The Dramatics

love poems of the English language. It may not attribute the same altitude of wickedness found in "My Last Duchess", but the aspiration to eternally preserve an obsessive relationship is on the other hand the same. Robert Browning’s is a compelling dramatic monologue that evokes a sense of oppression, obsession,…

Robert Browning was born May 7, 1812 in Camberwell, London. His father was a senior clerk in the Bank of England. However, his mother was a talented pianist. Browning’s love for writing dramatic monologues came from his father who also had a love for art and literature. Browning attended two schools, Rev. Thomas Ready and the University of London. However, Browning only lasted half a year in the college (Welcome… np). On September 12, 1846, Robert Browning married Elizabeth Barrett, who was…

Preface A duck’s quack doesn’t echo. Some people might find a deep and mysterious meaning in this fact and try their hardest to give themselves an answer. Every single person spends hours, days, years, even lifetimes to seek a reason to even the simplest things. Our hard work and dedication to what we believe in strengthens our pride and brightens our attitude. No matter how foolish a goal may be, the important part is the realization and discoveries made through the process. Although filled…

End of May 2015. 14 year old me hunched over my desk in the back row, waiting for my teacher to play a video demonstrating “proper satire” to our Fiction Writing class. It started with a set of parents scolding their irresponsible children for finding drugs in their bedroom; the plot was so clichè that it hardly caught my attention. Suddenly, I jumped upon hearing a middle aged man shout, “YOU’RE GONNA BE DOING A LOT OF DOOBIE ROLLING, WHEN YOU’RE LIVING IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!”. The video…

I asked softly “Yes,” he pulled me closer to him and kissed the nape of my neck. I put my hand on his chest and gently pushed away from him looking intently into his eyes. I spoke again “I love you.” The words flowed from my mouth so effortlessly that it even took me by surprise to hear them. As he looked down at me his eyes twinkled and danced in the candlelight I waited there as he seemed to deliberate I began to feel antsy and a bit panicked. Then before I could have a mental freak-out, he…

Atwood’s “My Last Duchess” involves Browning’s “My Last Duchess” by exploring the nature of the Duke, looking at the young girls perspective on authority and relationships. While reading the poem “My Last Duchess” what stood out was the speaker of the dramatic monologue. The Duke is addressing the ambassador of the count and is being advised to marry the counts daughter. While talking the Duke shows the painting of his first wife that is hidden behind a curtain. He explains to the count how…

irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves”. I want to use this as the scope to understand the speaker in Robert Browning’s poem My Last Duchess. In the psychologically charged poem, the Duke (the speaker of the poem) uses the dramatic monologue to convey his feelings of his late duchess, as well as why he had her killed. The duke puts immense value on his imaginary hypotheticals, in an attempt to rationalize his order to have his wife smiles “stopped all together”…

Regarded as a brilliant sinister dramatic monologue, 'Porphyria's Lover' by Robert Browning, challenges the perception of it's readers, in this case, creating a persona that is driven mad by his growing obsession throughout the poem. The poem is about a character who has a a difficult relationship with the woman he loves because she is unable to love him fully. It carefully illustrates the struggle for control between the two lovers drawing the reader into their twisted relationship with…

he made sure to keep her always in his control. Thus, both poems show men’s morality and physically shutting off by a woman’s action force them to only fulfill their own desires. And to top it off, let’s approach Browning’s poem’s originality: dramatic monologue. Not only does both speakers seems to also be a man that killed their wife for their own sake, they also seem pleased to the fact that they died by their hands. Along with that, both speaker speak rather negatively of their subjects…

In Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue “Porphyria’s Lover”, we get a disturbing and unsettling tale of a man who strangles his lover with her own hair. The tone of this tale becomes even more worrying when you take into account the strict, stable meter that underlines the poem creates a weird tension between the murderous act and the way it is presented. The iambic tetrameter that scores the entire prose, breaks form at certain lines throughout the poem, the first break in the form occurs at…