Mukhtar Azam 10.O
“Mad, bad or sad”
With reference to this question compare the narrators of any two poems by browning which you have studied, pay particular attention to the poetic techniques by which browning conveys his effects
Robert Browning was liberal and believed in freedom, he liked romantics and was inspired by them. He was influenced by poets such as Shelley and Byron. He was very religious and enjoyed theatre. He was forced to live abroad in Italy because his father-in-law wouldn’t accept the marriage. He was a poet during the Victorian era.
Personally I believe that Robert Browning shows aspects of being mad, bad and sad in all of his poems but I think he is more, mad than any of the others.
I am going to compare two poems, “My last duchess” and the "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"; both of them have their similarities and differences.
To start of with “My last duchess”, the Duke is the narrator of this poem, and tells us he is entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke's next marriage, because he has recently been widowed. He is in the process of marrying a daughter of another powerful family, so this shows us that the duke is a rather greedy person as he already has a lot of money. It also makes us think about what has happened to his last Duchess. As the duke is showing the visitor around his palace he comes across a painting, a very beautiful painting of a very beautiful woman, smiling. He says to the visitor that he never lets “Strangers” look at the picture, this means that only he himself looks at the picture, when he feels like it. This also shows that he has total control over the picture; he decides when the curtains open or closes. The duke then goes on to say that anything would put a “spot of joy” on the Duchess’ cheek, even a bough of cherries from some “officious fool”; this shows that the duke was rather jealous as well as mad. The Duke then carries on talking, and says his gift of “a nine-hundred-years-old name” is ranked the same as any other gift given to her and this makes him even more mad and begins to build up a tension. The duke wants to try to explain his problems to her, but this would mean that the Duke would have to stoop and the Duke is “Never to stoop”. Therefore the Duchess carries on smiling at people and this tension starts to build up further in the duke until he “gave commands” then all the “smiles stopped together”. The Duke then returns to the business at hand, which is to arrange his next marriage. As the Duke and the emissary walk they leave the painting behind, the Duke points out other notable pieces of art in his collection as well.
