poems - compare and contrast

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English Coursework

Compare and Contrast

In this piece of coursework Im going to be comparing the two poems, ‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning, with ‘Salome’ by Carol Ann Duffy.

Both poems are centred on heterosexual relationships which explore the links between sex, love, and death, yet show the concept of women’s rights in comparison to the men. Both poems are written in the first person, almost as monologues. Both reflect similar sentiments with regards their view and emotions to their relationships. Robert Browning writes from the perspective of a duke whose wife, the duchess, has in his view flirted or exploited her sexuality, ‘she liked what’er she looked on, and her looks went everywhere’. He presents as jealous and resentful that his wife was able to attract the attention of other men, he makes references of gifts they bought her, ‘the bough of cherries some officious fool broke in the orchard for her’, and that she responded to their attention, ‘all and each would draw from her alike the approving speech, or blush at least’. This implies that she had the capacity to attract attention and that the duke was jealous and resented her attentions to other men. Whereas in Salome Carol Ann Duffy reflects similar sentiments in a modern context. The poem is re-laid from a female perspective in an age where women are easier able to be more explicit with regards their sexuality and behaviour. In Salome the narrator implies that one night stands are common place, ‘woke up with a head on the pillow beside me, whose?’ Both poems move towards wishing their partners dead.

The story in My Last Duchess talks on the Duke of Ferrara. This was Alfonso II d’Este, November 22, 1533 – October 27, 1597. He was Duke of Ferrara from 1559 to his death in 1597. He married three times:

  • His first wife, Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici, was married to him in 1558. She died two years afterwards, and poising is suspected
  • 1565, he married again to second wife, Barbara of Austria.
  • And his third wife married in year 1579, Margherita Gonzaga, who was an elder sister of his second wife Barbara.

The poem, My Last Duchess written in 1845, is written about 200 years after the death of the Duke. The poem appears to be written in period between the death of his first wife and before the marrying of his second. As throughout the poem the Duke talks on the way his ex wife stands on the wall as a painting and has the story to tell of the life she had and the death she had. This story is being told to a servant of a Count who wishes his daughter marry the Duke, ‘the Count your master’s’ and on lines 52, ‘through his fair daughter’s self’. This is saying the Servant is there on a mission to marry the Counts daughter to the Duke. But the story on the Duke’s first wife is what he hears first. The Duke starts with what seems a problem in the servants mission, ‘that’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive’, this is a problem already as it talks in past tense, and now the servant possibly wants to know what happened. He goes on to talk as if she were still alive and there, talking in the present, ‘and there she stands.’ Still the Duke has not mentioned as to why she were a painting, as if he wanted her to be a painting and nothing more possibly. ‘the curtain I have drawn for you,’ this is saying that he keeps her behind a curtain and to himself, but could also be saying from the use of language that the drawing of a curtain is the curtain over a life which could suggest he killed as it comes from first person, the Duke himself.

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‘Sir, t’was not just her husband’s presence only, called the spot of joy into the Duchess’ cheek.’ The Duke now involving the presence of the servant from the notification of sir, but to then tell him a secret as if it were that he, as the Duchess’s was merely no more than just one of the other men she attracted. This line really only has that as a meaning. But then we get the sense of paranoia coming from the Duke, ‘perhaps’, the Duke has no evidence to what it is he’s trying to say, maybe from what he sees, ...

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