For Friday, October 3

My Last Duchess
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will ‘t please you sit and look at her? I said
‘Frà Pandolf’ by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But 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. Sir, ‘t was 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:' such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ‘t was all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace -- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- good! but thanked
Somehow -- I know not how -- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. 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’ -- and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-- E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will ‘t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Robert Browning

PLEASE SEE THE NEXT PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS

ON READING AND RESPONDING TO THIS POEM !!!
Please read and careful annotate “My Last Duchess” for today’s class. In doing so, imagine that
you’ve been asked to write a 500 word response to one particular aspect of the poem that
seems particularly noteworthy and worthy of careful consideration. Before you select and
prepare to discuss your choice and its significance in class today, I’d urge you to consider these
four questions:

1. Who is the SPEAKER? What do we know, what can we infer, what’s beyond our ability
to understand about the voice behind the piece?

2. What is the poem’s SUBJECT, first on the most literal and concrete levels, and then,
perhaps, more metaphorically or symbolically? You’d be wise to identify places where problems
or multiple possibilities emerge in your literal reading - these are often moments where a
poem/poet’s project is revealed. As you begin to consider more figurative or abstract “subjects”
for the poem, you may want to again consider the poem’s project, specifically what
conversations it seems to want to enter into or initiate, what questions it seeks to answer, and/or
what questions it seeks to introduce or raise.

3. What is the poem’s TONE? How does the speaker/poet/poem feel about its subject,
what’s its position or attitude, and how do you know? There may be no more consistent key to
understanding any poem (and human speech in general) than the ability to recognize and
precisely identify a speaker’s tone and the intentions behind it.

4. What are the specific aspects of the poem that bring you PLEASURE, cause you PAIN,
or give you PAUSE? What are the words, lines, moments, etc. that seem to have extra weight
and value? Identifying and exploring these moments will often produce a great deal of insight
into the poem and/or your reading of it. Any or all of these might help you identify the project of
the poem

Or Try the SOAPSTONE approach

1. Which of the SOAPSTone categories provided the obvious and accessible way into the
poem, and what does it yield?

2. Which of the SOAPStone approaches, though perhaps less obvious, provides the most
original or interesting avenue into a reading or discussion of the poem?
“Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long period not
merely estranged, but outlawed, from society,… had wandered, without rule or guidance,
in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest,… Her
intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as
freely as the wild Indian in his woods.”

From Chapter 18 - "A Flood of Sunshine"- The Scarlet Letter

Desert Places
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it-- it is theirs.

All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness

Will be more ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars-- on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Robert Frost - 1934

 Design
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth—
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth—
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?—
If design govern in a thing so small.

Robert Frost