Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Poem Analysis "My Last Duchess"

Meaning:
The story or poem starts off with a Duke, the narrator, speaking with another man about his marriage when the happen to pass by a portrait of his late wife. The story then takes off from there and the Duke recalls the profound love he had for his dutches, but yet she truly never loved him as equally as he did her. The Duke then basically admitts he had the Dutchess killed because of her lack of love, and honor that should come when marrying a person of his standard. The two men come back to reality and they carry on discussing the Dukes new marriage and wandering down the halls pointing out other notable artworks that he has.
Antecedent
Scenario
I think the narrator, the Duke, must have had the Dutchess on her mind before the emissary came to talk to him. The Duke loved her very much and having someone killed can cause severe mental damage and having very likeless of a portrait of her is probably not very healthy for his mentality either.
Structural PartsI would say there is 5 parts the poem. The first part is sort of like an introduction, the second a reminisce, and the third back to reality. The fourth is back to the Dukes past and he kind of goes on a rant about the Dutchess, like how someone says I'm so over that person, but yet they can't stop talking about them, thats the Duke. Then theres the fifth where the two men come back to the present and continue on with there day like nothing had ever happened.
ClimaxI think the Climax is when the Duke says, "This grew; i gave commands; then all smiles stopped together," which at first i thought it was him breaking up the marriage, but with later discussion with a classmate, found out that it meant that he killed his wife!
Other PartsTheres only one part in the poem that changes. In the middle when the narrator has fully enveloped talking about the Dutchess, it goes from talking about her in the past to talking about her like she was right there in the room with them.


SkeletonI think the skeleton of the poem falls back on the structure of it. The author builds his poem through the outward questioning and internal thoughts of the character.
Content Genre-
games
Love, heartbreak, lust, the past/future, lost time, reminiscent, etc.
ToneI found the tone of the poem to be laced with love and heart break, but not at all sappy. It has a hint of wonder and no regrets attached to it. The tone is shown through the Duke struggles when losing the woman he loves, then it falls into anger trying to fix things, and the lasting tone for me, was  when he realizes he has to end this marriage, and when I say end I mean end her life. The tone can be described as reminiscent but hopeful for a better tomorrow in the chance to find true love, maybe in the new wife he is about to marry. In short, I think the tone can best be described as a mending tone of putting the pieces of his lost love back together. 
Agency
Roads Not TakenI think the poem needed to be a lot more organized as in stanza and punctuational wise. Maybe it was the format that I had, but comas and stanzas really have an effect on me when reading and if they don't coincide then I get confused as to what i'm reading.
Speech ActsI found that it began in a bragging act, the Duke goes on about how beautiful his wife was and that she had a lot of admires and thats where the bitter act comes along. The Duke loved her beauty, but wanted it all for himself. Then I would say it turns into an acknowledgement act. And in the last part the act is hopeful in which the Duke can now hopefully get over his late wife and move on with his new one.
Outer and Inner Structural
Forms
Imagination- The author did a beautiful job with the story, At first I didn't get it, but with the help of Megan Stevens, my fellow classmate, I came from confusion to Love. Just earlier I had been complaining to Megan about how I'm not a poetry sort of girl, but yet this poem had us talking about it throughout the whole class period. Thats how good I think it was. We had determined the top layer of its context, but there was so much more meaning that we are still talking about it after we left from school.

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