My Last Duchess by Robert Browning - Essay Example

First, three high school students, two men and one woman, should be asked to volunteer to come to the front of the classroom. The woman is instructed that she is a painting and asked to stand calmly as if for a portrait session. The first man is instructed to play the role of a proud duke and read the poem to the second man, who is to remain silent. After the poem has been read, point out that in a dramatic monologue, one person's voice is heard and there are no other voices heard in the poem.

Also ask the class how they think the woman feels as only a painting, and object being talked about. Ask them if how they think the Duke felt about his wife. Ask them if the Duke is telling the whole story. As the students are seated, instruct them to take notes and then go through the poem once more to explain the context and details to those who don't understand what the poem is about. Describe dramatic monologue as a form. The dramatic monologue was a form invented and used principally by Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Rossetti, and other Victorians.

A dramatic monologue has a speaker and an listener who is implied. The second thing is that the speaker takes a case-making, argumentative stance while the listener is completely silent. The third thing about a dramatic monologue is there is a discrepancy between what the speaker of the poem says and what the reader understands. (Curry, 1908). Use the phrase "read between the lines" for the students to understand this element. Demonstrate through example of lines 45-46, when the Duke gives commands for her death, that he is not the benevolent, patient husband he implies to his listener, which means his wife may have not been the problem-it may have been his own jealousy and controlling nature that was the problem.

Next, discuss the historical data behind the poem. According to Louis, S. Friedland, who published an article on the poem in 1936, we know that Browning found the following story and that is why he wrote "Ferrara" right at the beginning of the poem. Browning was fascinated with the Renaissance period and visited Italy in 1838. He came across a biography about Alfonso II, the fifth duke of Ferrara. The historical events are thus: a young 14-year-old daughter of the Medici merchant princes was married to Alfonso.

He left her three days after the wedding and was gone for two years. She died when she was barely 17 years old, and there was suspicion surrounding the event. Four years later, Alfonso began negotiating for a new wife with a Count. Then, tell a little about Browning and his critics. Robert Browning was a major 19th century poet who eloped with and married Elizabeth Barrett Browning, also a famous poet. They lived together in Italy until her death in 1861, which is why many Italian themes appear in his works.

They are famous as a couple for their love for each other, which is memorialized in their poetry and letters to each other during their lifetimes. His style is "dramatically active, image-packed and explosive. It is filled with unusual words, colloquial speech rhymes, compressed phrasing and obscure references." (Rosenthal, 1987). Browning's contemporaries were also very critical of his monologues, saying that it was impossible to understand them. His dramatic monologues, ironically,