My Last Duchess

Question 1

What poems can you link to My Last Duchess?

Answer 1

• Ozymandias - Arrogance and legacy
• Checking Out Me History - Control of history
• London - Power imbalance and oppression
• The Emigree - Possession and idealisation
• War Photographer - Detachment and control of image

Question 2

What is the form of My Last Duchess?

Answer 2

Dramatic monologue
- Presenting the duke as powerful

Question 3

How does the writer use structure to present the duke as powerful and controlling?

Answer 3

• Iambic pentameter
• Rhyming couplets - reflects the tight control of the duke

Question 4

The personal pronoun ‘my’ that is repeated throughout the poem

Answer 4

Suggests that the duke is self obsessed and he believes that his wife belongs to him
He sees the duchess as an object he owns

Question 5

Terms of address ‘You’ and ‘sir’

Answer 5

Present the duke as powerful, because they might seem polite for a modern reader, but they are not
They clarify the superiority over the envoy

Question 6

Questions the duke ask to the envoy
‘Will’t please you sit and look at her?’
‘Will’t please you rise?’

Answer 6

They are not questions, they are demands.
The duke frames his demands as questions, this is a social superior

Question 7

Metaphor
‘Notice Neptunes, though,/ taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,/Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me’

Answer 7

Neptune was the king of the sea,
best known as this big, strong, barrel-chested, masculine, domineering God.
- A metaphor for the duke itself and what he feels his role is over women, to domineer and control.

• ‘My Last Duchess’ was published in the Victorian era
• In the Victorian era when a woman married she became the legal property of her husband
• The wife’s role was seen as the angel of the house, who existed to serve and entertain her husband
• This poem can be read as a criticism of victorian attitudes to women
• The Duke’s obsession with fixing the behavior of his wife links to victorian society obsession with the reputation of women

Question 8

Enjambment

Answer 8

Reflects that the duke doesn’t actually have complete control
- He is quite uncontrolled and wild in his anger
- He can’t even control himself - Enjambment - blurting out of emotion

Question 9

One long stanza

Answer 9

Reflects on how the duke doesn’t stop
- suggesting a lack of power and control