Speaking about several poems of this week, I can say that “My last duchess” impressed me the most.
So firstly, I want to say that before reading the article I always thought that one reading of the poem is enough to interpret it in an appropriate way. After first reading, I caught the description of the duchess and created an image of the person she was, as far as the poem mostly consists of the description of her personality and appearance.
So it was a kind and openhearted woman. So, after first reading, for me it was a kind of drama about the young and beautiful woman who passed away too early.
However, after several readings, the personality of the narrator (her husband) has started to be disclosed to us on the basis of his words. It becomes clear that he was a strict, cruel person, who was trying to restrict the life of his wife, and probably finally killed her.
“Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together”.
And after understanding that, I thought that this cruelty and relation of the narrator to his wife could be the unique code, the answer to this poem, with the help of which we can get the message of the author. But with the help of a video lecture about this poem, I learnt that this code “doesn’t feet”, so and searching for “one universal code” is a mistake of a reader.
One thought on “Discussion 13 Amalia Lima”
Amalia, I liked reading about your process here and how you came to such a good understanding of the characters. I most certainly agree that “My Last Duchess” requires more than one reading, and that with each successive reading more is revealed about the Duke—more than he seems to know is being revealed. In the case of this poem, there is actually a mystery at the heart, so in a way, readers do have to crack the code in order to appreciate the full drama of the narrative.