How does the poem "My Last Duchess" relate to the Victorian Age?

The first thing most readers would probably identify as "Victorian," though it really applies to any time before the twentieth century, is the rather dictatorial attitude of the Duke as he describes the Duchess's "faults." The Duke's chief complaint appears to be that he was not the absolute center of her universe, that

. . . she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody's gift.

The Duke, fed up with this attitude of her seeming beneficence towardseveryone, then resorted to openly ordering her around:

. . . I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together.

In the end the Duke seems to have thought her idealization by the painter, Fra Pandolf, as no more significant that the Neptune "which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me."

Browning, of course, is critical of this male chauvinist stance, as many progressives of his time were. But apart from the gender-issue element in the poem, to me what typifies it as "Victorian" is the fact that the backdrop of the Duke's monologue is Italy. Browning, like many other British and American writers of his time, was fascinated by Italy, which represented an ideal land of art and warmth, a haven to which people of artistic sensibility were inevitably drawn. He moved there with his fellow poet and wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning, living there with her until her death in 1861. Other works by Robert Browning—his long debut poem Sordello, the dramatic monologues "Andrea del Sarto," "Fra Lippo Lippi," and others—show a fixation on Italy as a kind of sun-kissed paradise, an escape from both the gloomier skies of England and the stricter morality of Northern Europe.

How does the poem "My Last Duchess" relate to the Victorian Age?

In this poem, the Duke reveals that he treated his deceased wife as if she were a piece of property he owned. The poem was written in 1842, and the status of the Duchess reflects the status of women in England during that time period and throughout much of the Victorian age. Until the passage of the Married Women's Property Act of 1882, a woman lost her legal personhood upon marrying. At that point, she was considered merged or of one flesh with her husband. Since they were considered one person it was a male-dominated (patriarchal) society, all the wife's property became the property of her husband. The wife herself belonged to her husband. She was expected to be obedient to his will and could not dispose of her own property without his permission. 

What does "My Last Duchess" reveal about women's societal position in that era?

We can use the language of this poem to work out the contemporary social position of women. Remember, however, that this poem deals with aristocratic women and, therefore, gives us a glimpse into their social position, rather than women of all social classes.

We can learn a lot about aristocratic women just by looking at the title of the poem. The use of the word “my,” for example, suggests ownership. It reinforces the idea that aristocratic women belonged to their husbands and lacked any real independence or freedom of their own.

Moreover, the fact that the Duke invites the reader to look at her image on the walls suggests that aristocratic women were valued for their physical appearance. In addition, part of their purpose was to be visually pleasing to men.

Later in the poem, the Duke talks about he might have “lessoned” the Duchess on her behavior. This reveals a lot about a woman’s position because it tells us that women were expected to behave in a particular way and, more importantly, that it was acceptable for a man to critique that behavior. Again, this implies that a woman was firmly under her husband’s control and lacked the opportunity to exert her own will.

What is the historical context of "My Last Duchess" in the Victorian and Italian Renaissance periods?

This dramatic monologue was written during the Victorian Period, by Robert Browning, but it is set in the Renaissance. The Duke is a wealthy Italian aristocrat. He collects art. When the poem begins, he is meeting with a representative of his fiancée’s family, negotiating the contract with them for her dowry, as would have been done during the Renaissance. He shows this representative his art collection, among which is a portrait of his “last duchess.” Since this poem was written during the Victorian period, however, it really presents a Victorian interpretation of what the Renaissance was all about.

During the Renaissance, there was a rise in humanistic philosophy. This meant that man was placed above God. In Victorian times, people were struggling with God vs Darwin. They looked back to the Renaissance in a rather idealistic way, a time when there was a “rebirth” of knowledge. However, the Renaissance was also the period of corrupt popes, powerful families like the Borgias of Italy who crushed their rivals with their power, and a lot of violence. The Duke in this poem was a jealous, controlling and sadistic man. He intimates that he had his “last Duchess” killed for not paying enough attention to him, for not appreciating the fact that he bestowed his family name upon her, for smiling at everyone and being nice to everyone, when she should have only been this way with him (in his sick mind).

You can read about the historical significance here on eNotes at the link below.

What is the cultural context of "My Last Duchess"? What differentiates it from the social context?

The cultural context of Browning's poem is Renaissance Italy. There are references to artists with names styled as they were during that period: "Fra Pandolf" and "Claus of Innsbruck," even if these were not actual historical figures. The Duke's tone of address also conveys the imperious and arbitrary manner in which noblemen would have spoken, long before the more egalitarian age in which Browning lived, after the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic wars had changed the world forever.

Still, the social context and the implications of this monologue are relevant to the Victorian period: to Browning's own time. In general, poets in all ages tend to find modern meanings in the past, even if it's not their explicit intention to do so. Browning's contemporary Tennyson, for example, drew on England's medieval past, on the conflicts within the Arthurian legends, as a distant mirror of the nineteenth-century world that was transforming itself into a new reality where many people were losing their traditional bearings. Browning's themes in "My Last Duchess" are a critique of the position of women in society, both in previous ages and in the modern, industrialized Europe of Browning's time.

The Duke clearly sees his last Duchess as having been a kind of possession who did not give him quite the respect or awe he considered appropriate:

She thanked men. . . . as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody's gift.

Both the male-dominated conception of marriage and the arrogant mindset of the nobility and the upper classes overall are being mocked by Browning. By setting "My last Duchess" in the past 300 or so years, before his own time, he seems to be making a point that although he and his contemporaries are living in a new, transformed world, the old injustices of the gender and social hierarchies have not yet been overcome.

What is the cultural context of "My Last Duchess"? What differentiates it from the social context?

This poem, like other work by Browning (such as Fra Lippo Lippi), is set in the centuries of Italian city-states (14-17th centuries) where each city claims it own royal lineage; a Duke and Duchess, then, are not members of a larger hierarchy but rulers of a specific district. The Vatican held a lot of power, as did the Medici family.  The Duke (possibly the Duke of Milan) is here negotiating with another ruling family from another city-state that has sent an ambassador to assess the legitimacy of the pending marriage of two royal city-state households (foreign governments, too, notably France, sought power through marriages and dowries).  The mention of Fra Pandolf and of Claus of Innsbruck places the social and cultural context, in which royalty are patrons of the arts (more famous examples might be Michelangelo or Da Vinci, who had similar patronage for their work).  The word “renaissance” could be used to define the cultural period, except that it is used too loosely and too widely to address the question.

What historical events and social issues are connected to "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning?

This poem is believed to be based on Alfonso II of Ferrara, whose young wife Lucrezia died under suspicious circumstances at age 17. She was from the powerful Medici family, and after her death it was widely believed that she was poisoned by Alfonso II on assumptions of infidelity. These accusations are echoed in the poem:

Sir, ’twas not

Her husband’s presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek

she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere

What social customs are depicted in "My Last Duchess-Ferrara" by Robert Browning?

There are many social customs depicted in Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess--Ferrara."

First, the fact that her image has been painted and is hanging upon the wall reflects the nobility of the duchess. One could assume that the fact that she was able to have her portrait painted, especially in remembrance, certainly shows her importance in social standing.

The description which Browning provides regarding the consideration which went into the painting is important as well. The fact that "Paint / Must never hope to reproduce the faint / Half-flush that dies along her throat" shows how her beauty simply could not be precisely reproduced.

Another point to consider is the duchess "liked whate'er / She looked on, and her looks went everywhere." Notably, the duchess lived a very comfortable life--away from depravity, away from famine, away from all negative aspects of life.

Here, one can see that the duchess lived a customary life typical of royalty. She was regarded by all, so it seems, as above the norm.

In the end, the dialogue provided in the poem speaks to the formality by which one would expect a duchess to speak and to be spoken to. The social custom of proper treatment of a lady, let alone a duchess, is exampled.