My Last Duchess

    The Duke of Ferrara has some connection that he wants to preserve with his duchess to commission a painting of her by Fra Pandolf. It can be inferred by the language of the poem that he, like many men of the time, views women as possessions to be coveted and believes that he has found a great treasure in her beauty and the dowry he was paid. It can also be inferred that he holds very high expectations of women and their duties. The duchess is presented by the speaker as a woman who is well-versed in society and quite comfortable and joyous in her role within it. It can be inferred by the line “… This grew; I gave commands / Then all smiles stopped together…” that the duchess, as time went on, lost the spark and apparent respect she once held for the Duke Ferrara (1104). She no longer even grants him the slight pleasantry of the type of smile a stranger may offer in passing.

   
    The footnote of the text states that the Duke had two wives, or duchesses, the last being the niece of an Austrian count. I would infer that the poem is about how their relationship degrades over time, possibly when she begins to uncover more about the circumstances of his first wife’s death. He begins to think that she is ungrateful of the attention and status he gives to her with the lines “… as if she ranked / My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name / With anybody’s gift…” (1103). This is saying that she doesn’t respect all that he gives her by giving her his name.

    What effect does the continual enjambment have on pacing and the meanings of the images the speaker presents? Does the arrangement of the lines by rhyming couplets rather than independent clauses have a positive or negative effect on the meaning of the poem? What is the significance of the Duke commissioning a painting of his duchess, and which duchess is it?

Windows

I sat before the windows and watched
the seasons change from cold to warm to cold,
and the view from the windows time has snatched,
eyes, with blindness set, have only grown old.
And with me did her sympathies so lie,
regardless of two lives kept separate.
If I could only gaze into those eyes,
see the secrets hidden in emerald depths.
Mem'ries of times long since left to the past,
of golden locks and skin white as snow.
Could her post at my bedside ever last?
Many years wasted waiting at windows.
    I was too busy for joys of this life.
    Now it is too late to make her my wife.

I have written in a strict poetic form before, but I have never actually written a sonnet. I found the most challenging aspect of the form to be iambic pentameter because I had to rearrange my wording and exchange one word for another to ensure the proper number of syllables in every line. I did not, however, struggle with the rhyme scheme which was surprising because I thought that would be the hardest part. The strict structure helped me to get my point across in fewer lines than I probably would've if it were free verse on the same subject, and I thought more carefully about the specific words I was using -- their length, sound, connotation, etc. Knowing that sonnets are typically about love made it easier for me to decide on a topic and stick to it when writing, even when it was challenging.