eliminated. The reader is left to question if it is possible that there were other women that suffered the same ill fate as his last duchess.
Were there other women, other paintings, like trophies? It is likely that this immoral, dominating, aristocratic man had killed others who violated his name in the past. Carol T. Christ and George A. Ford state that Browning separates the speaker from the poet in such a way that the reader must work through the words of the speaker to discover the meaning of the poetwe may also infer what the poet himself thinks of the speaker he has created (1345). We learn about the duke by what he says and how he says it. Through his words, we learn of his wife, the last duchess.
The reader is able to gain a sense of their relationship, what his expectations were, and how she had responded to those expectations. We learn a lot about the duke through his thoughts and emotions towards his last duchess. In addition, we gain a sense of what Brownings perspective is towards his character. It is clear that he is opposed to the dukes controlling nature due to his evil depiction of him. Browning is speaking out against social tyranny though his dramatic monologue, My Last Duchess. He reveals the evil, controlling nature within society through discussions of art and heritage.
Carol T. Christ and George A. Ford state, [Brownings] apparent optimism is consistently being tested by his bringing to light the evils of human nature. His gallery of villains-murderers, sadistic husbands, mean and petty manipulators-is an extraordinary one. Few writers, in fact, have been more aware of the existence of evil (1348). The duke believes he is telling the agent a story of his offended honor, when in fact, he is truly telling a story of self-absorbed debauchery. Although the duke eliminated the duchesss spirit, ironically, she is the one to have the last laugh.
Her portrait is considered a more powerful and effective art form than the Neptune taming of the seahorse. The duchesss smile is permanently frozen within the portrait, forever looking down upon the duke joyfully whenever he passes. Her openness and good nature disgusted him, leaving him to be eternally stooped to her level. Walter Bagehot states: This art works by contrast. It enables you to see, it makes you see, the perfect type by painting the opposite deviation. It shows you what ought to be by what ought not to be, when complete it reminds you of the perfect image, by showing you the distorted and imperfect image.
Of this art we possess in the present generation one prolific master. Mr. Browning is an artist by incongruity. (465) The great troubles of the modern age coexist with the longing to escape to the past, a past that we can never return to. Through the use of art and heritage Browning incorporates many Victorian themes, such as: the awareness of the past, present and future; emphasis on sexual morality; a sense of something lost; and the strict codes of conduct that women are expected to live up to.
