A Formalist Approach to "My Last Duchess" by Rober
A Formalist Approach to "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning
Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” begins appropriately with a literary deception. The title suggests that the poem is about the Duke of Ferrara’s former wife. However, after second and later readings, it becomes apparent that the subtitle “Ferrara” truly depicts what the poem is really about, for we learn more about the Duke of Ferrara than we learn about the Duchess. As the Duke talks about the Duchess, he really reveals his own controlling characteristics. This irony is significant, because it sets up the paradoxical nature of the rest of the poem. “My Last Duchess” is based upon a series of ironic twists and deceptive appearances, which are supported by the poem’s form and literary devices.
The general form of “My Last Duchess” betrays the Duke’s true demeanor. The poem is a dramatic monologue, written in heroic couplets. In a dramatic monologue, “the speaker addresses a silent listener, revealing himself in the context of a dramatic situation at hand” (Bedford 97). In the case of “My Last Duchess,” the Duke is speaking to an envoy of a count whose daughter he is trying to wed; with his words, the Duke reveals himself to be a questionable and potentially dangerous match who is very controlling and yet out of control. This obsession is evident in the dramatic monologue’s use of heroic couplets. Heroic couplets should be rhymed and end-stopped. But in “My Last Duchess,” many of the lines feature enjambment, with the Duke’s controlling words pushing over the line as illustrated in lines two, three, five, and six. The enjambment is not pure coincidence; the enjambment exemplifies that the Duke is out of control.
The caesuras-breaks in the lines-seem to implicate that the Duke is struggling to make his point as he tells the envoy “She thanked men, --good; but thanked Somehow . . . I know not how . . . as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With
anybody’s gift.” (lines 31-34). Here the Duke is frantic about the idea that the Duchess is treating him in the same manner she treats ordinary men.
The repetition of certain words, such as Fra Pandolf and smile, suggest that the Duke has some sort of jealous fixation. The Duke does not mention Fra Pandolf to show admiration; he repeats the name...