Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess” was based on an actual event.  A Duke married a member of the Medici family, Lucrezia at the age of fourteen.  In 1561, Lucrezia died of suspicious circumstances.  After her death, the Duke began courting another aristocratic lady.

The poem’s narrator is a sadistic psychopath.  The atmosphere covers the jealousy, murder, manipulation, and insanity of the Duke.  He conveys his innermost thoughts about his disdain for his last wife.

Paraphrase

The Duke shows the painting, painted on a wall of his last wife to the servant of a Count. He keeps the picture covered by with a curtain that only he draws. The Duke is negotiating a marriage between himself and a count   The picture, painted by a famous painter Fra Pandolf, had many people who asked why she had the look on her face and is so life-like that it looks as though she is alive.  .

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to me they...

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