Essay Comparing My Last Duchess And Prospice By Robert Browning

There are three elements which thematically link Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess and Prospice: love, marriage and death. Both poems follow the aftermath of a marriage brought to an end by the death of the wife. In order to comprehend the psyches of the husbands and the manners in which they cope with their partners deaths, a close analysis of their dramatic monologues is required, for it may reveal discrepancies between their words and thoughts. My Last Duchess follows a duke, implied to be the duke of Ferrara by the fact that the Italian city is named at the beginning of the poem, showing a painting of his previous wife to an emissary sent by a count in order to negotiate the duke’s upcoming marriage with her daughter. The duke starts presenting the painting as a wonderful piece of art, created in a single day by Fra Pandolf, and invites the envoy upon a closer look at the woman’s blushing smile. What is meant to be a smile that is only to be directed towards her husband is further revealed to be the cause of the duke’s …show more content…
The monologist contemplates the sentiment of fearing death. He does not glorify death, on the contrary, he describes it as a minute of pain, darkness and cold. He equates it with the feeling of fog in the throat and of mist in the face. However, as frightful as he portrays it, the monologist yearns for death. He chooses to fight his last battle like a warrior and receive his guerdon, his reward. It is not until the last two lines that this reward is disclosed: his reunion with his dead lover in heaven. The fact that he is willing to go as far as to confront death head on in order to see his significant other once more can only suggest that their marriage was a happy one, based on mutual love, vastly different than that of the duke and the