In the poem features of speech are used to betray the Duke’s state of mind.
“ A heart -- how shall I say?-- too soon made glad,”
“Somehow-- I know not how-- as if she ranked…”
The hyphens show the Duke’s pauses in his speech, this indicates that the Duke is nervous. Other poetic techniques such as rhyming couplets are used.
“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.”
This is an example of rhyming couplets, using this technique makes the poem have a constant rhythm and it therefore flows better, or it would if enjambment wasn’t used as it is here. Enjambment is where instead of pausing at the end of a line you pause at the end of the sentence so the poem makes sense. This also makes the poem feel more like a story or a monologue than a poem, this is the reason Browning uses it; it is the style that he is trying to achieve. The rhyme scheme is different to that of “My Last Duchess”, instead of rhyming couplets AABB it is ABAB, this gives breaks up the rhythm of the poem a bit more and as it is used in conjunction with the enjambment it adds to the monologue effect.
“Will’t please you sit and loo at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,”
In this quotation you can see that if you stop at the end of a line it doesn’t make sense but if you read each sentence it does make sense, and it sounds like a story more than a poem.
The Duke thinks himself better than the village people because he was born into a high status family, whereas the Duchess sees herself as an equal with both peasants and the higher class. We can see this because in the poem the Duke tells the emissary.
“as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift.”
This quotation shows that he thinks they are better than the villagers, whom his wife talked so freely to, because of his surname. The Duchess is nicer and friendlier than the Duke is and she can express herself easily. She likes to talk with the townspeople but the Duke disapproves of this, this is the reason he had her killed. She loved every thing and was easily pleased.
“She had
A heart-- how shall I say?-- too soon made glad ,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
This quotation shows that the Duchess loved everything she saw and was made happy by everything. The Duke felt jealous of the townspeople because he could not make her smile as much as they could.
“Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile?”
From this quotation it is obvious that the Duke is jealous, he says to the emissary that, yes she smiled at him when he went by, but she smiled at everyone else too. This made the Duke feel that he was nothing special.
The Duke is looking for another wife, someone pretty who would not be as open to showing her emotions. This shows that the Duke is very shallow and only had his last wife as someone to put on him arm, as another one of his possessions. Browning shows his readers the extremity of his views by the Duke blatantly telling the emissary to ask the Count for his daughter’s hand in marriage. He doesn’t want someone to love he wants someone else on his arm, preferably the Count’s daughter.
“The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting is my object.”
This quotation shows that the Count will let the Duke marry his daughter even though the Count may be well aware of the circumstances in which the Duke’s last wife had the misfortune to be in.
In the poem I think that the point at which the poet makes it clear that the speaker is mad is when the Duke tells the Emissary that he keeps the Duchess’s picture behind a curtain.
“(since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)”
The duke tells the emissary that the picture of the Duchess is kept behind a curtain, which no one can open apart from the Duke. A sane being wouldn’t keep his beautiful wife’s picture hidden, from this we can therefore conclude that the duke is deranged.
In the poem “Porphyria’s Lover” the characters are fictional unlike in “My last Duchess” where the characters are based on real people. The use of dramatic monologue is similar to that in “My Last Duchess”. We can tell this because it is the male out of the relationship talking and in both cases they are not perfectly sane. Poetic techniques are used in the same way as in “My Last Duchess” and enjambment is also used similarly.
“And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me.”
As you can see, enjambment is used here as it is in the last poem.
The speaker has a good attitude towards Porphyria, this is shown most by how the writer portrays her. When the speaker describes her, he makes her sound extremely beautiful. Beauty is often associated with innocence and purity as Ugliness is with evil and danger. When Porphyria enters a room the mood is instantly lifted and brightened this is reflected by when she enters the cottage.
“She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;”
Porphyria enters the cottage and the first thing that happens is that she immediately makes the fire burn brightly so it warms the cottage. Warmth is associated with happiness. The quotation shows Porphyria’s personality reflected in her actions. Although if you read into the subtext you can now see that the speaker is jealous of her – he wants her to leave her husband to be with him. She cannot do this for reasons, which are not mentioned, but they must be important because otherwise she would have left her husband. It may have been because it was disrespectful to get divorced in Victorian times and a woman could not divorce her husband, as she was his possession. The lovers reasoning for killing Porphyria is that if she would not be with him, she would be with no one. He killed her at the perfect moment, when they were both looking at each other and both were thinking of each other – he mentions that he could see worship in her eyes, implying that he thought she idolised him. She had become his possession in his eyes, and to make that last forever he decided to kill her that instant.
“…at last I knew,
Porphyria worshipped me:”
This is the quotation where he explains he can see her worship for him. Once she is dead he feels guilty and tries to convince himself hat at least she didn’t feel any pain.
“I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.”
The point in this poem where we realise the speaker is mad is when he tells us that he has lay there all night with her head on his shoulder.
“And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!”
This quotation shows two points. The first that the speaker is mad as he has sat there all night with the dead woman’s head on his shoulder and he has not moved. This is obviously strange behaviour. The second point links with the first, he has killed his lover and doesn’t feel as if he has done anything wrong because he thinks God would have punished him by now if he had. Putting these two points together we can and therefore conclude that the speaker is mad.
The speakers in the poems are both similar in the fact that they both had their lovers killed and felt no remorse. They were also obsessed with possessions, the Duke more so. They are different because Porphyria’s lover murdered her himself and felt a twang of guilt which quickly passed as he convinced himself she was peaceful. Both are affected by attitudes to women as Porphyria could not leave her husband for her lover because she would be disrespected, and the Duke was affected because he only saw his wife a possession not a real person.
In these two poems I think Browning was trying to show his readers how badly women were treated and looked upon. I think he was trying to help women get more respect and display all the things that they couldn’t do because they were the property of the men. I also think he was trying to show that looks can be deceiving; never judge a book by its cover, the duke and lover seemed to be sane but when you study them a bit closer you see the pages of the book inside.
Yasmine Jandu 11JR
