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Relationships: power, control and love gone cold
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These poems show relationships that have failed, been poisoned by control, or simply faded.
My Last Duchess (Robert Browning, 1842)
A dramatic monologue spoken by the Duke of Ferrara, showing a painting of his late wife: "That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, / Looking as if she were alive."
He resented that she smiled at everyone and valued his "nine-hundred-years-old name" no more than other gifts. Chillingly, he says "I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together."
Rhyming couplets with heavy enjambment hide the rhyme, as the Duke hides his true nature.
He resented that she smiled at everyone and valued his "nine-hundred-years-old name" no more than other gifts. Chillingly, he says "I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together."
Rhyming couplets with heavy enjambment hide the rhyme, as the Duke hides his true nature.
Neutral Tones (Thomas Hardy)
The speaker remembers a couple at a pond on a winter day when their love ended: "the sun was white, as though chidden of God".
Images of death fill the poem: "The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing / Alive enough to have strength to die".
The poem is cyclical: the last stanza returns to the pond, showing the memory still haunts him.
Images of death fill the poem: "The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing / Alive enough to have strength to die".
The poem is cyclical: the last stanza returns to the pond, showing the memory still haunts him.
A Complaint (Wordsworth, 1807)
The speaker laments that a friend's love has changed. Once that love was "A fountain at my fond heart's door"; now it is "A comfortless and hidden well".
The extended water imagery shows love drying up and becoming distant.
The extended water imagery shows love drying up and becoming distant.
How does Browning reveal the Duke's character through form?
- It is a dramatic monologue, so only the Duke speaks.
- His words reveal more than he intends: jealousy and a hint that he had his wife killed.
- The controlled couplets reflect his desire for control.
Answer: Through a dramatic monologue that lets the Duke expose his own jealousy and cruelty without realising it.
My Last Duchess: dramatic monologue, control, jealousy. Neutral Tones: dead love, bleak winter imagery, cyclical structure. A Complaint: love that has dried up, water imagery.
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