With Special Contributes to "My Last Duchess" [1847]

Browning heavily influenced poetic society for all time. He invented the dramatic monologue, a poem with a speaker and an implied auditor where there is a gap between what the speaker says and what he actually reveals (Landow 1). He also created the silent listener technique, where the implied listener in the poem never speaks. He mastered and left behind poetic devices, such as irony, that modern poets of today still use. In the poem "My Last Duchess," Robert Browning makes use of dramatic monologue, silent listener techniques, and irony to reveal one mans hypocrisy. All of these devices made Browning the poet that society will long remember.

Robert Browning was one of the most recognized and respected poets of his time. The Victorian period that he lived in and his upbringing made him the dramatic and intelligent poet that he was. His most famous types of poetry were his lyrical and romantic poems. Browning influenced poetic society with his dramatic monologues, long poems, and silent listener techniques. He can be compared to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson, other literary figures of the time.

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

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,

rett 1), comes across as being very controlling, especially in conversation. For example, he seems jealous that he was not able to monopolize his former duchess' smile for himself. This is where his hypocrisy comes into play. The Duke claims that he is not a good speaker. This is just a ploy to throw the reader off track. In all actuality, the duke is a very good speaker, but is nervous of the conversation in which he has partaken. He also seems to direct the actions of the person he is addressing with comments such as "Will't please you rise?" (Line 47) and "Nay, we'll go / Together down, sir" (Lines 53-54). The dramatic monologue is purposeful in the poem by leaving the reader in a state of confusion because only one side of the story gets to be heard.

Loving, Pierre. The Selected Poems of Robert Browning. New York: Walter J.

Half-flush that dies along her throat"; such stuff

Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said

nd Easter Day which represented his serious approaches on issues such as religion and others which he had incorporated into his fiction. As the years progressed Browning sharpened his skills and direction (Everett 22). Browning can be compared equally paralleled to one female and one male poet of the Victorian age, his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

MSN. com. March 6, 2001 Available: http://www.brown.edu/vic.web/r.b./in/html

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

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Approximate Word count = 2274
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)