My Last Duchess Group

Question:

shanmukhsingh
shanmukhsingh
Student
High School - 10th Grade

Why is Fra pandolf important in "My Last Duchess"?

describe the background, too, in Robert Browning's poem.

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Posted by shanmukhsingh on Sunday August 16, 2009 at 10:43 AM and tagged with "my last duchess" by robert browining, character, duke, fra pandolf.

Answers:

  1. mwestwood
    mwestwood Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    eNotes Editor

    In Robert Browing's "My Last Duchess," Fra Pandolf is not only the painter--"Fra Pandolf's hands/Worked busily a day--but he is also the cause of "The depth and passion of its earnest glance" in "that pictured countenance."

    The duke tells the viewer of the portrait that no one ever views this beautiful portrait without wondering "How such a glance came there."  It was not, the duke continues, "Her husband's presence" that causes the blush, the "spot of joy into the Duchess's cheek."  It was Fra Pandolf who causes this blush. In lines 3-4 the words "busily a day" and "piece of wonder" carry with them a mocking tone, ridiculing and scorning both the painter and the duchess. Clearly, there seems to be a sexual jealousy in duke's allusions to the painter, Fra Pandolf.

    Since the portrait of the duchess is that of the duke's "last duchess," the implication are also that other women have  "glanced" and "blushed" at the attentions of other men.  And, now, they, too, hang only as a portrait on the duke's walls because, in his arrogance, the duke will permit no one to ridicule his name or his home.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/last-duchess/summary

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    Posted by mwestwood on Sunday August 16, 2009 at 12:50 PM