The
Pictured Blush: A Look at Robert Browning's "The Last Duchess"
Alexa Dooseman (CAS '06) is majoring in
English. After graduating magna cum laude,
she hopes to attend graduate school at UCLA. This paper was
written for Professor Stauffer's EN323: Survey of British Literature
II.
In Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” the Duchess’ portrait
hangs in the Duke’s gallery as a monument to her coquettish
blush, presenting the Duke with the opportunity to explain and
describe his “last” relationship, an opportunity to recite his
monologue. The Duke’s monologue appears well-crafted, using
the portrait itself as confirming evidence that the Duke’s jealous
suspicions are well-founded: the painted blush immortalizes
the rampant and uncontrollable nature of the Duchess’ flirtations.
Although narrated from the Duke’s point of view, the poem pushes
against the Duke’s story, constantly working to reveal that
the Duke’s interpretation of art is intertwined with his interpretation
of reality, to the point that he cannot understand the difference
between the two. Browning plays upon the ambiguity of the word
“look,” blurring the boundary between observing art and imagining
it in order to undermine the Duke’s speech: the Duke’s interpretations
of “looks,” expressions, and artwork are not based in reality,
but instead on his assumptions and imaginings. From this angle,
the view of the portrait quickly changes from a condemnation
of the Duchess’ infidelity to a representation of the Duke’s
paranoia, the Duchess’ blush being only in the Duke’s mind,
and the painting reflecting only a self-perpetuation of his
own ideas. Browning thus creates a poem that is completely entangled
in the Duke’s psychology, presenting both what the Duke wants
to believe and what he subconsciously knows to be true; in this
way, the poem turns away from Romantic lyric subjectivity and
towards the Victorian dramatic method of investigating the inner
lives and minds of men.
Throughout “My Last Duchess,” Browning manipulates the word
“look” to mean both a description of appearance and a description
of sight, a technique that the Romantic poet John Keats employs
in “La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad” to describe the knight’s
meeting with the fairy child: “She look’d at me as she did love”
(19). Instead of using a conjugation of “to see,” which is the
favored verb in relation to sight for the entire poem, Keats
employs “look” in this one line to enable two different actions
to surface: the fairy child looks at the knight – a physical
look – and she looks at the knight as if she loves him – an
expression of appearance. Unlike “to see,” which Keats uses
to indicate the knight’s objective point of view (“And nothing
else saw all day long,” “I saw pale knights,” and “I saw their
starv’d lips”), “to look” implies a person’s subjective perception
of a sight, since “looking” means that the person who is looked
at must decode and analyze the “look” (22,37,41). The knight
decides that the fairy child’s gaze translates into love (“as
[if] she did love”) but this is merely his interpretation of
the “look” – both in the sense of action and the sense of outward
form (19). Keats’ sole use of “look” introduces its danger:
“looking” relies on another person’s understanding of it, and
given the knight’s tragic end, it is evidently easy to misinterpret
a “look.”
Browning’s poem relies heavily on a Keatsian double meaning
of looking introduced in the opening lines, and thus instantly
setting up the tension between what is real and what is interpreted:
“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, / Looking as if
she were alive” (1–2). Following Keats’ example, Browning pushes
“looking” to demonstrate both of its meanings: the Duchess appears
to be alive and her image watches the Duke and his listener.
Adding his own twist to the double definition, Browning completely
intertwines the two meanings since it is the Duchess’ lifelike
representation that makes her seem as if she is watching. To
solidify this coalesced sense of appearance and sight, Browning
carries the duality to the word “glance,” using it as a noun,
instead of a verb: “The depth and passion of its earnest glance,”
and “How such a glance came there”; in both instances, the “glance”
is the Duchess’ face and expression, even though the normal
definition of “glance” is to look quickly at something (8, 12).
Browning infuses “glance” with the same double sense of “look,”
allowing another opportunity for the Duchess’ expressions to
be misunderstood by the Duke. Since it is the Duke alone who
can verify that the portrait markedly resembles his Duchess’
“look” and “glance,” these lines are his opinions of what she
looks like, and what she looks at. By playing upon the idea
(found also in Keats) that a “look” produces an interpretation,
Browning reveals that the poem is the Duke’s relentless analysis
of the Duchess’ appearance and actions – whether correct or
incorrect.
Browning pressurizes the opening use of “look” even further
by revealing that it is the Duchess’ actual “look” that the
Duke suspects is flirtatious: “she liked whate’er / She looked
on, and her looks went everywhere. / Sir, ‘twas all one” (23-25).
Although in these lines the first use of “look” does not seem
to hold the complexity of the word, its presence strengthens
and clarifies the duality of the second usage. When the Duke
complains that the Duchess’ “looks went everywhere,” he refers
back to the physical “looking” in the first half of the line;
yet, with that meaning of the word firmly set, it is easy to
find the next meaning: her appearance. The phrase “her looks”
takes on the allusion to the Duchess’ face and expression, especially
to the dreaded blush that the Duke criticizes. Once the double
sense of “look” has been established, it is impossible to view
either usage without both meanings in mind: the Duchess liked
whatever she blushed at and her blushes went everywhere; and,
the Duchess liked whatever she saw and her sights went everywhere.
The following line, “Sir, ‘twas all one,” although connected
to the Duke’s proceeding lines, also implies the situation with
the confused and commingled meanings of “look:” the Duchess’
views and the Duchess’ blushes are one, because they are both
her “looks.” Going back to the Duke’s opening statement that
the Duchess’ portrait is “Looking as if she were alive,” its
force and complexity resonates: to the Duke, the Duchess is
watching and blushing, two activities that the Duke firmly dislikes
(2).
To complicate the situation further, Browning adds one more
“look,” the only one that does not directly refer to the Duchess:
“Will’t please you sit and look at her?” (5) Since the word
does not describe the Duchess in this line, Browning strips
it of its density; the Duke does not need its double sense when
referring to the count’s envoy (the listener), for he is not
being accused of treacherous “looks.” The singular request,
however, that the envoy observes the Duke’s painting, is the
beginning of the Duke’s undoing. By asking the envoy to look
at the painting, the Duke has formed a kind of tête-à-tête:
she is “looking as if alive” – blushing – at the envoy, and
the envoy has now been told to hold the look and return it.
In other words, the Duke has orchestrated his wife’s blushing
at another man, exactly what he hates and condemns. In these
lines, Browning’s final manipulation of “look” is fulfilled:
besides already implying interpretation, the term now reveals
that the Duke directs what he despises. Through this one word,
Browning weakens the authority of the Duke’s words, exposing
the speech to its uncertain and questionable base: the Duke
interprets what he himself creates.
Browning continues to discredit the Duke’s position by depicting
exactly how the Duke interprets the envoy’s reaction to the
portrait – a situation wholly constructed by the Duke, who remarks
of all past viewers of the portrait,
. . . to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. (9–13)
The Duke deduces from the envoy’s reaction a curiosity about
the Duchess’ blush; not only that, but the Duke believes that
the envoy asks to hear about it. Although in a dramatic monologue
the reader cannot read the listener’s words, the Duke’s listener
– although the Duke thinks otherwise – remains mute. The Duke
recounts that the other viewers of the painting (again, the
Duke creates situations to perpetuate looks between the portrait
and other people) have “seemed” to want to inquire about the
Duchess’ blush; the Duke claims that they would have asked him,
had they not been too scared (“If they durst”). The Duke, therefore,
explains that he believes, from his interpretations of the watchers’
faces, that they wanted to ask him about the blush, but they
did not, being too intimidated. When he then tells his listener
that “so, not the first / Are you to turn and ask thus,” the
validity of the Duke’s perception is diminished since he has
already inadvertently stated that the others have, in fact,
not asked him about the blush. Since the Duke indirectly reveals
that no one has actually questioned him about the Duchess’ blush,
he indirectly admits that neither has his listener; instead,
the Duke perceives what he imagines the envoy’s reaction would
be, and reacts according to his assumption, not to the reality
of the situation.
By unconsciously exposing that no one else has actually commented
on the Duchess’ blush in the painting, the Duke reveals that
the only proof for the blush is his account of it. Already having
hinted that the Duke’s perception of events, reactions, and
people is not infallible, Browning makes the Duke’s account
of the blush even more questionable by blurring the Duke’s distinction
between reality and artwork – another technique perhaps borrowed
from Keats. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Keats meditates on the
urn’s frozen figures; he imagines the situations they find themselves
in, dreaming different possibilities that are not actually present
on the urn:
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? (32–37)
When Keats begins to describe the deserted town, he ceases
to explain images that are represented on the urn; the repeated
use of “or” in this passage reveals that the town could be whatever
Keats desires it to be, because it only exists in his mind.
It could be by the “river,” or the “sea shore,” or be “mountain-built”
because there are no concrete shapes on the urn to confirm or
deny his creation. From the inspiration of the painting, Keats
shapes his own reality around the images, forming conclusions
and decisions whose only place of existence is his imagination.
Already a highly imaginative character regarding peoples’ looks,
the Duke mirrors Keats’ experience with a work of visual art
(the urn), conceiving his own reality around the Duchess’ portrait.
He responds to his listener’s (illusory) queries about the blush
with a scene that is purely invented:
Sir, ‘twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
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. (13-19)
The Duke next explains that these comments by Frà Pandolf
made his Duchess blush, clarifying the “spot of joy” in the
painting; yet, Browning reveals that this interchange between
Pandolf and the Duchess is a fantasy of the Duke’s. Just as
Keats begins with physical images on the urn, the “mysterious
priest,” and the “heifer,” to instigate his imaginative wanderings,
the Duke likewise begins with – what he perceives to be – a
concrete image in the painting, “that spot / Of joy,” to begin
his own inspired scene. Browning immediately hints that the
interchange the Duke describes is imaginary by beginning it
with “perhaps,” a word indicating not fact, but possibility.
Browning next follows Keats’ example by using “or” to create
two variations of the scene, proving that it could be either
because neither actually occurred. Again, after constructing
his own scene, the Duke interprets his own imagination, finding
that the blush represents the Duchess’ possible infidelity,
and definite flirtations.
With no independent confirmation that the portrait contains
such a blush, and with the Duke’s grounds for it being an imagined
scene, its reality is called into question. One may go farther:
Browning suggests that not only is the portrait not blushing,
but that the Duchess herself never blushed. By establishing
the Duke’s inability to read the artwork on his wall, Browning
discredits the Duke’s ability to read his Duchess by describing
her, when alive and present, like a painting. When the Duke
explains to the envoy that the Duchess gave all men the same
attention, he could easily be describing her portrait: “all
and each / Would draw from her alike the approving speech, /
Or blush, at least” and “Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, / Whene’er
I passed her; but who passed without / Much the same smile;”
the Duke reiterates that the Duchess gave the same speech, blush,
and smile to any man, making her appear like a stationary image
to be “passed” in a gallery (29–31, 43–45). While it is true
that a painting cannot speak, it is also true that a painting
cannot look, an attribute the Duke directly assigns to the portrait;
just as the Duke applies words that insinuate life in an inanimate
painting, he likewise applies words that transform a living
woman to a frozen figure. To the Duke, the two are the same.
To solidify this sense, Browning has the Duke refer to his next
Duchess as “my object,” showing that these women are watched
and regarded as items, items that can be easily misinterpreted
– like pieces of artwork (53).
While drawing on Keats’ interplays between interpretation, reality,
and art, Browning creates a completely new situation: a character
that never retrieves his ground in reality. In “La Belle Dame
sans Merci: A Ballad,” the knight is cast away by the fairy
child; he escapes the world of “looks” and interpretations,
and is returned to the cold, mortal world. In “Ode on a Grecian
Urn,” Keats reaches his height of imaginative reveries, and
then admits to himself that he does not belong among the figures
on the urn. The Duke, however, in “My Last Duchess” never escapes
his confused and paranoid state; each time that he pulls back
the curtain to reveal the Duchess’ portrait, he fulfills his
prior assumptions and present delusions about the Duchess. Although
dealing with the same subjects, Browning breaks far away from
Keats’ poems that subjectively meditate on death, time, and
mortality, and instead produces the fulfillment of the Victorian
poem: a poem that is not interested in the reflections of Browning,
but in the reflections – and psychology – of Browning’s Duke,
a character completely plagued by the “pictured countenance,”
both the imagined and painted face, of his “last duchess” (7).
References
Browning, Robert. “My Last Duchess.” The Norton Anthology of
English Literature: The Victorian Period. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New
York: Norton, 2000. 1352.
Keats, John. “La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad.” The Norton
Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. Ed. M.H.
Abrams. New York: Norton, 2000. 845.
Keats, John. “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” The Norton Anthology of
English Literature: The Romantic Period. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New
York: Norton, 2000. 851.
