When we have said all the objective things about Browning's "My Last Duchess", we will not have arrived at the meaning unit we point out what can only be substantiated by an appeal to effect-that moral judgment does not figure importantly in our response to the duke, that we even identify ourselves with him.
But how is such an effect produced in a poem about a cruel Italian duke of the renaissance who out of unreasonable jealousy has had his last duchess put to death, and is now about to contract a second marriage for the sake of dowry? Certainly, no summary or paraphrase would indicate that condemnation is not our principal response.
The difference must be laid to form, to that extra quantity which makes difference in artistic discourse between content and meaning.
The objective fact that the poem is made up entirely of the duke's utterance has of course much to do with the final meaning, and is important to say that the poem is in form of a monologue.
But much more remains to be said about the way in which the content is laid out, before we can come near accounting for the whole meaning.
It is important that he tells his story while showing off to the envoy the artistic merits of a portrait of the last duchess.
It is above all important that the duke carries off his outrageous indiscretion, proceeding triumphantly in the end downstairs to conclude arrangements for the dowry.
all this is important not only as content but also as form, because it establishes a relation between the duke on the one hand, and the portrait and the envoy on the other, which determines the reader's relation to the duke and therefore to the poem - which determines, in other words, the poem's meaning.
"The utter outrageousness of the duke's behavior makes condemnation the least interesting response, certainly not the response that can account for the poem's success.
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