Use the criteria for "good poetry" set forth by E. B. Browning in Aurora Leigh to analyze "My Last Duchess."

Robert Browning wrote “My Last Duchess” in the early part
of the Victorian Era in history. His topics placed him in a category by himself since
his wrote about sexuality, murder, psychological abnormalities, and psychopaths.  Much
of poetry had as a side interest love and beauty.

His wife
Elizabeth Barrett wrote in early poetry the poem “Aurora Leigh.” Part of this poem was
devoted to what makes a poem good.  Two of her main tenets were that the poet writes the
poem for himself, and the poem should be read and interacted with an
audience.

Since Browning wrote in a time period that had at
its heart austere and chaste principles, he must have written his poetry for his own
pleasure. Deciding that it was important to him to write about the topics that he chose
gives the reader pause when it is known that his topics were controversial. In this
poem, the speaker of the poem is a psychopathic murderer who killed his wife because she
was too happy, smiled too much, and was not selective enough in her means of thanking
her husband for his gifts.

This poem would be a considered
a classic today.  Since it was written almost 180 years ago and is still being read
today, obviously it has been read by many lovers of poetry. Browning’s poems were
especially popular in the twentieth century and even now in the twenty-first century
because of their topics, psychological insight, and harsh language.  The raw power of
Browning’s poetry are valued versus the “flowery” Romantic
poems.

“My Last Duchess” was based on an actual historical
event.  A duke, Alfonso II of Ferrara, was married to one of the Medici women, a young
girl Lucrezia.  The Medici family was one of the most powerful and wealthy in Italy and
probably Europe.  She married the duke at the age of fourteen and by seventeen she was
dead.  She died of suspicious circumstances in 1561.  After her death, the duke Alfonso
eventually married another young woman of nobility.  Nothing was done to question or
punish the duke for Lucrezia’s death.  

The poem is a
dramatic monologue with the duke himself as the speaker. It is written in rhyming
couplets. 

The duke has a private gallery.  He brings a
servant to show him the picture of his last duchess.  He spends most of the poem
pointing out how she failed as a wife and duchess.  Deploring the fact that she did not
appreciate his giving her a title from his important family, this apparently was the
last straw and doomed her existence; however, he never actually admits his guilt of
murder.

 if
she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s
gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of
trifling?

The reader learns
that the man  the duke brought up to see the portrait is an emissary of a rich man who
has another beautiful daughter that he wants to marry.  As the duke leaves the gallery,
he points out another beautiful statue that he says was made especially for him.  It is
obvious that the duke is a megalomaniac who is satisfied only by complete
adoration.