My Last Duchess

My Last Dutchess

by Robert Browning (1842)

                     Dutchess Lucrezia (di Cosimo)

                

                                                                                                                   Alfonso II d'Este
                                                                                                     

                                                                                                

Robert browning's Poem is written about a Duke who is describing a painting of his first wife, or in his words, "my last Duchess."  The text book talked about how the poem was loosely based off of Alfonso II, duke of Ferrara.  He is pictured above, as is his first wife, Lucrezia.  Knowing what these two looked liked helped to picture the poem even more.

Alfonso II was about 25 years old when he married Lucrezia.  As I read the poem, I had an older man pictured originally.  However, the duke actually died at 64, so he was never that old.  He had been married three times.  his first wife was 14 when they married, and she died 2 years later.  It is rumored that it could have been from poisoning, but it could also have been tuberculosis.  He married his next wife 5 years later.  She was 24 and died when she was 33.  He married his third wife 5 years later and she was only 15 when they married.  He would have been 46.  There was not a huge age gap between him and his first wife...but there certainly was between himself and the third wife.

Back to the poem.  I found it intriguing that if you believe the duke had a hand in the death of the duchess, then this poem takes on a much darker aura.  I think that because the duchess is so young and vibrant, the duke feels like she is flirting with everyone and that is why he focuses on the blush of her cheeks.  He is talking about her cheeks to the stranger in a way that I feel he is seething.  He is talking about how he was not the only person who could make her blush, but other men as well, and it made him angry.  Line 13 begins his viewpoint as it reads, "Sir, 'twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess'cheek:"  Line 20 goes on to say, "Was courtesy she though, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy.  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."

I also believe that the duke knew the duchess did not love him, but she would never tell him such a thing, which seemed to be worse for him.  Knowing but not hearing it from her.  The poem says on line 43, "Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile?"  I think that he could tell that she was smiling at him to be polite, but with no love in her heart for him.

He then says, "I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together.  There she stands as if alive."  Going back to the true accounts, it is unclear if the duke could have had a hand in the death of the real duchess, but in the poem, it alludes to that fact that he did.  Somehow, he had a role in the death of the duchess.

At the end of the poem, the duke goes on as if he never cared for the duchess as his wife and that her image on the painting is just another piece of art to be discussed in casual conversation.  It is as if he slipped into deep thoughts that he realized he was saying aloud, and then tried to  move on as if he had not just been telling a story filled with his anger at how things turned out.




Mays, K.J.  (2013).  The Norton introduction to literature.  New York:  W.W. Norton & Co

Wikipedia.  Retrieved February 8, 2017 from                                                                                                     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_II_d'Este,_Duke_of_Ferrara