Monologues in Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess

The Choice of Dramatic Monologue

“My Last Duchess”

“My Last Duchess”, is a poem written by Robert Browning, with an amazingly creepy tone. Robert Browning is best known for his dramatic monologue, and the poem “My Last Duchess”, is one. Even the title is one example more that leads to the answer that tells us that this poem is a monologue with the pronoun “my”.

Dramatic monologue is a speech performed by one of the characters in the poem. Even though the point of the whole poem is mostly on the speaker it focuses really on the tone and on the subject that is talked throughout poem.

The reason why Browning chose to use dramatic monologue in this poem is mostly for the way of narration of the poem. The poem begins in the middle and that makes it even more dramatic for the rest of the poem. The speaker of the poem is the Duke of Ferrara talking about his dead duchess’ portrait.

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It is all more dramatic because the utterance is made only of single speaker, and at the same time it is an expression of the speakers and authors thoughts. The poem is made that there can be only one speaker and every reader of the poem is actually the one who listens and must keep quiet. The style and the structure of the whole poem plays a huge role in the poem that actually effects the poem. Browning uses a rhyme scheme AA BB, which is very common in the ballad genre of poems.

Death and mystery of the poem all make the poem even more intriguing for the reader. This dramatic monologue is used mostly to present the real feelings of the speaker, and the society of the Victorian times, and to present the real effect it all had on female gender. The choice of dramatic monologue Browning used is to make an ignorant kind of characterization that is portrayed in the voice of the speaker. It all makes it more realistic and all the feelings of the speaker come to the top and actually makes it all more worth it for the reader to feel certain emotions towards some particular characters in the poem. The dramatic monologue developed by Browning can display itself in a more of a tone of cynicism actually by the author himself even though not being mentioned in the poem at all. Browning can be portrayed only a medium that serves to translate the words into a speech full of drama and emotions. The speaker is continuously just dismissing the language and uses it as a personal safety, and with that the speaker makes the dramatic tone of the poem even more persuasive for the reader to be alerted that the speaker might be furious and wants everyone to be submissive to him.

To sum it up, Browning’s monologue is a form of poetic writing where the dramatic properties actually define a situation in the poem. To portray the feelings of the speaker and connect them to the readers way of seeing things only as the speaker of the poem wants it to. The choice of monologue of “My Last Duchess”, shaped the words of the poem to fit the authors way of thinking.