Robert browning biography my last duchess robert

poem by Robert Browning

"My Last Duchess" is a poem by Robert Browning, frequently anthologised as an example of the dramatic monologue. It first appeared in in Browning's Dramatic Lyrics.^[1] The poem is composed in 28 rhymingcouplets of iambic pentameter (heroic couplet).

In the first edition of Dramatic Lyrics, the poem was merely titled "Italy".

Historical background

The poem is preceded by the epigraph "Ferrara:", indicating that the speaker is Alfonso II d'Este, the fifth Duke of Ferrara (–), who, in (at the age of 24), had married Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici, the year-old daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo.

Lucrezia was well-educated, and the Medicis could be considered "nouveau riche" in comparison to the venerable and distinguished Este family (Alfonso II d'Este's remark regarding his gift of a "nine-hundred-years-old name" clearly indicates that he considered his bride beneath My Last Duchess - Poem by Robert Browning - Famous Poets and ...

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