Robert Browning's Poem My Last Duchess is written in the style of a dramatic monologue. This means that the narrator in the poem speaks throughout the poem and narrates a story to this audience or his "guest'. This style of poetry uses a number of literary devices to accomplish its meaning and intention and to create an artistic unity. One technique that the poet uses to convey the meaning of the poem is the run-on line or enjambment. This refers to the way in which sentences and phrases do not need to come to a meaningful conclusion at the end of a line. This relates to and enhances the style of the poem and the conversational tone of the narrative. Another aspect that should be noted in terms of the literary techniques used in the poem is the use of rhyme. Browning uses Iambic pentameter with rhyming couplets. The rhyme scheme in the poem acts as an undercurrent which emphasizes aspects of the meaning and themes of this poem.
             Literary devices cannot be separated from the intension or meaning of the poem. They are there to support and promote the central themes and ideas that are expressed in the work. Therefore an analysis of the poem will include the ways that these and other literary devices function to promote meaning.
             There is some pertinent historical background to this poem. While this is not essential in terms of the meaning and analysis of the poem, it serves to add depth to what the poem intends to convey. The narrator in the poem is possibly intended to be Alfonso II, fifth Duke of Ferrara. He married Lucrezia de'Medici, the daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. (My Last Duchess) However she was not well educated and her family and lineage was not of a long and established line, as was the Duke's family. Therefore the possibility exists that the Duke, the narrator in this poem, considered her to be beneath him in a social sense. There is also the suspicion in historical resear...