My Last Duchess | Browning's My Last Duchess
In the following excerpt, Miller discusses how the Duke reveals his enormous ego as he describes the painting of his last Duchess.
Few teachers of Browning's "My Last Duchess" fail to encounter a common undergraduate assessment of the Duchess as at best a flirt, at worst a faithless wife. Usually unaccompanied by evidence, this assessment is easily dismissed by a practiced reader, especially inasmuch as received opinion enshrines the Duchess as a model of spontaneity and innocent joy and a victim of her ego-maniacal husband. While I believe the Duchess's character to be almost precisely what received opinion holds it to be, I would like to assert that the vague appraisal of the Duchess as flirtatious or...
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