Lesson Plans

Assignment to have been completed: Students should have read “My Last Duchess” p. 768 and completed the handout asking questions about that poem.

Objectives:

Activities:

• A. Respond to “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning on p. 770.

  • 1. Vocabulary

    • officious (27): eager to render services or help others
    • munificence (49): liberal generosity

  • 2. To whom is the Duke speaking? What is the occasion? Are the Duke’s remarks about his last Duchess a digression, or do they have some relation to the business at hand?

    The Duke is speaking to an envoy from the Count whose daughter the Duke plans to marry.

    The Duke and the Count’s emissary have just concluded negotiations over the terms of the marriage and dowry that the Duke expects to receive with his bride. [You might tell the students that a duke of Ferrara was a supremely powerful figure, equal in status to a king.]

    On their way to join the company of guests and courtiers in the assembly hall below, they pass a portrait of the Duke’s former Duchess, and the Duke pauses to display it for the emissary, engaging him now in what seems purely social talk.

  • 3. Characterize the Duke as fully as you can. How does your characterization differ from the Duke’s opinion of himself? What kind of irony is this?

    The Duke is characterized, first, by pride - pride of birth and station He is a duke - let no one forget it! - and one with a “nine-hundred-year-old name”! His dissatisfaction with the former wife (but he refers to her always as his “Duchess”) is that she forgot it. Instead of being lofty and reserved like himself, saving her smile only for him, thus enhancing the eminence of his station, she treated social inferiors as equals, blushed when they complimented her, was too visibly pleased when they did her favors. She did not comport herself like a duchess! And why didn’t he try to correct her? Because to have done so would have been to “stoop.” Even if she had accepted his tutelage without making excuses or arguing back (the ultimate humiliation) - “E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose/Never to stoop.” A proud purchaser doesn’t haggle over defects in the merchandise; he simply sends it back and demands replacement.

    Second, the Duke is cruel. Were it not for the “stooping.” the Duke would not hesitate to tell his wife “this . . . in you disgusts me.” But since he wouldn’t stoop, he “gave commands’/Then all smiles stopped together.” What were the commands? 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. But probably they were to have the Duchess put to death. In the opening lines, “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,/Looking as if she were alive,” the subjunctive mood implies that she is no longer living - a suggestion repeated in line 47.

    Third, the Duke is a connoisseur of art. The Duke is a patron and collector of art. He speaks appreciatively of the merits of Fra Pandolf’s painting and keeps a protective curtain in front of it, which he allows no one but himself to draw. 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”). Part of the value of his Neptune taming a sea-horse is that it is “thought a rarity,” and that Claus of Innsbruck cast it in bronze “for me!”

    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 Cont. Primary evidence of he Duke’s shrewdness is his skill in speech. His disclaimer of such sill (35-36) is par of the evidence for it, and should remind the reader of a similar disclaimer by Shakespeare’s Mark Antony in his oration on Caesar, which serves a similar purpose. It is a rhetorical trick, designed to throw the listener off his guard. The Duke’s momentary gropings after words (21-23, 31-32) by no means support this disclaimer, for the words he eventually comes up with are exactly the right words and the hesitation ins his speech only serves to give them added emphasis.

  • 4. Why was the Duke dissatisfied with his last Duchess? Was it sexual jealousy? What opinion do you get of the Duchess’s personality, and how does it differ from the Duke’s opinion?

    His dissatisfaction with the former wife (but he refers to her always as his “Duchess”) is not sexual jealousy but that she forgot his station.

    The Duke paints her as being frivolous, trivial, too free in manner, “too soon made glad.” The reader’s reaction to her, however, is controlled by the genuine pleasure she takes in compliments; by her graciousness to all, regardless of station; and especially by the simple things she takes delight in: the beauty of a sunset, a gift of a bough of cherries, a ride round the terrace on a white mule. Her response to these indicates a warm, sensitive nature that takes joy in natural things rather than in gauds and baubles or the pomp of position and power that attract the Duke.

  • 5. What characteristics of the Italian Renaissance appear in the poem (marriage customs, social classes, art)? What is the Duke’s attitude toward art? Is it insincere?

    Browning reveals the pride and arrogance of the aristocracy, its system of arranged marriages, its enthusiasm for art and artists as characteristics of the Italian Renaissance.

    Third, the Duke is a connoisseur of art. There is no need to believe that his live of art is not genuine: love of art can coexist comfortably with egotism and cruelty in some natures; and this was a time of great enthusiasm for art and artists.

  • 6. What happened to the Duchess? Should Browning have told us?

    Since the Duke wouldn’t stoop, he “gave commands’/Then all smiles stopped together.” Browning doesn’t tell us the commands, and doesn’t need to, for the very tone in which the words are uttered sufficiently underlines the Duke’s cruelty and arrogance. But probably they were to have the Duchess put to death. In the opening lines, “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,/Looking as if she were alive,” the subjunctive mood implies that she is no longer living - a suggestion repeated in line 47.

Assignment for next class meeting: Read Chapter Eight, “Allusion,” pp. 772-775. Read “Miniver Cheevy,” pp. 778-779 and write out answers to questions 2, 3, and 5 that follow the poem.