Starter – Discuss the following questions with a partner:

What makes the ideal ‘trophy wife’ or WAG?

How is their lifestyle portrayed?

Why do so many people envy their lifestyle?

Should men have all the power in a relationship?

What happens at the end of such a relationship?

Seven of you are going to hold up statements.

As a class, I’d like you to decide who is most guilty and most importantly why?

-) A man who murders his wife.

-) A man who gives orders for his wife to be killed but doesn’t actually carry it out himself.

-) A woman who flirts with another man although she is married.

-) A man who suspects that another man has murdered his wife yet does nothing about it.

-) A man who treats his wife as a possession.

-) A father who allows his daughter to marry a man who is suspected of murdering a previous wife.

My Last Duchess

Task – Working in pairs, predict what the poem is

going to be about …

What do the words ‘my’ and ‘last’ imply?

What or who is a Duchess?

Key Words … Dramatic Monologu

e

A piece of spoken verse in which a speaker reveals his or her character, often in relation to a critical situation.

Envoy A person who is dispatched upon an

errand or mission, a messenger.

(Note – they usually work for the Government. However, in this poem, the envoy is a man who has come to negotiate the Duke’s marriage to the daughter of another powerful family)

Imagine this …

A stately home.A rich, handsome Duke with flowing dark hair and bright blue eyes. He is wearing a velvet jacket with an embroidered waistcoat with

gold buttons, holding a walking cane adorned with jewels. He is talking to an envoy – a man sent to

meet the Duke. The envoy is considered a lesser man than the Duke, although he is

smartly dressed he does not have the Duke’s money or charisma and has been sent by a

very wealthy family to negotiate their daughter’s marriage to the Duke.The Duke takes the envoy around his home

to show off his art collection, including a portrait of his late wife, the last Duchess.

Ferrara

That’s my last duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I callThat piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s handsWorked busily a day, and there she stands. Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said‘Fra Pandolf’ by design, for never readStrangers like you that pictured countenance,The depth and passion of its earnest glance,But to myself they turned (since none puts byThe curtain I have drawn for you, but I)And summed as they would ask me, if they durstHow such a glance came there; so, not the firstAre you to turn and ask thus. Sit, ‘twas not Her husband’s presence only, called that spotOf joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps

Fra Pandolf chanced to say ‘Her mantle laps Over my lady’s wrist too much’, or ‘PaintMust never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat:’ such stuffWas courtesy, she thought, and cause enoughFor calling up that spot of joy. She hadA heart – how shall I say? – too soon made glad,Too easily impressed; she liked whate’erShe looked on, and her looks went everywhere.Sir, ‘twas all one! May favour at her breast,The dropping of the daylight in the West,The bough of cherries some officious foolBroke in the orchard for her, the white muleShe rode with round the terrace – all and eachWould draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, - good! but thanked –Somehow – I know not how – as if she rankedMy gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blameThis sort of trifling? Even had you skillIn speech - (which I have not) – to make your will Quite clear to such a one, and say, ‘Just this‘Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,‘Or there exceed the mark’ – and if she letHerself be lessoned so, nor plainly setHer wits to yours, forsooth and made excuse,-E’en then would be some stooping; and I chooseNever to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;Then all smiles stopped together. There she standsAs if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,The Count your master’s known munificenceIs ample warrant that just no pretenceOf mine for dowry will be disallowed;Through his fair daughter’s self, as I avowedAs starting, is my object. Nay we’ll goTogether down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.

The characters mentioned in this poem are based on real life, historical figures. The narrator is Duke Alfonso II who ruled a place in northern Italy called Ferrara between 1559 and 1597.

The Duchess of whom he speaks was his first wife, Lucrezia de' Medici who died in 1561 aged 17, only two years after he

married her. In real life, Lucrezia died in suspicious circumstances and might have been poisoned.

The poem is set in 1564, three years after the death of the Duchess. An envoy (messenger or representative) has been sent

to see the Duke from the Count of Tyrol.

The Count is the father of the Duke's next wife (he married three times in all). The Duke shows the envoy a picture of his late wife and remarks on her character, suggesting that she was unfaithful to him - and hinting that he might have killed her because of it.

Task: First read through the list of themes below and give each one a score to reflect the importance you think it has in the poem.

0 = No significance5 = The theme features in a minor way10 = The theme features in a major way

15 = It is the poem’s central, most important theme.

Theme PointsForgivenessControlArroganceViolenceLoyaltyFearLoveHappinessJealousyPridePower & StatusVanity

Theme 1 Theme 2 Theme 3

You are now going to work in groups to explore the poem further …

Group 1 – The Duchess’ beauty:

There is considerable evidence within the poem to suggest that the Duchess was beautiful, and that the

Duke loved and admired her for this.

Look for descriptions of her physical appearance.

Identify the one aspect of her physical appearance that causes his annoyance.

Group 2 – The Duchess – Alive or dead? The poem is extremely ambiguous about the

Duchess’ fate. Is she alive or dead?

Consider the tense of verbs at certain points in the poem.

Did the Duke have her murdered?

Group 3 – The Duchess as art – is/was the Duchess just a possessed ‘object’?

Look for the words associated with:

looking – there are many references to, or words associated with looking.

uncertainty – The Duke reveals uncertainty – with regard to himself and his wife – on a number of occasions within the

monologue.

‘In narratives, what we are not told is just as important as what we are told.’

Write about the significance of the gaps or of the untold stories in the narratives of the three writers you

have studied (42 marks).

Porphyria’s Lover My Last Duchess