My Last Duchess author?

My Last Duchess author?

• A. Robert Browning
• B. William Blake
• C. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• D. Percy Bysshe Shelley

Answer: (A)

This is a good example of a dramatic monologue, a form Robert Browning is famous for. In My Last Duchess, a duke speaks to a visitor while showing a portrait of his wife, and through his words we glimpse his possessive, controlling nature. The power of the poem comes from the speaker revealing more about himself than about the woman, a hallmark Browning uses to critique authority and vanity. The other poets listed wrote in different styles and eras—Blake with visionary symbolism, Coleridge with Romantic narrative and philosophy, Shelley with political and expansive lyric—but none are as closely identified with this single-voice, revealing monologue technique as Browning. So the author is Robert Browning.

This is a good example of a dramatic monologue, a form Robert Browning is famous for. In My Last Duchess, a duke speaks to a visitor while showing a portrait of his wife, and through his words we glimpse his possessive, controlling nature. The power of the poem comes from the speaker revealing more about himself than about the woman, a hallmark Browning uses to critique authority and vanity. The other poets listed wrote in different styles and eras—Blake with visionary symbolism, Coleridge with Romantic narrative and philosophy, Shelley with political and expansive lyric—but none are as closely identified with this single-voice, revealing monologue technique as Browning. So the author is Robert Browning.