Question

Which poetic technique does Robert Browning use in this excerpt from "My Last Duchess"? "Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad," A. enjambment B. blank verse C. open form D. end-stopped lines

Answer 1

Answer:

A major poetic technique Browning uses in "My Last Duchess" is ekphrasis. This is using a work of art, such as a painting, in a poem. In this poem, the narrator, the Duke of Ferrara, is commenting on a painting of his late wife; we never meet the wife, but we do get descriptions of her painted image as the duke gazes on it. This emphasizes that, to the duke, a wife is a possession more than a human being. At the end of the poem, too, the duke points out a valued art object, a statue of Neptune taming a sea horse. This reinforces the suggestion that the new duchess will be yet another object added to the duke's collection—and suggests, through art, that "taming" is important to the duke.