罗伯特_[1].布朗宁Robert_Browning

Works of Robert Browning
Pauline (1833) The Ring and the Book (10 verse narratives, 1868) My Last Duchess (a dramatic monologue that explores the idea of possessive/distorted love) (1842) Porphyria‘s Lover (a poem of love lust, and murder) (1836-42) Home-Thoughts, from Abroad (1845) Bells and Pomegranates (a series of his works,1841-46)
Summary
This poem is basically about a Duke who is so jealous towards his wife and how she acts with other men, he gives 'The orders' to have all the smiles stop (He had her killed). The Duke is the speaker of the poem, and tells us he is entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke's marriage (he has recently been widowed) to the daughter of another powerful family. As he shows the visitor through his palace, he stops before a portrait of the late Duchess, apparently a young and lovely girl.
But the poet achieved true literary stardom with the publication of his verse novel The Ring and the Book, a historical tragedy based on a group of documents Browning had found at an Italian bookseller's. Inspired by Shelley in his early writings, and greatly inspired by his wife Elizabeth Barrett in his later writings.
This was followed by 1842's Dramatic Lyrics and 1845's Dramatic Romances and Lyrics. Along with the 1855 volume Men and Women and the 1864 book Dramatis Personae, these two collections, although not wild successes, contain most of the poems today considered central to the Browning canon.
The Opening
We always drop unprepared into a Browning dramatic monologue, into several lives about which we know nothing. Soliloquies or speeches in a play have a context that orients the audience, but Browning's readers have only a title and, in "My Last Duchess," a speech prefix, "Ferrara." It is as if we turned on a radio and, having selected a frequency, overhear a very private conversation, already in process and, as we may come very gradually to appreciate, about a murder and the maybe-killer's search for the next victim. Readers familiar with Browning's writing and sensitive to nuance perceive the speaker's pride and cold-bloodedness.
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall
Stress "That's" and Ferrara reduces a woman, once his spouse, to something he casually points out, a thing on a wall. Emphasize "my" and Ferrara reveals his sense of owning her. Pause over "last" and we might infer that duchesses, to him, come in sequence, like collectibles that, if necessary, having become obsolescent, are to be replaced. If "Duchess" gets the stress, he implies that he acquires, not just works of art, but persons; and that Duchesses are no different from paintings. The line suggests self-satisfaction.
我有意提起潘道夫因为外来的生客例如你凡是见了画中描绘的面容那真挚的眼神的深邃和热情没有一个不转向我因为除我外再没有别人把画上的帘幕拉开似乎想问我可是又不大敢问
Robert Browning
Robert Browning
(1812-1889)
English poet, noted for his mastery of dramatic monologue.
My Last Duchess
Lucrezia de Medici, Duchess to Alphonse II of Ferrara
Setting: Italian Renaissance
It was a time when morally dissolute men like the Duke in this poem exercised absolute power.
Browning’s Works
Browning's first important poem was the lengthy Paracelsus, which appeared in 1835. Really a long dramatic monologue, the poem described the career of the sixteenth-century alchemist, and achieved popular success, establishing Browning as a familiar name with the reading public, if not yet as a great poet. In 1841 Browning put out Pippa Passes, a loosely structured set of poems that draw from the sensationalism of modern media.
My Last Duchess
1. That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 2. Looking as if she were alive. I call 3. That piece a wonder, now: FràPandolf's hands 4. Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 1. 2. 3. 4. 墙上的这幅画是我的前公爵夫人， Frà Pandolf is a fictitious artist who works with 看起来就像她活着一样。如今， cadavars -- he dresses dead people, and takes their 我称它为奇迹：潘道夫师的手笔 pictures. He is a member of religious orders and so, 经一日忙碌，从此她就在此站立。 on the surface of things, unlikely to have seduced the Duchess.
Browning’s Early Literary Career
As a youth, began to write poetry, influenced by Percy B. Shelley, whose radicalism urged a rethinking of modern society. However, Browning's earliest works earned him nothing but some negative attention for their expression of strong sensations their morbid tone. Thus for a time he set poetry aside to work on plays, finding in their fictional world an apt space for experimentation and development as a creative mind. Most of the plays did not find success, however, and Browning turned back again to verse.
My Last Duchess
Emphasizing the word Last as the ending of the poem implies; the Duke, identified as "Ferrara" in the poem's speech prefix, is negotiating for his next Duchess. Ferrara: most likely, Browning intended Alfonso II (1533-1598), fifth duke of Ferrara, in northern Italy, from 1559 to 1597, and the last member of the Este family. He married his first wife, 14-year-old Lucrezia, a daughter of the Cosimo I de' Medici, in 1558 and three days later left her for a two-year period. She died, 17 years old, in what some thought suspicious circumstances. Alfonso contrived to meet his second to-be spouse, Barbara of Austria, in Innsbruck in July 1565. Nikolaus Mardruz, who took orders from Ferdinand II, count of Tyrol, led Barbara's entourage then.
A time that produced magnificent art like the Duchess's portrait.
The poem clearly refers to the historical Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara (a city in northeast Italy), whose wife died suspiciously within two years of their marriage