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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper compares the two poems "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning and "My Ex-Husband" by Gabriel Spera. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVBroSpe.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
actually a clever take off on the Browning work. In both poems we have only the narrators word for what happened to the spouse, and what they were like. But
whereas Brownings Duke almost certainly killed his Duchess, Speras ex appears to be still alive and in fairly good health, though he is something of a snake where women are
concerned. The two poems discuss the same things in approximately the same order. The narrator first calls our attention to the portrait, or in Speras case, the photo, and
then says that is the previous partner. The Duchess looks "as if she were alive," which obviously tells us that shes dead; Speras ex is smiling "as if in love,"
which tells us that the marriage was not a happy one. But the parallel between the two constructions is striking, and we are obviously meant to compare them directly: the
Duchess is not alive, and the ex-husband is not in love. The greater part of both poems is taken up with a sort of catalog of the ex-partners faults.
The Duke is incensed that the Duchess didnt understand the honor he was giving her when he married her and bestowed a 900-year-old title on her. She accepted gifts from
various admirers which she held in just as much regard as anything she received from him-including the title. Furthermore, she flirted with everyone and behaved inappropriately, until, it seems, he
acted: "Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, / Wheneer I passed her; but who passed without / Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; / Then
all smiles stopped together" (Browning, 2003). In other words, she smiled at everyone, and treated her husband no differently than any other admirer, until he stopped her from smiling-ever.
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