Power Behind the Portrait: Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’

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Maiya: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+. I'm Maiya. And I'm here with my co-host, Joe today to talk about a wonderful, wonderful poem called My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. Now, this poem has some teeth. I think it's such a great one to get into.

And today we're gonna be talking all about methods of control, the illusion of power and psychological portraits, which is something Browning does exceptionally well. Now, Joe, can you tell us a little bit about Browning before we get really into the plot of this poem.

Joe:  Yeah, I'd love to. So, Robert Browning was born in London in 1812 and he died in 1889. So his life spans much of the 19th century. Obviously he, we broadly consider him to be a Victorian poet 'cause the majority of his career took place during the reign of Queen Victoria, although it does slightly predate it as well as.

he had an enormous early [00:01:00] success in the 1830s and then had a bit of a fallow period where his poetry was criticized, sort of in the late 1830s, early 1840s. And then he publishes 1842 dramatic lyrics from which this poem appears . at My Last Duchess 1846. He marries, Elizabeth Barrett who changes her name to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, making this the first time on the podcast that we have discussed a husband and wife duo 'cause of course, a previous episode of Asked.

Looked at one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems, and I strongly suggest you guys go and check that one out. It was a really beautiful episode, actually, a really lovely episode about a love poem. I wish I could say the same for this one, but as we're going to discuss this is pretty, pretty far removed from that.

so they moved to Italy in 1846 because her father did not approve of the marriage and instantly Italy is gonna come up in this poem as well, although this was written before they made that move. He's now regarded as one of the great Victorian poets, very much alongside the likes of Tennyson. And his reputation has only increased in the many, many years since his death.

So, Maiya, zooming in on my last Duchess, can you give us a kind of a brief plot summary, because it's a little bit confusing at times to work out where we [00:02:00] are and what's going on. So who are the key figures in this poem?

Maiya: For sure. So I think I'm gonna have to refer to my notebook for this. . As Joe said, this is a little bit of a complex story to follow. We are introduced to a Duke figure and an unknown figure who he is touring around his grounds, around his house. And actually what's fascinating about this poem is it's based on a real story, I say a real story. It's based on real people.

So we are talking about Alfonso II, the fifth Duke of Ferrara, and his wife Lucrezia de’ Medici. Now, they were married in 1558 and unfortunately his wife passed in 1561. However, she was suspected to have been poisoned. By 1564, he was on the marriage market again, this time being considered for the holy Roman emperor's daughter. So we are talking about really three years on a very, very quick turnaround. And of course we come to learn that through the process of this story, as he takes this unknown figure around his house, he introduces [00:03:00] him to a curtained portrait. And behind this curtain is a portrait of his late. Wife now it comes to pass that he may or may not have had a hand in her death. And this is a poem that explores that possibility and really kind of his mask of, sanity of power and control slipping away a little bit.

Now we have a lot to say on this poem, and obviously there are different interpretations here, so I'm very excited to get into this. But Joe, where do you want to start with this poem? 

Joe: Well, as is so often the case, I think I'd like to start with the title and as Maiya mentioned, there is a lot of ground to cover here, so buckle up in terms of the title. My Last Duchess, the thing I think that jumps out to me straight away is the use of the possessive pronoun. My, we're gonna talk a lot about power in this poem.

Initially and when you gloss over the poem, a loss of that power is going to be concentrated in the hands of the Duke. And I'm not denying that's the case. Of course, is the one who seemingly has the power of life and death. He is seemingly, existing having potentially murdered his wife as a [00:04:00] free man without consequence.

So he's acting with impunity. Obviously. He has a lot of power. I think Browning is doing a lot more interesting things with, the portrayal of power in this poem. It's not as simple as that. He is powerful and everyone else's powerless will come to that later on.

But initially, of course, we have her referred to only by her relationship to him. She was not a Duchess before she married him. The marriage is what gives her that title. We don't have a name for her. We only have her existing as an orbit of his power. And I think that's a really important place to start.

Obviously the use of the word last is crucial. my only Duchess, this is simply my most recent one. And who knows, she might not even be that soon if I get my way and I am able to marry again. So there's a lot going on in that title. Maiya is there anything you wanna jump in that title or do you wanna move us into the poem itself?

Maiya: I would actually add that focus on last as well is really interesting because of course as we get to the end of this poem, we don't know whether he's successful in this marriage or not. So in actual fact, with the admission that he makes later in the poem, it may well be his [00:05:00] last Duchess. He may never actually reenter the marriage market because he may, via admission of his own, be kind of putting himself in a, bit of a tricky position. So this last Duchess may very well be his last, not just a last in terms of a passing on, so as you say, let's jump straight into the poem. I think it's really important to explore the kind of opening of this poem because it really does help to set the scene for the story we're about to explore. So Browning opens with this, that's my last Duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive. I call that piece a wonder. Now Fra Pandolf hands worked busily a day and there she stands. Will you please sit and look at her? I said, Fra Pandolf by design for never read strangers like you that pictured countenance the depth and passion of its earnest glance. Now, Joe, let's get straight in thoughts about this opening.

Joe: Thanks Maiya. I think I'd actually like to start with the meter and the rhyme scheme of this poem [00:06:00] because I think there's something quite interesting going on here. Obviously the poem is a dramatic monologue, and what that means is, that a single speaker is speaking, for the entirety of the poem to a perceived audience.

Now, of course, there is a real audience in this poem, which is this negotiator on behalf, of his potential next bride. But of course, we, the reader, are that perceived imagined audience. We have a psychological insight into this guy's perception of the world. We see the world through his eyes and crucially with his language and his language as we will explore, is.

Suspect to say the least at times. And he's not always, the most subtle or perhaps he is exactly as subtle as he intends. Again, we shall come to that, but I want to start with the meter in the rhyme scheme because this poem is written, in 28 rhyming couplets, all written in iambic pentameter. And this has become known as heroic couplets.

And the reason it's become known that way is because a lot of the early English translations of, for example, the Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey, were translated in this way. this form of writing is imbued with some of kind of the gravitas of those texts. And again, those texts are called Epic for several reasons, but one [00:07:00] of the reasons is the kind of grand nature of the stories they tell the kind of cosmic intergalactic at times.

You know, we have characters know stories who go to heaven and go to hell and, overcome great beasts and et cetera, et cetera. It's important to remember that the Duke is the one telling this story. So his decision to speak in this way is perhaps a sense in which he is looking to elevate himself to be viewed alongside those great heroic figures.

A Odysseus Achilles for example. And I think there's a real irony there. 'cause as we're going to explore, this is not a heroic figure. This is a figure who in many ways is pretty despicable. And I think this is what Browning is doing really cleverly. This is a character whose power is undermined by the poem rather than emboldened by it.

But, do you have any thoughts on that, Maiya? Or do you want to go into the language of those early lines?

Maiya: No, I absolutely have a few things to say on this. I think what's really important to flag is where we start this poem immediately, we are being told a story. As you say, we kind of begin to take on the [00:08:00] figure of that unknown second person. We become the person that the Duke is speaking to. However, we don't begin this poem with a knock at the door, a welcome, a, please come into my home here. Can I give you a drink? You don't have this sense of kindness or welcoming nature. Immediately you are placed into a situation in which you are being told something.

You are there to listen. Even the question, will you please sit and look at her is so incredibly direct. And I love the idea that Browning has already told us everything we need to know about the Duke and his manner towards other people without even giving us a chance to be physically introduced to him.

We are just taking all of this from the things that he's saying and the way in which we start the poem. And I think that's really important because it immediately sets the scene for our understanding of how the Duke carries himself, not just through this poem, but through life. He's someone that believes his story, his monologue, his way of life is the [00:09:00] only option that we have. I love the way that Browning has done this because I think it's really, really important to note that it's very easy to make a first impression, but it's very, very hard to lose it. , So, our first impression of this character is ultimately a negative one.

It doesn't matter how the poem continues, and it does continue to get more and more suspicious as we go through, but you immediately have that intention that has been set by Browning, and I think it's such a great way to start. What is really a kind of innocent discussion. He's talking about a painter and the painting that he did of his late wife. Immediately you would assume that there would be some love there. This is his wife that he's lost. He should be sad. He should be mourning her. And yet what he's focusing on is the name of the artist and the work that they did. So his value is placed on something entirely different from what we would expect. But what do you think? 

Joe: I think that was a brilliant summary. I think that was really interesting, and I'm so glad you mentioned the questions as well. 'cause this is one of five [00:10:00] questions that the Duke asks at some point in this poem. The very nature of the fact this poem is a dramatic monologue, means that we never hear responses, okay?

And what that does is it serves to elevate the Duke's power. He asks questions and He has no need to wait for a response because ultimately his questions are not real questions. They are directions, they are commands, and that word commands is gonna be important later on in a completely different context.

But when a person has power to command you to do something, framing that command as a question is a way of flexing that power because it's the illusion of choice. When he says, we'll please you sit and look at her. There is no sense in which the, the listener is allowed to say no. So why not simply tell them, sit down.

Maybe it's feigned politeness. I think it's something a lot more sinister. I think it's somebody who's getting a kick outta their own power, are getting a kind of a, strange satisfaction. They draw from the illusion that they're giving somebody choice, even though both parties are aware of the falsity of that choice.

The absence of a real choice. And this is something we're gonna talk about later on as well. This poem is [00:11:00] such an interesting psychological study of a figure, and Browning is famous for these dramatic monologues. Another famous example would be Porphyria's Lover, in which we have a very similar sinister kind of what I think we would in the modern world look at as something psychologically diagnosable.

This is not something that was common pre 1840s. This notion of really entering the psyche and entering the mind of, these characters, especially characters who are unstable or who are perhaps suffering from some personality disorder. Again, I'm not a psychologist, but I think that would be a reasonable bet is something that we take for granted.

In the modern world. We are very kind of familiar with art, whether it's books or films that really delve into kind of the troubled mind. I mean, where this poem sits alongside something like American Psycho, I think would be a really interesting conversation to look into the mind of somebody who is at least willing to consider murder, perhaps even do it is something that Browning is quite ahead of his time on in many ways.

Maiya: Absolutely. I think that's a really great point and it's interesting to me that you talk about the kind of [00:12:00] illusion of power here because nowhere is it more evident than in this opening.

The only part of this poem that isn't part of the dramatic monologue, it is in brackets. It's almost an addition. It's still coming from the Duke's voice, but it's a slight step aside from the more composed features we see in this opening since none puts by the curtain. I have drawn for you, but I, this is the Duke explicitly telling his visitor that he is in absolute control of every single thing that happens in this house in including the fact. That his late wife's portrait is more often than not covered with a curtain. There is a separation that he's hiding something. However, when he wants to reveal it, he is the only person that can do so. Strangers cannot take that steps. There are people that come in and out of the house. You know, we're working on the assumption that he probably has people who are serving him.

He has staff in the house, but it is so blatantly obvious that this is a show of [00:13:00] power. He's saying that you should be grateful that I have chosen to show you this beautiful painting of my late wife, but if you wanted to see it on a normal day, you couldn't. I have the executive decision here, and I think that illusion of power that you mentioned is really critical here because it's the first time we see the masks start to slip.

That's not an illusion at this point. That is a direct comment, and I love the fact that we have this very quick switch from something that is. Relatively polite, if not a little bit uncomfortable to suddenly a very over admission that he knows he's the one with the power in this room. 

Joe: Uh, definitely and I think just it's worth for the benefit of listeners who aren't familiar with the poemexploring a little bit about why there is this curtain. Because as we're gonna go on to explore whether or not the Duke did, arrange for his wife to be killed. And I think it's pretty strong indications that he did.

But even in this, you know, unlikely possibility that he didn't, he certainly wasn't happy with her behavior, particularly along the lines of jealousy. This notion that [00:14:00] she was perhaps too forthcoming with her affections and he's very upset with the fact that, as we see later on that. It wasn't that necessarily she wasn't kind of grateful to him for his gifts and for the lavish kind of titles and wealth that he bestowed upon her.

It was the fact that she didn't regard them as much better than the compliments of some other person. So this character of Fra Pandolf the artist, is a very instant one because there is certainly a bit of an insinuation that the Duke feels as though there was a flirtation between Fra Pandol and his wife.

Now again, so important for us to remember that we have no idea if that's true. We are looking at these events through the retrospective eyes of a jealous ex-partner who perhaps is kind of psychologically unstable. We cannot trust that account at all. We don't know whether. There was flirtation.

We don't know whether there was an affair. We know nothing. What we do know is that the Duke is obsessed with the idea that there was, and you are absolutely right to highlight the curtain as an example of the Duke's power. I mean, he controls who sees not only her in a [00:15:00] way that he couldn't control when she was alive.

She did see other people. She saw the artist. She would've seen servants. As Maiya mentioned, he couldn't control it. Then he can control it now. And in many ways, that is the ultimate expression of his, authority. He controls the very memory of her. However, and this is where I think Browning is beginning to undermine, rather to embolden the Duke's power.

Why does he feel the need to control, who sees the smile and the face and the attractive features of a painting? Because I think the painting is able to inspire the same feelings of jealousy and rage in him that the living figure of his ex-wife did when she was alive. And again, I'm not suggesting in any way that we should be trying to measure up these forms of power.

Obviously he's more powerful than his deceased wife. I'm sure that the power to inspire anger in him is not a power that she was grateful to have. That doesn't mean she didn't have it. Her ability to make him . angry or jealous has a kind of emotive power in itself, and that power has persisted beyond her death.

The painting of her that he [00:16:00] points out very, very on is looking as though it were alive again. There is kind of a real compliment being paid a to how beautiful she must have been and how vital she must have been, but also to the artist's skill. The idea that the artist is able to kind of almost resurrect the figure of this, deceased wife and that resurrection still has the power to anger.

The Duke. So there is so many layers of power being unpicked here You have the very obvious masculine patriarchal power that we associate with the Duke. His title gives him power. His wealth gives him power, his gender gives him power. Then we have something a lot more subtle going on. There is a kind of power that the Duchess had, probably one she would rather not have had to inspire anger in him.

And then we have perhaps the form of power browning as an artist himself is most interested in, which is the power held by the artist to shape perception, to create something that lasts beyond, mortal life. And I think as we see, as the poem develops and this, there's more things to say about this.

Browning, I think, is over the course of this poem, undermining the power of the [00:17:00] Duke in order to build up the power of the artists and the role played by the artists in society. But what do you think about that, Maiya?

Maiya: I agree. You know, and it's interesting that you talk about power that other people have in this poem because one of the things that's always really stood out to me is the power that you as the listener also have. Of course, in the true story of this, the person that visited the Duke's house was the person that was judging whether he would be a good match for this future wife.

And I find it really interesting that we start to see this kind of slippage where. Instead of talking about, you know, if you're trying to impress the person who's choosing whether you are going to marry this future wife of yours, you would be talking about how much you loved your ex-partner, how much you miss them, how much of a lovely person they were, how they inspired you.

You know, there's so many things that you could say to make yourself on reflection, seem like the right match. But here instead we see a very quick descent into exactly what you said, anger. I mean, you have that line ’twas [00:18:00] not her husband's presence only called that spot of joy into the duchess's cheek. the tone of it, you don't even have to get into the later parts of the poem. You don't have to read all of it to understand that immediately you are bringing in. This tension and that tension is something again, that I think undermines the Duke's power because he's so controlled by his own anger.

He's so overwhelmed by the feelings of anger that he has towards his late wife that it's actually spilling out into a moment in which he should be trying to impress or at least be polite to this stranger that's in his home. And I love the idea that Browning is playing with that sense of power by giving the Duke the monologue, by giving the Duke the power. He also gives him way too much room, in my opinion, to make mistakes. If you are the only one talking. something will probably come out

that you didn't Intend.

to say because you are looking to fill the silence.

There is no comfort in [00:19:00] this poem. They're not standing side by side and observing a painting and taking what they want from it. The Duke is being very explicit and saying, this is exactly what happened. That smile, I don't think was caused by me. That smile was her potentially cheating on me, flirting with someone else.

As Joe said, we don't know if that's true, but the jealousy that he puts onto that image is something that you then cannot take away from it. You are being explicitly told that this is how you should view art. As we know, art is absolutely subjective. You take what you want from it. It's about your circumstances and your environment at the time and how you've been brought up as to how you react to an image, and yet. Seemingly, the Duke thinks he has the power to shape that art, to shape that interpretation. And we know that that isn't true. We know as people who consume art, who consume poetry, that you can take what you want from a poem, and ultimately if someone disagrees with you, that's because they have a different experience.

so I just [00:20:00] think It's absolutely fantastic the way that Browning is already playing with power, as you say, power of the artist, power of the late wife, power of this kind of slightly unknown second figure. I think it's such an excellent way to explore the Duke as someone who is not only demonstrating his own power, but also breaking it down little by little. 

Joe: I think 100%. And your mention of making mistakes I think really strikes upon one of the key questions in this poem, which I've always asked, and I think there are clues as it develops, but is this somebody. Emotional, jealous, angry, who at the very sight of the image of his ex-wife, all of those feelings bubble to the surface and he loses composure and he makes mistakes and he admits more than he intends.

Or is this a character so confident in his own untouchability, in his own power that he can afford to say these things that he doesn't need to be cautious? And my view as we'll explore later on at the kind of point of near [00:21:00] admission is that it's the former that Browning is showing us how somebody is losing their cool, rather than somebody who simply has no fear of consequence, albeit.

It's likely that he's going to avoid consequence altogether. And of course, as we've said already, Browning is able to play with these questions of power without suggesting that the power structures established early in the poem are not real. It is still possible for Browning to suggest that this Duke is not as powerful as he would like to believe himself to be, without suggesting that that means the police are gonna come round and arrest him.

There is still an awareness throughout the poem that we are existing in, a patriarchal framework, a framework in which the rich and powerful are able to often avoid consequence for their crimes. I.

Maiya: I think not only the rich and powerful here, but also his position as a man, as modern readers is a little bit unsettling. I think in any case, to hear about a partner who has potentially murdered their late wife. But it's not only that, but the things he's saying to this, Companion are actually very, very [00:22:00] damning. And yet we are talking about a poem that was based on a story that happened in the 15 hundreds. It was completely acceptable at that stage to say, I would argue now horrendous things that wouldn't have been taken any further. So power in that sense has also changed. Our interpretation of the poem has changed , and in a way, I think Browning has done a fantastic job of making this poem age because it gets worse with time.

Obviously women now have the right to divorce. They have the right to make their own decisions. In this case, he is saying that she was too soon made glad. That in itself is arguably at the time, a small complaint. Compared to all of the other things he could have said. Yes, she had power to anger him, but in the grand scheme of being a woman at the time, her power was so severely limited that even this tiny, tiny breach of what he considers to be trust was absolutely monumental for her to smile. She's being policed for such a tiny blush, something that is actually an uncontrollable [00:23:00] bodily reaction to, you know, feeling pleased by, flowers or someone flirting with you. It's a really, really subtle way of browning to really kind of flip the script here and say, she wasn't just being policed for being, ostentatious or spending too much money, or, even disagreeing with the things that he was saying.

The only thing we know about her is that she smiled too often, and that smile has been immortalized forever.

Joe: I'm really glad you pointed out the idea of how much has changed. But one thing that hasn't changed, and you know, there are many striking modern reminds of this, is how fascinated we are as a society with these kind of crimes, with violence. murder within a relationship. you know, the murder ballads tradition, comes right up to the modern day.

think about, I mean, I was reading just the other day about the Tom Jones song, Delilah, which is a, you know, a very popular song, albeit a controversial one about somebody who violently murders their partner. the rise of true crime is a huge genre across multiple mediums. We are, as a society, as obsessed with [00:24:00] people who murder their partners as we have ever been.

I, I wonder where do you think that comes from? how do we attribute that to something, but also what is Browning doing with those questions? How is he subverting the kind of traditional idea of a crime of passion, for example, and how is he reinforcing it?

Maiya: Oh, that's such a good question. And I know that before the podcast we were talking about, modern interpretations of this poem. And I said that for anyone who has ever watched the Netflix series, you, he's very much, the Duke and this poem, the original Joe Goldberg. And I think it's really interesting that we see so much of his in-depth personality.

He's the only one talking. The dramatic monologue, I think is how Browning really subverts that trope because of course we are not hearing about this from a second party. We're not hearing a factual account of there was a Duke, he had a wife, he poisoned her, she passed away. He is getting remarried. We are in the throes, I suppose, of working through that story. And I find that it's a [00:25:00] really quite a clever way, I guess, from Browning to. Create that uncertainty, because of course we don't know that he did absolutely murder his wife. But there are suggestions of it. But he also never faces any consequence for that because the poem ends before we get that resolution.

So the poem is being created to challenge you, I suppose, in a lot of ways, or to make you question the truth of it, to make you find those little threads. And as you say, we're obsessed with murder mystery. We're a society that absolutely feeds off of true crime podcasts.

It's fascinating that this is kind of one of the times in a Browning poem that we are seeing this absolute immersion, and I think immersion is the key word because you are so sucked in to the Duke's analysis of what is happening that you actually do have to take a step back at points and think, okay, how am I taking this kind of objectively, I'm being told so much.

And it's, a classic case. If you are consistently told as a wife that you are smiling too much, it starts to become true because you are being [00:26:00] abused in the way that you are made to view yourself. In the same way, if you're constantly told that you are not talented, you're not skillful enough, the doubt starts to creep into your mind.

So I think that's what the Duke is doing here. I think the Duke. And the way that Browning has written him is he's trying to insert his power by doing that. He's trying to tell you, but he's failing to do so. He's failing to convince you that this is the true story because you are still set apart, and I think that is so subversive in itself. 

Joe: I couldn't agree more, and I think. It's so interesting in which this poem, which as we mentioned, is 1842. You know, it's relatively speaking quite an old poem. In other comparisons, it's quite a modern poem, but in terms of what I'm about to say, it feels really old, which is that this poem seems to kind of preempt something about our modern age.

And obviously, the very fact that the figure is a Duke means he is a public figure. He is a figure that is known within a community broader than his own. And there's something about our modern preoccupation with celebrity that we're obsessed with the private lives of public people.

And there is [00:27:00] something about browning tapping into that, you know, looking behind the curtain to Butcher a pun from the poem itself. That's kind of what's going on here. We are looking beyond the public projection of a person into who is this person behind closed doors. So on the one hand, that feels strikingly modern because of course that's what we want to do with celebrity all the time.

We're obsessed with the scoop or you know, the, the tell all story about some celebrity marriage or some other relationship. tied to that, you have this issue of true crime and of murders, of passion, of murder, ballads, et cetera. And again, I think there is something we're particularly obsessed with this notion of partners, people who either in reality or at least in the way they project the world, have a loving relationship, how that love spills into violence.

And I think. Why are we more interested in those acts of violence than we are other acts of violence? I think there's something about the way we over obsessed with passion in society. we regard crimes of passion as more interesting perhaps than, than crimes that are more clinical.

I'm not sure why that is, but I think something about the innermost world of a person is shared with their partner, the innermost secrets, [00:28:00] the innermost, preoccupations, the innermost and most guarded secrets about a person. And we are obsessed, I think, with the notion that nobody really knows who somebody is based on the way they act outside the home or even in the communal spaces in the home.

To really know who a person is, you have to go into their most private space, which, in many cases is a bedroom or kind of, yeah, somewhere where they sleep and somewhere where they make love, et cetera. And the only person who has access to that version. Of the person is their partner. And I think there is a broader societal fear about what people are capable of, especially people who have a public projection.

We as a society, especially in the modern world, where we feel closer to these people than ever, are obsessed with peeling back the layers of who they really are and are perhaps concerned that at the core of them there is a monster somewhere. And the way in which Browning is able to preempt what I think are quite modern preoccupations around celebrity and around, the public and the private personas of people in 1842 is such a remarkable thing about this poem.

I remain really blown away by it when I reread [00:29:00] it.

Maiya: Absolutely agreed. I mean, I find this poem so dense in the way that it explores these themes. And I guess I have a question for you, Jo, which is, you know, one of the themes that kind of crops up quite a lot here is jealousy. And as you were saying, jealousy is a very intimate emotion. It's something that you really only share with your partner. It's not necessarily something that crops up as much in a friendship or in a family situation because it is something that is driven more often than not. By passion, of course, you can be envious of things that your friends or family have or your partner has that you don't. But jealousy is something that really crops up. And there's a particular piece of this poem that I'd really like to focus on where he's talking about how impressed his wife used to be by certain things, and he really gives us a very broad base of the things that he used to be jealous over. And it's not just people.

So I'll read it and then I'm gonna ask you, Joe, like what's the intention behind this? Because he says. She liked water, air, she looked on and her looks went everywhere. ’twas all one. [00:30:00] My favorite at her breast. The dropping of the daylight in the west, the bow of cherries, some officious fool broke in the orchard For her.

The white mule she rode with round the terrace all in each would draw from her alike the approving speech or blush at least. Now here he mentions nature, he mentions the horse. He mentions a man who's brought her some fruit. There is just a huge range of things that are inciting this hatred in him. So what's the intention from Browning here?

What does that tell us about the Duke in this relationship? 

Joe: it's a really interesting thing to zoom in on, and first of all, we get a real sense of how. Untrustworthy. The voices she liked, whatever she looked on and her looks went everywhere. No they didn't. Right. We know the way in which, you know, married women, especially married women of certain class, was shielded from almost every aspect of society.

This notion, her looks went everywhere, is nonsense. She would not have been going to many places without a chaperone. She would not have been going to, [00:31:00] broad sex of society and neither would he. So first of all, it shows us how unbelievably untrustworthy this voice is. But one of the things that I think is really interesting is how his jealousy is tied to questions of class and decency.

And again, this feels really prescient of something like Lady Chatterley's Lover, which you know, is obviously decades after this poem is written. Where the issue is not just that there is a question of jealousy based on attractiveness, jealousy based on the fact that, oh my goodness, it appears my wife is more in than somebody else sexually than me.

It's about questions of, but they chose them. Really, they're interested in that person when I am. So clearly they're superior. And the notion that the Duke is angry, not only that she's looking at other people, but why does he feel the need to mention the fact that these are people who are bringing her fruit from the orchard?

What he's suggesting there is that he's insulted not only by the fact that he perceives her to be interested in other men, but that they are men who are his social inferiors. And similarly, insult to which he feels about Fra Pandolf and Fra Pandolf. And we're gonna talk about names later on.

And this is really simple 'cause on the one hand he wants to [00:32:00] name Drop Fra Pandolf 'cause he's a famous artist and he wants to show off. On the other hand, the fact that she'd be interested in somebody as lowly as a painter is an insult to him. And he can't quite marry those two things. He's angry that she fancied a painter, but he also wants to impress the person he's speaking to by name dropping the same painter.

So it's really, really complex and I think. To pair up with those lines and to come back to this issue of class. The thing that he perceives her to have been not grateful enough for is the gift of his 900 year old name, which he mentions in the poem. And again, what we have here is a sense that his insecurity is driven as much by kind of a class insecurity as it is by a personal one.

That he believes that she should be loyal to him and grateful to him, not because he's been a great partner or a great husband, or even for the money necessarily. It's not necessarily a wealth thing, it's a status thing. He has given her his name and his name, he perceives to have great value. There is a real sense of iron here, of course, because this 900 year old name that he's so proud of and he's so insulted [00:33:00] that she, didn't appear more grateful for.

He doesn't tell us we don't know his name. We do know Fra Pandolf's name. And there is, I think another example of Browning playing with questions of power. Who is the powerful, who is the person whose status and legacy will endure? And for me, there's a great juxtaposition between the Duke and the Duchess, as they are named and the named individuals in the poem.

There are only two named individuals in the poem. There's Fra Pandol and this Claus of Innsbruck who will come to later on at the end of the poem, both of whom are artists. Fra Pandol is a painter. Claus of Innsbruck is a sculptor. Now why those people given names at face Value? It's because the Duke is trying to name Drop to impress his guest.

But that's not what Browning is doing. Browning is doing something altogether more complicated, which is the power of an artist is to create art, obviously. And the power of art is to endure beyond the lifespan of the person who created it. We talked about this at great length in our episode on Aussie Manus, and I think's a fascinating, companion piece to be done here.

about how both poets are celebrating the artisan, the person who within the context of their society [00:34:00] was relatively powerless, not wealthy, not powerful, not titled, and yet they create something that outlasts the man with the title. The Duke's power is derived from his wealth and from his title.

When he dies, the Duke's title will move on to somebody else. The source of his power is only leased to him. He doesn't own it. Because his son, nephew, grandson, whatever, will become the Duke after him. His personal identity is not the source of his power. Fra Pandolfs is frand off's. Power belongs only to him because he's the source of the power to create great art that can persist after his death.

it's not a great leap of the imagination to see why somebody like Robert Browning is looking to stress the power of the artist. And again, I, you know, I've taught this poem in the past to students and the thing I always, look to stress is, think back to a period of time, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, and think about how many named people from that era.

Far more of them will be artists than will have been Dukes, right? You might be able to name a king or a queen in the particular era. for example, we're talking about Queen Victoria. This is a [00:35:00] Victorian era. I could name Victoria. I could maybe name a couple of political figures, but I could name dozens of painters and artists and poets because art is less powerful in the immediate term.

You don't have the wealth and the access that the Duke has, but whereas their power fades with death. Certain artists, the ones who are the greats of their era, their legacy and their power only grows after their death. And that inverse relationship is something that Browning is able to really subtly hint at throughout this per

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So I wanna move forward slightly now in the poem to this moment of admission that I've referred to a couple of times. I'll just read some of these lines. E’en then would be some stooping g and I choose never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled.

No doubt when e’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 please You rise. We'll meet the company below, then I repeat now. In case anybody missed it in there, this is the moment at which he seems to come to the boil, or certainly remember the moment that it all came to the surface for him that he gave commands and all smiles stopped together.

Now, whether that admission holds up in a court of law, I dunno, but for our purposes, I think what we have here is an admission of murder, not immediate murder. And again, maybe this is definitely a crime motivated by passion, but it's also premeditated. He doesn't do the action himself.

He commands somebody else [00:37:00] to do it. But what I wanna ask you Maiya is what do you take from those lines? What are you interested in? What do you want to draw out? But I'm really interested in this question of deliberate, whether or not he knows that he's admitting this or whether or not he's making a mistake.

But what do you think?

Maiya: Well, do you know what? It's actually, the first time I read this poem, I actually didn't take it as a murder poem. I actually took it as if he was effectively telling us that he had commanded her to such point that she was unhappy and that somehow that had led her to losing her life. And in many ways it was kind of assumed that she had taken her own life because she was miserable.

However, as the poem grows on you, as you reread it, I think this murder confession, I think that's exactly what it is. You know, I might be wrong, but I think that's how most people would take it now, is that as you say, yes, he, gave commands, I think the most important lines here are. all smiles stopped together. There she stands as if alive. He has managed the, duke has managed to find the [00:38:00] ultimate method of control. He ends her life and then finds a way to immortalize her in the way that he wants. He originally, as we discussed, was saying that her beauty roamed everywhere.

She was consistently out and around other people. We know for a fact from what he's told us, that out and about everywhere to him was the terrace of the house that he owns. We don't see her, we don't hear about her ever even leaving the grounds of the house. What's really worth paying attention to here is that more often than not, I think when we talk in, literature and poetry, the home is relatively controlled as a space. I think if you own your own space, you are able to control, lighting, the mood of the house, you know, you can invite people in.

You have absolute power over this. And yet what we are seeing from the Duke is that he still felt as though when she were alive, his late wife was alive, that he didn't have the power to control her, even within the grounds of his own house. So what I feel from these lines is a pulling in, you get this [00:39:00] sense of almost a claustrophobic, real kind of, a suction towards what is the center of this house.

And the center of this house is the duke, it's him, it's his power. And yet I really find it. Quite inspiring actually, that the idea of power within the house has been disrupted yet again because he should have ultimate control. You know, we're talking about the 15 hundreds. his word is, law in his household, and yet she's finding small ways to disrupt that, and that is what is absolutely driving him insane.

So when we see the mask slip here, what we come to understand is that his only resort, because he couldn't control his feelings towards her and because he felt like he couldn't control her as a person, were to end her life and create a version of her that he can control. But as Joeso aptly mentioned right at the start, she still has been painted with this smile that has tortured him since it was put up.

We don't know whether the curtain has been drawn over it to protect her and to hide the [00:40:00] secret, or because he physically cannot stand to look at it. He probably hired this painter to paint exactly what he wanted, the image of her that he was desperate to keep, and yet that painter has managed to immortalize the very thing that he killed her for.

So I think it's such a clever. And subtle way of browning, again, notifying the reader that the artist is the one that holds ultimate power, also suggesting that even in death, even in portraiture, she was powerful enough. She had her own right to act as she wished that that has been captured.

Even in something where the Duke was probably looking over the shoulder of Fra Pandolf and saying, no, you need to do this. You need to paint her this way. This is how she acted. So I love the idea that you have this immortal of the very thing that was the cause of her death. I think it's such a gorgeous nod to her ability to retain that sense of [00:41:00] individuality because it's the smile that made her who she was, and by taking that away, stopped her entirely.

Joe: You're absolutely bang on. this strikes at one of the things about the poem that I'm so interested in, which is. You know, Browning's ability to hold several things at once. On the one hand, this is a psychological portrait of a deranged killer. On the other hand, it's a poem about class.

On the other hand, and this is where we're touching upon now, it's a poem about the constrained nature of the life of the artist, especially painters. And again, so often we forget where art comes from. And I don't mean art comes from the sky in some kind of great, poetic moment of inspiration.

I mean, the basics. Our artists are people who operate in capitalist society and have to make money and have to survive. And so many artists that history survive based on the good graces of people who ultimately don't understand their art and don't like it, but are looking to kind of borrow some of the sheen that comes with the great artists.

And we see this today. You know, you see. Billionaires getting married and you think, why is a film star at their wedding? the relationship between the very rich and powerful and the very creatively talented [00:42:00] has always been a kind of uneasy union of convenience. Rich people like to be surrounded by and name drop famous people.

They have an obsession with fame and famous and creative. People often want kind of proximity to rich people because they would like some of their money. You know, it's a relationship as old as time, and we have that very clearly played out here. And the thing I think is really interesting and what will come to the end of the poem is the way in which Browning is exploring how those confines, especially the idea of patronage, if you've been hired by somebody to create a certain piece of art, how much of that art is what you want to do, and how much of it's what they want to do?

And how much of you can you sneak through? sometimes, you know, to use a kind of silly example, you almost think about, big, film conglomerate or film production company hiring an indie director to make a, a superhero film. much of that is the superhero film and the intellectual property pressing forth, and how much can the indie director kind of get of their own art and their own worldview into that picture?

Another example that comes to mind would be the great 20th century Mexican painter, Diego Rivera, who was hired by, the Rockefellers to [00:43:00] paint a mural in the Rockefeller building.

And he decided that he was gonna paint the figure of Vladimir Lenin into that picture. And this whole question about, well, you've been hired by this big, rich American family to create a mural. What are you doing? Trying to put in left wing politics into the picture? And ultimately, that picture was destroyed for that very reason.

There is a very uneasy union between what artists want to do and what the people paying them want them to do. And oftentimes, you know, lots of great art has arisen from those moments, that moment of conflict, that moment of, what can I get away with? And we see it in this poem very clearly. Maiya has mentioned, I think, absolutely correctly, that Fra Pandolph gets something of the quality that enraged him about her into his painting of her, let's say for a moment that the rumors or the perception of flirtation between Fra Pandolf and the Duchess were true. This is kind of the ultimate revenge. You know, he killed the person that you were flirting with, maybe the person that you were in love with, or at the very least somebody that maybe you got along with.

Well, while she was sitting for your painting of her, you can get revenge on him by imbuing that quality of her into the picture that will then enrage him all over again [00:44:00] for the rest of his life. And what's more, it's an even sweeter revenge because. He's Going to name drop you and kind of celebrate you even though you've done this thing to him.

That drives him mad. And we see it very clearly at the end of the poem as well. So the final few lines of the poem, the Duke, if we believe that the Duke lost control at the point of admission, he snaps back into it and he moves on. And again, it's worth noting that this painting is one of many pieces of artwork in the room that he's showing to this guest and he ends the poem

With this as starting is my object. Nay will go together down, sir. Notice Neptune though taming a seahorse, thought a rarity, which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me. So what we have there is, before we go any further, have you seen this sculpture? And the sculpture is of Neptune, the Roman iteration of the Olympian, God of the sea, taming a seahorse.

And again, we get the named artist. I should have said this earlier on. Neither the artists named in this poem are real artists. They're both fictional, but Fra Pandolf in particular is a fictionalized version of a real painter. So again, we're playing with levels of reality here. The two named artists, Claus of [00:45:00] Innsbruck and Ra Pandol, what I've mentioned already about their power, projecting long after their death.

But Claus of Innsbruck is doing something else because if we think about Neptune, the all powerful God of the sea and the creatures that he might be facing up against, you might think another god, a titan, a sea monster, a seahorse seems pretty trivial by comparison. And again, if we imagine the Duke to want this piece of artwork because he considers himself to be a kind of epic hero.

If he considers himself to be alongside the Neptunes of this world, the powerful why is the thing he's taming so weak by comparison. What does that say about you? It says that you are a bully and a weakling, not an all powerful God. Again, what we have here is the artist appeasing the person who's commissions their piece of art, while also mocking them and Browning's ability to create a great piece of art while commenting on the conditions in which other pieces of art are made.

Sometimes very difficult conditions where compromise has to be made and sometimes you have to be quite dishonest in your artistic creation is something so, so [00:46:00] impressive. He's not writing a thesis on where art comes from and how difficult it's to create great art under these conditions.

He's expressing those ideas in a piece of great art itself. It's so interesting to me.

Maiya: I think that's such a great point Joe, and I just think it's fascinating that we have this image now of a house that is full of art that is potentially mocking the owner. You know, we have this impression that the Duke, by virtue of the fact he is of a higher class, will likely be educated, cultured, but we learn that that's not the case.

He doesn't have the critical capability to look at a sculpture like that and make that informed choice. He's just bowled over by the fact that Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze. For me, that's what we end the poem with. It's the final line for me. It's all about him. And not about what it's saying about him. I think that's very clever in itself. But I think it's also important to note, the levels here. So obviously we've been introduced to this house. We're told, as I said earlier, off the bat, that we haven't been, you [00:47:00] know, drawn through a reception room. This is where we learn that we're actually on an upper floor of the house.

He tells us that we're going to join the company below. not only are the painter and the sculptor very subtly mocking the Duke, but their work has actually been quite physically elevated to be on a higher level of the house.

It's not just what you walk in and see. This is on an upper floor. This is likely leading towards perhaps his bedroom or guest quarters. So we have a very physical elevation of these two things that are actively contradicting the image that the Duke is trying to convey to you. As Joe said, a seahorse is one of the smallest creatures in the sea that could possibly be tamed. It's ultimately a gentle creature. It doesn't make you big and powerful to tame something that is easily tamed. I think this, again, is a commentary from Browning on the whole poem because he's actively telling you that, women in this era didn't have power. It doesn't make him a [00:48:00] powerful person to have killed someone, to have killed a wife who happened to be disobeying his rules. That was just very unfortunately, part of what happened in this era when women went against the status quo. That doesn't make you a powerful God-like figure, as you said, it makes you a bully, and the sculptors are picking up on this. They're spending time in houses. Let's not forget that. The painter wouldn't have been able to complete this in just a day. Oil paintings, as I assume they would've taken weeks and weeks and weeks to finish for our pandolph, was probably in this house for a prolonged period of time, witnessing exactly what was driving the Duke insane. So the choice to make him capture this moment, the choice of Klaus, of Innsbrook, to capture something about the Duke that perhaps isn't so evident in just his interactions with other people.

He even says, I think at some point that he's not grand in speech and yet all we get is speech from him. I get the impression that he's kind of [00:49:00] filibustering a little bit. He's just overloading the channel. So you can't have any opinions. You can't make any decisions yourself because he's just telling you exactly what it should be and what's hilarious.

And as we say, it's rare to have a bit of humor in kind of poems around this era where you. Or talking about something that is, you know, it's a murder. it's not a positive spin, but it's funny that the Duke is kind of walking through his house, showcasing these beautiful art, And actually the art is all mocking him. Every single piece along the way. 

Joe: you're absolutely right. And there's a wonderful irony to a man who is self-obsessed, who knows nothing about himself. He spends all his time thinking about himself and his, the way he participates in the world. And yet he lacks all insight. And if you think about the first word of the, title of this poem appears in the first line, my and the poem ends with me.

And, you know, most of what happens in the middle is about himself as well. That final line I love, which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze. For me, again, there's a kind of sycophantic name-dropping quality [00:50:00] that, you know, I think we can all, think of examples of, but particularly happens, like I've said, amongst people who have great wealth and great access, but perhaps don't have great talent, like to surround themselves with people who have great talent, but nevertheless don't have great wealth and great power.

He is aware of the fact and he's not nearly aware. He's keen to stress the fact that this has been created for him, but has no sense of the fact it might have been created about him. And I think Browning's ability to satirize the rich and powerful without kind of the poem going into territory that feels unbelievable.

He's not saying that, and we don't have to create art this way. He's acknowledging the kind of economic realities of being an artist. Being an artist is hard. Often you don't have a lot of money. well actually in any period of human history, you know, you exist by the good graces of people who will pay for your art, either buying it or commissioning it.

You might not like those people. There is a very uneasy marriage, and ironically, there is another marriage that's very uneasy in this poem we've already spoken about the marriage between the Duke and the Duchess, but there is also an uneasy union between the artists and the Duke. They are [00:51:00] able to, I think, get the better end of that bargain because they are able to mock without losing their access, without losing future commissions.

One gets the sense that when and if he does marry again, the Duke could even commission Fra Pandolf to paint another portrait. Even though on some level he despises him. He also is desperate for some of that artistic shine, some of the talent and the proximity to talent, which is the same reason that leads him to name drop these artists on occasion. 

Maiya: Let's not forget as well that we are actually exploring a character who exists in a very clear middle ground. Of course, we've talked about the artists and the wives that are of a kind of. Lower class, or at least exist in slightly less powerful echelon, I would say, of society. You have the Duke, but we're also talking about a marriage to a future. A daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, the Holy Roman emperor, had religious, military political influence. a, duke has very little, if any of those things, they have a title only, and, if anything, the [00:52:00] power they have is, really more societal, I would argue. So we are already being contrasted.

If you explore the story behind the poem with the fact that you have, you know, you're trying to impress a man who has legitimate power, legitimate influence in the world. You have these artists who have the ability to create influence and the Duke somehow just exists in a. sort of vacuum halfway between them.

I just think it's, so ironic and it's so cleverly constructed to reveal all of this. As you move through the poem at the point where you should be becoming more and more indoctrinated, I would argue by what the Duke is saying, you are actually straying further and further from the truth that he is trying to 



Joe: I hadn't thought about that, but you're right, it's another example of his lack of insight, isn't it? The idea that somebody who's been sent by the Holy Roman emperor is going to be impressed by your artwork. I mean, you know, anybody who's ever visited any of the kind of former imperial palaces of the Holy Roman Emperor, or anyone who's visited the Vatican or any of those things.

a Fra Pandolf and a Claus of Innsbruck [00:53:00] sculpture, I'm afraid aren't gonna cut it, you know? And there, but again, what we have here is a sense of this man who is dislocated from his own reality. He thinks of himself as a Neptune figure. He thinks himself as an Odysseus figure. He thinks of himself as on par with, you know, the Holy Roman emperor and ability to impress, him and his associate when in actual fact what we know of him is to be a guy who inherited a lot of money and, inherited very little in the way of insight or talent.

Well, thanks Maiya. That was an absolutely brilliant discussion. I really enjoyed having it with you and to all our listeners. We hope you're enjoying this obviously, episode two of season three. We've got plenty more to come in season three. We hope you're enjoying it so far. Any new listeners, we're delighted to have you, and please feel free to dive into the back catalog if you can't wait for new episodes to come out.

And anyone who hasn't already remember, please to like and review the podcast wherever you get it, it really does make a difference and we want to spread the love and joy of poetry to as many listeners as possible. Now, next time, we are gonna be discussing the poem, Our Casuarina Tree by Toru Dutt, and I cannot wait to have that discussion with you Maiya.

But until then, it's goodbye from me.

Maiya: And goodbye from me and the whole [00:54:00] team at PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+ Until next time.