Robert Browning

My Last Duchess

I have to say I liked this poem very much. There is defiantly something very dark about this poem. After reading it several times and thinking about it I see this poem as a kind of admittance on the Dukes part. The first thing he admits about his wife is she liked to flirt. Starting on line 20 he wrote:

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart-how shall I say?-too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

The line that she was easily impressed and that her looks went everywhere seem to me to say she liked talking and flirting with lots of people. I think that her behavior caused him great pain or embarrassment because the second thing I think he admits is that he was the one who killed his wife. The book told that she dies early in the marriage of possible poisoning. The stanza that makes me believe this opinion starts on line 45:

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Than all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count you master’s known munificence

The passage that all smiles stopped together is what makes me think that he was responsible for her death. All in all I think this is a very deep and personal poem. The Duke in the poem is telling of something very personal about his relationship with his first wife, I wonder what was going on in Browning’s life to make him reach such a level.