1. Robert Browning (1812-89)

2. Father loved art and literature; Mother pursued music and nature Browning started reading by age five Wrote first poem by age six Read from his father's rare book collection, aquired a broad range of different literatures Married Elizabeth Barret, a famous poet His Life

3.  Taking fancy to Renaissance Italy  Dramatic monologues  “Telling the story from the inside” His poetry: dramatic monologues

4. Dramatic monologue in poetry, also known as a persona poem, shares many characteristics with a theatrical monologue: an audience is implied; there is no dialogue; and the poet speaks through an assumed voice—a character, a fictional identity, or a persona Dramatic monologue: a type of poems in which a character, at some critical moment,addresses an identifiable but silent audience, thereby unwittingly revealing his or her real personality. His poetry: dramatic monologues

5.  A jealous tyrant Duke shows to the match-maker a picture of his late wife drawn by a monk artist, which caught her smile that brought about her death. My Last Duchess

6. . Character analysis:  The duke  cruel, despotic,jealous, hypocritical, selfish, arrow- minded;  The duchess  gentle, kind, beautiful, noble-minded,democratic;  The agent  clever, silver-tongued,eloquent.  My Last Duchess

7.  Discrepancy between the duke’s opinion and the reader’s opinon of himself and of his late wife:  In his own opion, he is powerful, noble, benevolent,but he is despotic and cruel.  He thought his late wife was frivolous,but the reader knows that she was noble-minde and the duke is selfish and jealous. My Last Duchess

8.  Form of the poem  1.dramatic monologue: a type of poems in which a character, at some critical moment,addresses an identifiable but silent audience, thereby unwittingly revealing his or her real personality. My Last Duchess

9.  Form of the poem  2.This poem is in something like heroic couplet as far as the meter and rhyme scheme is concerned. My Last Duchess