The Last Part of "My Last Duchess"
The last part of this play produces a series of shocks that outstrip each time our understanding of the duke, and keep us panting after revelation with no opportunity to consolidate our impression of him for moral judgment.
for it is at this point that we learn to whom he has been talking; and he goes to talk about dowry, even allowing himself to murmur the hypocritical assurance that the new bride's self and not the dowry is of course his object.
It seems to me that one side of the duke's nature is here stretched as far as it will go; the dazzling figure threatens to decline into paltriness admitting moral judgment, when browning retrieves it with two brilliant strokes.
First, there is the lordly waiving of rank's privilege as the duke and the envoy are about to proceed downstairs and then there is the perfect all-revealing gesture of the last two and a half lines when the duke stops to show off yet another object in his collection.
The last ten lines bring all the parts of the poem into final combination, with just the relative values that constitute the poem's meaning.
the nobleman does not hurry on his way to business, the connoisseur cannot resist showing off yet another precious object, the possessive egoist counts up his possessions even as he moves toward the acquirement of a new possession, a well-dowered bride; and most important, the last duchess is seen in final perspective.
She takes her place as one of a line of objects in an art collection; her sad story becomes the cicerone's anecdote lending piquancy to the portrait.
The duke has taken from her what he wants, her beauty, and thrown the life away; and we watch with awe as he proceeds to take what he wants from the envoy and by implication from the new duchess.
He carries all before him by sheer force of will not so deflected by ordinary compunctions as even, I think, to call into question - the question rushes into place behind the starting illumination of the last lines, and lingers as the poem's haunting after note - the duke's sanity.
for it is at this point that we learn to whom he has been talking; and he goes to talk about dowry, even allowing himself to murmur the hypocritical assurance that the new bride's self and not the dowry is of course his object.
It seems to me that one side of the duke's nature is here stretched as far as it will go; the dazzling figure threatens to decline into paltriness admitting moral judgment, when browning retrieves it with two brilliant strokes.
First, there is the lordly waiving of rank's privilege as the duke and the envoy are about to proceed downstairs and then there is the perfect all-revealing gesture of the last two and a half lines when the duke stops to show off yet another object in his collection.
The last ten lines bring all the parts of the poem into final combination, with just the relative values that constitute the poem's meaning.
the nobleman does not hurry on his way to business, the connoisseur cannot resist showing off yet another precious object, the possessive egoist counts up his possessions even as he moves toward the acquirement of a new possession, a well-dowered bride; and most important, the last duchess is seen in final perspective.
She takes her place as one of a line of objects in an art collection; her sad story becomes the cicerone's anecdote lending piquancy to the portrait.
The duke has taken from her what he wants, her beauty, and thrown the life away; and we watch with awe as he proceeds to take what he wants from the envoy and by implication from the new duchess.
He carries all before him by sheer force of will not so deflected by ordinary compunctions as even, I think, to call into question - the question rushes into place behind the starting illumination of the last lines, and lingers as the poem's haunting after note - the duke's sanity.
