We keep mostly genre stuff in the garage: Ngaio Marsh…Dashiell Hammett…Francis Iles… Simenon…Clifford D. Simak…Joanna Russ… Sheridan le Fanu… Mary Braddon…
And then I found two copies of Poems of Robert Browning. My husband and I had the same text in college.
And so I have fallen in love with Browning…again!
Every garage should have a copy of Browning.
I sat in the garage (it was raining outside) and opened the book to the famous poem “My Last Duchess.” Written in iambic pentameter couplets, this elegant monologue has a Gothic twist. The persona of the poem, a sixteenth-century Duke of Ferrara, begins by pointing out a painting of his late wife, his Last Duchess. His auditor, ironically, is an envoy making the arrangements for his marriage to a young bride.
The poem begins:
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
If you like horror, do read My Last Duchess.
Browning was a master of the dramatic monologue. The persona, or speaker, of a dramatic monologue reveals his thoughts, feelings, and psychological motives to an unheard auditor.
There is much to analyze in Browning’s poesy, but I am here only to cheer you on!