238 Browning, Robert
nonchalance. He must assert his prerogatives, but he
must do so discreetly, indirectly, and above all grace-
fully. Accordingly, he is forced to reveal the painting
in order to communicate his threats and expecta-
tions, but he must appear to do so as a simple gesture
of courtly hospitality. Orders to sit down, stand up,
look here and there, to listen silently and then retire
are rendered as polite invitations: “Will’t please you
sit and look at her?” (l. 5); “Will’t please you rise?” (l.
47). He refers to his control over the painting’s veil
as an aside, but one that feels gratuitous and deliber-
ate. In actuality, the duke’s dignified solicitousness in
these moments rings false and increasingly under-
mines the point he seeks to make: that his authority
is natural, inevitable, in no need of safeguarding or
of self-conscious assertion.
The occasion for the monologue is, as we know,
a mediated dowry negotiation with a lesser noble-
man whose family will be honored by the proposed
match with the duke. While the duke—presumably
correctly—takes for granted that the count will pay
any price he deigns to exact, he assures the count’s
agent that the monetary arrangement is a second-
ary consideration. Rather, he urges the emissary
to understand that it is the count’s “fair daughter’s
self ” he considers his “object” (ll. 52, 53). Of course,
he uses the word advisedly—his objective in the
negotiations is to secure a new wife, but he will not
settle for anything less than complete servility and
reverence from her. He intends her to function as an
“object” of his will and slave to his pride, no differ-
ent from any of his possessions—exemplified by the
statue of “Neptune... Taming a sea-horse, thought
a rarity, / Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze
for [him]!” (ll. 54–56)—the priceless works of art,
in other words, that he has commissioned from
the most celebrated artists of the age and which he
proudly displays as monuments to his vanity and the
absoluteness of his power.
Hilary Englert
traditiOn in “My Last Duchess”
In both form and content, “My Last Duchess” nego-
tiates ideas about social, cultural, and political tradi-
tion. Its poetic form is one of the most traditional,
celebrated, and rule-governed of the early modern
Anglo tradition—that of heroic couplets (rhyming
couplets of iambic pentameter). In its metrical regu-
larity and rhyme scheme, it establishes an unnerving
steadiness and calm as the tonal backdrop to the
narrative confession of a speaker who nonetheless
gradually emerges as a megalomaniacal killer.
As the speaker of this poem unconsciously
reveals his character and psychology, he positions
himself quite starkly in relation to the tradition of
his ancient lineage, thematically echoing the poem’s
form. It is in relation to the social forms associated
with the titled aristocracy of early modern Europe
that the duke comports himself. It is an anxious,
all-consuming will to protect and preserve these
traditions, coupled with an excessive self-regard—
perhaps the logical extension of the aristocratic
personality—that account for the duke’s conduct
and attitude throughout the poem.
The poem recalls the traditions of a feudal social
order in which birth and ancestry fix one’s place and
one’s relationship to political and cultural power.
Indeed, the relationships in the poem—between the
duke and his late and future duchesses, and between
and among the duke, the count, the count’s agent,
and even the artists who have been commissioned
to carry out the duke’s will in executing his aesthetic
vision—are defined by the residual feudal hierarchy of
the early modern period and by the unwritten codes
of conduct governing all of late feudal society.
It is the traditions of courtesy and the social
codes of the aristocracy that the duchess has trans-
gressed in the prehistory of the poem. Unable or
disinclined to receive small favors and gestures of
flattery with regal composure, she instead has taken
and evinced unself-conscious joy in them. They
caused her to “blush,” to expose her own “heart...
made glad” (ll. 31, 22). Her pleasures and gratitude
were undignified in their transparency, leaving no
room for greater or more profound shows of plea-
sure at the duke’s far more valuable favors. Indeed,
her “smiles” were squandered on low objects, their
value was diminished by their sheer numbers, and
the value of the duke’s favors was likewise dimin-
ished in turn.
The duke’s efforts to regain his superiority are
complicated by his already much discussed refusal
to “stoop” (ll. 34, 43), which frequently necessitates
a remove from action and from the explicit issuing