40 pages • 1 hour read
My Last Duchess
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Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“My Last Duchess” is composed of 28 rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter with no divisions into stanzas. Iambic pentameter refers to the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in a line of verse. Meter is measured in groups of syllables called a “foot,” and the pentameter indicates five feet within a line. The iamb refers to a specific type of foot that sees an alternation between an unstressed syllable then a stressed syllable. Thus, one line of verse in iambic pentameter will carry 10 syllables in total, divided into five feet, each carrying a pair of alternately stressed syllables.
Given below are the first four lines of the poem with each line’s five feet demarcated, and the stressed syllables highlighted in bold:
That’s my | last Duch- | ess paint- | ed on | the wall
Looking | as if | she were | alive. | I call
That piece | a won- | der, now; | Fra Pan- | dolf’s hands
Worked bu- | sily | a day, | and there | she stands.
The poem is composed entirely of rhyming couplets, sets of two lines, thus the Plus, gain access to 8,500+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
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Related Titles
By Robert Browning
