How to Write About Poetry

• 1. Who is the speaker? What kind of person is the speaker?

  The speaker is a Renaissance era Duke. He is characterized, first, by pride - pride of birth and station. He is dissatisfied with the former wife because she forgot his pride. He never corrected her because to have done so would have been to “stoop.”

  Second, the Duke is cruel. Browning doesn’t tell us, and doesn’t need to, for the very tone in which the words are uttered sufficiently underlines the Duke’s cruelty and arrogance.

  Third, the Duke is a connoisseur of art. Nevertheless, his love of art in not pure; it too reflects his pride. He is proud of having commissioned work from painters and sculptors of such eminence as Fra Pandolf and Claus of Innsbruck, and he carefully drops their names into his conversation (“I said/’Fra Pandolf’ by design”).

  Finally, the Duke is shrewd. He knows what he wants, and he knows how to get it. While apparently simply making pleasant conversation about the shortcomings of his former Duchess, he is indirectly informing the envoy what he expects in his new Duchess, knowing that he envoy will report it back to the Count.

• 2. Is there an identifiable audience for the speaker? What can we know about it (her, him, or them)?

  The audience is a negotiator sent by the Count to arrange a marriage between his daughter and the Duke. We know very little about him.

• 3. What is the occasion?

  The brokering of a marriage

• 4. What is the setting in time (hour, season, century, and so on)?

  Ferrara in Italy, an upper room or corridor in the Duke’s palace

• 5. What is the setting place (indoors or out, city or country, land or sea, region, nation, hemisphere)?

  The Italian Renaissance, probably mid-sixteenth century

• 6. What is the central purpose of the poem?

  To clarify for the negotiator the Duke’s expectations in a wife

• 7. State the central idea of theme of the poem in a sentence.

• 8. What is the tone of the poem? How is it achieved?

  The tone is ironic and is sustained by the tension between the Duke’s purpose in his negotiations with the Count’s servant and the obvious arrogance and cruelty the reader detects in his story of his last Duchess.

• 9.

  • a. Outline the poem so as to show its structure and development, or

  • b. Summarize the events of the poem.

    Lines 1-4 The Duke introduces the painting of his previous wife and establishes that she is dead.

    Lines 5-13 The Duke draws attention to the passionate look in the Duchess’s eyes.

    Lines 13-31 The Duke offers a catalogue of details that elicited cheerful gratitude and appreciation in the Duchess’s expression.

    Lines 31-42 The Duke explains his disgust for her egalitarian agreeability and goes on to explain that he would not stoop to point out a fault she should have recognized in herself – her lack of appreciation for his station.

    Lines 42-47 The Duke reiterates his displeasure and indirectly indicates that he ordered the Duchess’s death and returns to her portrait.

    Lines 47-53 The Duke re-directs his listener’s attention to the negotiation at hand, even mentioning that the Count cannot refuse any dowry request.

    Lines 53-55 The Duke’s final comments draw attention again to his egotistical interest in art.

• 10. Paraphrase the poem. (Word process this part – or type it into your palm pilot.)

• 11. Discuss the diction of the poem. Point out words that are particularly well chosen and explain why.

  officious (27): eager to render services or help others

  munificence (49): liberal generosity

• 12. Discuss the imagery of the poem. What kinds of imagery are used? Is there a structure of imagery?

  Imagery does not dominate this poem. Even the visual images of the Duchess, of her portrait, and of another work of art are generalized and subservient to the irony that pervades the Duke’s monologue.

• 13. Point out examples of metaphor, simile, personification, and metonymy, and explain their appropriateness.

  “there she stands” (4) The painting becomes a metonymy for the Duchess.

  Heart” (22) “Heart” is a metonymy for attitude, emotions, et al.

  “I gave commands” (45) An understatement for the order to execute her

• 14. Point out and explain any symbols. If the poem is allegorical, explain the allegory.

  The poem offers neither symbol nor allegory.

• 15. Point out and explain examples of paradox, overstatement, understatement, and irony. What is their function?

  The poem is a masterpiece of dramatic irony, a dramatic irony that is manifested chiefly in the whole tone of the poem rather than in any specific passages. The Duke speaks all the words. He seeks to give a favorable impression of himself (and no doubt succeeds with the envoy, who belongs to his world and has not our advantage of perceiving the Duke through the lens of art) and an unfavorable impression of his last Duchess. What Browning conveys to the reader is exactly the opposite.