My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
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- čas přidán 2. 12. 2013
- Dramatic presentation of the classic poem by Robert Browning.
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myselfthey turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my Lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
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.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace - all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, - good! but thanked
Somehow - I know not how - as 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? Even had you skill
In speech - (which I have not) - to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark" - and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then 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 your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
Performed by Ed Peed as the Duke. Douglas G. Griffin as the Guest. Produced for the myStanza.com media library. © by Farrellmedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
that actor 1000000000000% deserves a raise
Thankyou I love this. Look at the horror on the other mans face as it dawns on him what is being said
Thanks for viewing!
Wonderful! The actor/narrator portraying the duke resembles Browning in his later years.
Browning was my favorite poet in college... in the late 1960's.
Thank you for this :) I was preparing for tomrrows class and this just brings the poem to life!
Online school work be like
tell me about it man
Lamao
Beautiful dramatic recitation.
This is a really cool idea! Thanks for making this.
There is some debate as to the degree of the Duke's malevolence. Is he just a haughty aristocrat who sent his former wife to a nunnery over her flirtatious nature; a greedy, manipulative man anxious about securing a sizeable dowry from the father of his future wife? Or is he, as others see him, a psychopathic murderer with an insatiable lust for ownership of all that he desires -- an evil and pernicious narcissist?
It has been suggested by some analysts that the Duke must have killed the last Duchess because he twice remarks, "looking as if she were alive". Browning made it clear that it was his intention to have the Duke a murderer, and perhaps he'd have preferred we assume it so for the purposes of the poem. But whether one should be pressed to interpret the poem in the manner it was intended or elect to draw upon history's account of the story, is moot. It would still be reasonable to look at her portrait and comment on her lifelike appearance, were the artist considerably skilled, which we assume Pandolf must have been. Literature, like any art form, should be open to interpretation; one should be free to make one's own conclusions. In the end, the beholder's eye is paramount. Whatever your perspective, "My Last Duchess" certainly has many elements to it which may be construed in various ways. That is why it is such a clever, insightful poem. It is a poem that keeps giving -- the more you read and study it, the more questions arise. This is the hallmark of truly great poetry.
Accordingly, anyone has a right to interpret words and phrases in the poem in the manner he or she chooses. Our universe is complex, and science shows us that uncertainties and anomalies are an integral part of its fabric. Each of us is unique in perspective, a factor crucial in our survival and progression as a heterogeneous species. So it is essential that we are not confined in our thinking to rigid evaluation frameworks; an educational system that plies a think-as-I-think model and fosters the notion of an irrefutable academia aids in the demise of our most valuable assets: imagination and intuition.
Some claim that the poem is not about the Duke of Ferrara. While it may be apposite in regard to the shaping of an academic study of the poem to not invoke the real Duke, the fact is that Browning was indeed inspired by this very story. In its original publication, the poem was entitled "I. Italy," the companion piece to "II. France" under the general title "Italy and France." "My Last Duchess" (which states the setting as "Ferrara" after the title), is a byproduct of Browning's research for "Sordello", during which he read about Alfonso II d'Este, the fifth Duke of Ferrara and patron of the writer Tasso.
Staying "inside the poem" is sometimes advised, but who can say for sure what Browning's intentions were or precisely where the seed lay in some of his references? Was he being deliberately ambiguous? Was he leaving room for uncertainty to provoke debate? Did he himself have doubts, as all writers do, about some of the deeper inferences of his words and the ways in which they might be understood. The human mind is mercurial; both writer and reader are capable of ambivalence .
Some interpret the "never read strangers like you that pictured countenance...but to myself they turned" line as proof that the Duke had made many other proposals of dowry from a multiplicity of prospective wives; but this is pure speculation. Though we may assume there were others, especially if one chooses to draw upon history's account of Alfonso, the line more likely suggests the Duke's propensity to gloat, at any opportunity and with anyone, over his new-found ability to control his former wife's expression and behaviour.
Many see the Duke as a pretentious name-dropper, and that appears to be the case, particularly when he mentions the sculptor -- Claus of Innsbruck -- who cast Neptune taming a seahorse in bronze for him The Duke ensures that the emissary is made well aware of the name in an attempt to further elevate his stature by association. However, earlier in the poem he says "I said Fra Pandolf by design". He stresses "Fra" Pandolf for a different reason: not to name-drop but to make a point of the Duchess's flirtations with the likes of anyone. Fra Pandolf is, we suspect, a very good painter, but he is also a monk, and monks are supposedly celibate. The Duke infers a belief that a virtuous woman would not allow herself to blush in the presence of a man of religion. It's clear that he thinks this is an indication of sexual arousal.
Browning uses double-entendre and innuendo quite liberally: "spot of joy", "white mule" and "bough of cherries", suggestive of the Duke's claims of infidelity or, at least, immorality on the part of the Duchess. "Such stuff was courtesy, she thought," he says, "and cause enough for calling up that spot of joy," alluding to his suspicions that the Duchess's take on Fra Pandolf's requests during the painting were misinterpreted. He thinks that she would have taken the painter's comments -- whatever they may have been because the Duke was obviously not present during the sitting (he says, "PERHAPS Fra Pandolf chanced to say") -- as flattery, whereas, as far as the Duke is concerned, the painter would have had nothing other than the most professional of intentions in mind.
In a sense, the Duke is trying to ease his conscience, if he has one at all, by telling the emissary about his former wife's indiscretions. He makes her out to be a floozy who could flush with excitement over anything and anyone. At the same time, he gloats over his position and his ability to dispose of her at his whim, sending an unmistakable warning to the emissary (whose job it is to act as a conduit between the two parties) that the next Duchess should behave in accordance with the snobbish requirements of peerage as well as the expectations of a husband prone to jealousy. She should expect neither guidance nor tuition in the matter following the marriage; the Duke has plainly disclosed that he chooses "never to stoop."
Browning's intention, it is thought, was to satirise the superciliousness of the elite and, in particular, the attitudes towards women of men of position during his time. He has done an excellent job of that. Furthermore, he has given us insight into the intricacies of power and possession, the subtleties of desire and denial, and the ambiguities of passion and paranoia. This poem is an intriguing psychological study, and the complexities of the human mind validate the position that there is no such animal as a definitive analysis of anything. To claim otherwise is plain arrogance.
Footnote: Susanne Langer's "Philosophy in a New Key" discusses two forms of symbolism, the discursive and presentational. The excerpt below highlights their differences and gives insight into the disparity of opinion that abounds in poetry analysis, the general lack of consensus between rational modes of interpretation and more intuitive methods.
Quote: "Discursive symbolism is temporal, requiring time to communicate itself through a linear progression of words, controlled by logical, syntactic relations and limited by word denotations. Scientific uses of language are discursive; the words themselves should be transparent, pointing to a precise meaning. There should be no sense of their sound, other possible uses, what they look like on the page, etc.
Presentational symbolism is spatial, requiring no time to be grasped as a whole and not subject to the constraints of logic or extrinsic structures. A painting is a good example of presentational symbolism. While language is by nature discursive, all literary uses of language pull toward more presentational forms of symbolic transformation, and poetry is the most directly presentational use of language. Poetry calls attention to the words themselves-their sounds, the rhythms they create, their look and arrangement on the page, their connotations and "emotional baggage," their previous uses in other contexts.
In this way, poetry undermines the discursive nature of its medium, language. In fact, a poem demands re-reading, so that individual sections can be understood in the light of an awareness of the whole piece. However, poetry is never purely presentational; its richness and ability to convey both rational and intuitive meanings simultaneously stem from the tension between the discursive and presentational modes. A poem never has a single, definitive meaning, so the key question to ask is not what but rather how a poem means. For this reason, a poem can never be completely translated into another language but must be read in its original form to be fully understood and appreciated."
Jon Goldney Robert Browning confirmed in an interview that the Duke did kill his wife so whilst the rest of your points are interesting it can't really correctly be interpreted as otherwise
+Matt Wikipedia: "In an interview Browning said 'I meant that the commands were that she should be put to death or he might have had her shut up in a convent.'" So you are quite wrong, Browning was ambivalent in that regard. Poetry by its very nature is mysterious. So unless you have a link to the interview of which you speak (not some blog with a personal viewpoint), wherein Browning confirms what you say, I suggest you take it up with Wikipedia to have the record changed to suit you.
Jon Goldney Fair enough- I am studying it for GCSE and was told there was an interview where the wife was said to have been killed. Guess they just neglected to mention the other possibility 😂. Though I must ask is Wikipedia your only source because, as many know, it may not entirely be accurate and whilst often getting the main facts does have slight errors?
Matt Wikipedia at its inception was granted the rights to use the information within several of the world's major encyclopaedia. Since then contributions from the general public have been accepted but these must pass several tests as to their authenticity. As far as I know this quotation by Browning concerning the Duchess' fate is the only one in existence. Poets and writers are often loath to explain their intentions in detail, as it only serves to spoil the intrigue and reduce the piece's lustre. Mystique is the poet's pigment and the reader's mind his canvas. The unknowable and indecipherable are written into the fabric of all great art -- that is what makes it great. Best of luck... Jon
Jon Goldney Thanks for clearing it up though I must admit reading the poem with the idea of her just being in a nunnery is quite disappointing now. The Duke suddenly seems far less sinister and paranoid and instead just a jealous, childish and pitiful aristocrat who can't stop his emotion and therefore feels the need to blurt out his feelings to the envoy.
Just wow!
Fantastic. To the person below wondering if she went to a nunnery...the phrase "as if alive" would suggest not...
Thank you for this - terrific dramatization.
You're very welcome
Wowww!!!!!
He's one of the few who does a decent job. I stood before my English college class and bombed. My professor said please please, don't do my favorite poem. I didn't listen.
Good for you for trying! Professors should never try and discourage what their students would like to try.
The poem demanded acting but still it is delimitization of this great peace of art
amazing actor
thanks for helping me not read :) appreciate it!
As an english language and literature students from Adnan Menderes University, thank you!
You're welcome!
Thank you for helping . It is really useful for my literature exams. Love from Turkiye.
Glad it was helpful!
Great interpretations by the actors.
How on earth does he remember all the lines or maybe it's because there're cuts in the video.
Rehersal.
I know them all
practice
Thanks a lot ❤️❤️❤️
You're welcome 😊
quote from Robert Browning” Broken arcs here and perfect round in heaven “ … please let me know
Is the other guy the old guy who Kevin is scared of in Home Alone lmao
Brex I thought the same
Haha
Massager character is a very good 👍 and 😅😮😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
Nice one
We just have to watch it as homework XD
Same
@@Littlestalker6539 same
Schoolwork
@@Flame1611 I'm surprised anyone replied tbh
same here
I swear , the poem was set in Italy in the 15th century that’s what my teacher said
if you had to be PRECISE, my friend, he wouldn't be speaking in English to start with
@@futurefighter2008 well even then poem is in English
Harjyot Singh hum... you probably didn't understand what i meant. it's ok.
pog
THE DUKE WAS HIGH ON WEED
I thought the duke was 25
Like Margaret Atwood in her short story, my question is: why on earth would the Duke tell the emissary of his intended wife's family what he did with the last one, and why?
POWER
@@robinstrickler2302 Well I dunno - Ferrara's not really the one with the power here. He wants the dowry with his next duchess, so he's got to persuade the emissary - that's why he suddenly remembers to put in the bit about 'his fair daughter's self ... is my object'.
Perhaps because the duke is deliberately intimidating the emissary to get a higher dowry in exchange for the bride.
I don't think he meant to. You can see his moment of realisation in the video. I think he was trying to self justify and went off without realising what he was saying.
He's nuts.
0:20
hay as dayka robert o hnde eke we bgem o as xoshka sayday ma jik bgem wake ava day ma hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
no
K
Was the duke really this old? I mean why does he need to marry then?
For dowry my friend
For status and power
this cant be English