Robert Browning’s  “My Last Duchess” is a dramatic monologue based on the 16th century Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso who married Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici . She was not well-educated or as high in heritage as the Duke’s family. She did bring with her a huge dowry, but died under mysterious circumstances three years later. The poem was first published in 1842 in Browning’s Dramatic Lyrics. .It employs iambic pentameter and the technique of enjambment. Just as lines run on from one to another without full stops, the Duke transgresses the limits of egotism. The situation is of the Duke negotiating his marriage with an emissary who has come to arrange the same. In keeping with the characteristics of the Dramatic monologue therefore, the speech is born out of a critical moment.

Also the monologue delineates the character of the Duke of Ferrara in the tradition of the dramatic monologue, and the envoy serves as the interlocutor who is silent throughout. They come upon a portrait of the Duchess and the duke divulges details of her character. The Duke comes across as extremely possessive of his wife as echoed by the prefixing of ‘my’ in the title. He also mentions that nobody reveals the portrait but him.…