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Abstract:Robert Browning (1812-1889),one of the foremost Victorian poets,is famous for his mastery of dramatic monologue and psychological portrait. However,few studies have been specialized in his presentation of female figures and his attitude towards women in the Victorian Era. Based on the feminist literary criticism,the thesis attempts to analyze the tragedy of the Duchess in "My Last Duchess",one of Browning's representative works,aiming at revealing women's tragic fate and illustrating the poet's sympathetic attitude towards females who were suppressed in the male-dominated society.
Keywords:My Last Duchess; The Duchess; Tragedy
1、Introduction
Robert Browning (1812-1889),one of the foremost Victorian poets,is famous for his mastery of dramatic monologue and psychological portrait. Most scholars agree that “Browning’s place in English literature is based to a great extent on his contribution to the poetic genre of dramatic monologue,the form he adopted for a large portion of his works.”[1]Browning is held in high critical esteem,and admired by his contemporaries and later generations mainly for his use of dramatic monologue. However,few studies have been specialized in his presentation of female figures and his attitude towards women in the Victorian Era. Based on the feminist literary criticism,the thesis attempts to analyze the tragedy of the Duchess in "My Last Duchess",one of Browning's representative works,aiming at revealing women's tragic fate and illustrating the poet's sympathetic attitude towards females who were suppressed in the male-dominated society.
2、Feminist Literary Criticism
Feminist literary criticism can be traced back to the women’s liberation movement during the late 1960s. Generally,it exists to counter,resist,and eventually eliminate the traditions and conventions of patriarchy-the ideology or belief system which sees as “natural” the dominance and superiority of men over women in both private and public contexts-as it exists in literary,historical,and critical contexts.[2]
The feminist criticism can be divided into three parts:they are French,American and British,just as Showalter summarized,"English feminist criticism essentially Marxist,stresses oppression; French feminist criticism essentially psychoanalytic,stress repression; American feminist criticism essentially textual,stresses expression."[3]
“Virginia Woolf is the forerunner,indeed the ‘mother’ of the contemporary Anglo-American feminism.” She inherited the tradition of the 19th century women novelists and wrote a great number of novels and essays about women’s lives and women issues. Besides,she made a deep analysis to the phenomenon of the oppression of women in history. Simone de Beauvoir was one of the most preeminent French existentialist philosophers and writers. Her most famous and influential work,The Second Sex,predicts a feminist revolution and remains to be the Bible of Feminism. Her main thesis is "throughout history,women have been reduced to objects for men:woman' has been constructed as man's Other,denied the right to her own subjectivity and to responsibility for her own actions.”
Despite the diversity of the approaches,all feminist criticism are linked by a common aim,sharing some common focused. In practice,feminist literary criticism is not limited to texts written and read by women,for its interest is not only in how women have been treated in books,but also in the notion of the patriarchal society to them. Its target may include stereotypes of any of these groups seen as inferior from the point of view of an established patriarchal order,or the exclusion of such groups created by such a point of view (or ideological bias) in literary history.Thus,it is of great help to use such a theory to analyze Browning’s poem“My Last Duchess”,especially the tragedy of the Duchess in the poem.
3、The Tragedy of The Duchess
“My Last Duchess”is an excellent example of Browning’s use of dramatic monologue. The subtitle "Ferrara",which names an Italian city famous during the Renaissance,gives us the setting for it. This poem is probably based on historical incidents involving the Duke of Ferrara whose first wife mysteriously died after they had been married for three years. The background of the poem is interesting,but the text is difficult to understand. In the poem,it is not clear that the Duke murders his last Duchess,as no direct evidence is shown. However,readers may sense that the Duke brings about her death from indirect allusions. We learn about the Duke by what he says and how he says it. Through him,we also learn about his last Duchess. In short,we learn a great deal about the tragedy of the Duchess from the perspective of the loss of her voice and then dig out the deep causes behind it.The Loss of Her Voice
In her work Sexual Politics,Kate Millett comments that "The image of women as we know it is an image created by men and fashioned to suit their needs. These needs spring from a fear of the otherness' of woman. Yet this notion itself presupposes that patriarchy has already been established and the male has already set himself as the human form,the subject and referent to which the female is other' or alien."[4]
Therefore,in such a male-dominated society,Victorian women were so marginalized and oppressed by the patriarchal consciousness that they could not express their own voices freely and even when they spoke out their opinions,they were nearly not heard by men and the society.
The Duchess in the poem is such a female image that remains both faceless and voiceless. The monologue begins with the Duke telling an emissary,"That's my last Duchess painted on the wall/Looking as if she were alive." Immediately,readers infer that the Duchess is now dead,since she merely "looks as if she were alive." The portrait of the Duchess symbolizes the Duke's possessive and controlling nature as the Duchess has become an art object which he owns and controls. She is totally in the condition of "loss of voice" now.
Standing in front of the portrait of the Duchess,the Duke talks about her failings and imperfections,"She had a heart-how shall I say?-too soon made glad,too easily impressed Who'd stoop to blame this sort of trifling? Even had you skill in speech-(which I have not)-to make your will quite clear to such an one,and say,Just this or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,or there exceed the mark".
Keywords:My Last Duchess; The Duchess; Tragedy
1、Introduction
Robert Browning (1812-1889),one of the foremost Victorian poets,is famous for his mastery of dramatic monologue and psychological portrait. Most scholars agree that “Browning’s place in English literature is based to a great extent on his contribution to the poetic genre of dramatic monologue,the form he adopted for a large portion of his works.”[1]Browning is held in high critical esteem,and admired by his contemporaries and later generations mainly for his use of dramatic monologue. However,few studies have been specialized in his presentation of female figures and his attitude towards women in the Victorian Era. Based on the feminist literary criticism,the thesis attempts to analyze the tragedy of the Duchess in "My Last Duchess",one of Browning's representative works,aiming at revealing women's tragic fate and illustrating the poet's sympathetic attitude towards females who were suppressed in the male-dominated society.
2、Feminist Literary Criticism
Feminist literary criticism can be traced back to the women’s liberation movement during the late 1960s. Generally,it exists to counter,resist,and eventually eliminate the traditions and conventions of patriarchy-the ideology or belief system which sees as “natural” the dominance and superiority of men over women in both private and public contexts-as it exists in literary,historical,and critical contexts.[2]
The feminist criticism can be divided into three parts:they are French,American and British,just as Showalter summarized,"English feminist criticism essentially Marxist,stresses oppression; French feminist criticism essentially psychoanalytic,stress repression; American feminist criticism essentially textual,stresses expression."[3]
“Virginia Woolf is the forerunner,indeed the ‘mother’ of the contemporary Anglo-American feminism.” She inherited the tradition of the 19th century women novelists and wrote a great number of novels and essays about women’s lives and women issues. Besides,she made a deep analysis to the phenomenon of the oppression of women in history. Simone de Beauvoir was one of the most preeminent French existentialist philosophers and writers. Her most famous and influential work,The Second Sex,predicts a feminist revolution and remains to be the Bible of Feminism. Her main thesis is "throughout history,women have been reduced to objects for men:woman' has been constructed as man's Other,denied the right to her own subjectivity and to responsibility for her own actions.”
Despite the diversity of the approaches,all feminist criticism are linked by a common aim,sharing some common focused. In practice,feminist literary criticism is not limited to texts written and read by women,for its interest is not only in how women have been treated in books,but also in the notion of the patriarchal society to them. Its target may include stereotypes of any of these groups seen as inferior from the point of view of an established patriarchal order,or the exclusion of such groups created by such a point of view (or ideological bias) in literary history.Thus,it is of great help to use such a theory to analyze Browning’s poem“My Last Duchess”,especially the tragedy of the Duchess in the poem.
3、The Tragedy of The Duchess
“My Last Duchess”is an excellent example of Browning’s use of dramatic monologue. The subtitle "Ferrara",which names an Italian city famous during the Renaissance,gives us the setting for it. This poem is probably based on historical incidents involving the Duke of Ferrara whose first wife mysteriously died after they had been married for three years. The background of the poem is interesting,but the text is difficult to understand. In the poem,it is not clear that the Duke murders his last Duchess,as no direct evidence is shown. However,readers may sense that the Duke brings about her death from indirect allusions. We learn about the Duke by what he says and how he says it. Through him,we also learn about his last Duchess. In short,we learn a great deal about the tragedy of the Duchess from the perspective of the loss of her voice and then dig out the deep causes behind it.The Loss of Her Voice
In her work Sexual Politics,Kate Millett comments that "The image of women as we know it is an image created by men and fashioned to suit their needs. These needs spring from a fear of the otherness' of woman. Yet this notion itself presupposes that patriarchy has already been established and the male has already set himself as the human form,the subject and referent to which the female is other' or alien."[4]
Therefore,in such a male-dominated society,Victorian women were so marginalized and oppressed by the patriarchal consciousness that they could not express their own voices freely and even when they spoke out their opinions,they were nearly not heard by men and the society.
The Duchess in the poem is such a female image that remains both faceless and voiceless. The monologue begins with the Duke telling an emissary,"That's my last Duchess painted on the wall/Looking as if she were alive." Immediately,readers infer that the Duchess is now dead,since she merely "looks as if she were alive." The portrait of the Duchess symbolizes the Duke's possessive and controlling nature as the Duchess has become an art object which he owns and controls. She is totally in the condition of "loss of voice" now.
Standing in front of the portrait of the Duchess,the Duke talks about her failings and imperfections,"She had a heart-how shall I say?-too soon made glad,too easily impressed Who'd stoop to blame this sort of trifling? Even had you skill in speech-(which I have not)-to make your will quite clear to such an one,and say,Just this or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,or there exceed the mark".