My Last Duchess (Complete Edition): Dramatic Lyrics from One of the Most Important Victorian Poets and Playwrights, Regarded as a Sage and ... Pied Piper of Hamelin, the Book and the Ring - Softcover

Browning, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8026891171 ISBN 13: 9788026891178

Publisher: e-artnow, 2018

Synopsis

My Last Duchess is a poem, frequently anthologised as an example of the dramatic monologue. It first appeared in 1842 in Browning's Dramatic Lyrics. The poem is written in 28 rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter. The poem is set during the late Italian Renaissance. The speaker (presumably the Duke of Ferrara) is giving the emissary of the family of his prospective new wife (presumably a third or fourth since Browning could have easily written 'second' but did not do so) a tour of the artworks in his home. He draws a curtain to reveal a painting of a woman, explaining that it is a portrait of his late wife; he invites his guest to sit and look at the painting. Robert Browning (1812 - 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, and in particular the dramatic monologue, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humor, social commentary, historical settings, and challenging vocabulary and syntax. The speakers in his poems are often musicians or painters whose work functions as a metaphor for poetry.

Edition details

• Publisher: e-artnow
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8026891171
• ISBN 13: 9788026891178
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96