My Last Duchess Video

Video Transcript:

“My Last Duchess” is a poem written in 1842 by Robert Browning. Taking the form of a dramatic monologue, the poem is narrated by the Duke of Ferrara, who addresses the envoy of an Italian nobleman whose daughter the duke intends to marry. Loosely inspired by real events in Renaissance-era Italy, the poem is thought by some to be a critique of the way women were viewed as property in the Victorian era.

The poem opens on Duke Ferrara guiding the nobleman’s envoy down a hall in his estate. Theatrically, the duke pulls back a curtain and reveals a painting of his late wife, or “last duchess.”

The duke admires the way the painter, a monk called Fra Pandolf, captured the singularity of the duchess’ gaze. However, the duke admits to the envoy that his former wife’s passionate eye was not reserved solely for him. "She liked whate’er / she looked on,” he narrates, “and her looks went everywhere.”

The duke goes on to describe the objects of his duchess’ gaze, from “the dropping of the daylight in the West” to “the bough of cherries some officious fool / broke in the orchard for her.” Such sights, he notes, would make her blush with the same frequency as did the duke himself, an unforgivable sin in his eyes. Although he stops short of accusing the duchess of having an affair, he implies as much.

Outraged that his “nine-hundred-years-old name” was not enough for his wife, the duke tells the envoy he “gave commands” for the duchess to be killed. In doing so, the duke demonstrates his craven need to control everyone around him, a quality that Browning suggests is intrinsic to the European aristocracy.

Finishing his story, the duke suddenly implores the envoy to accompany him back to the count whose daughter he is set to marry. On their way, the duke directs the envoy’s attention to a bronze bust of the god Neptune, another piece in his collection. In doing so, the duke demonstrates the coldness of his attitude towards his last duchess. Immortalized in a painting, she has become yet another piece in the duke’s collection—a woman whose very passion for living meant her death.