This species of verse is perhaps the highest form of
poetic art, as it is the most difficult; for with no stage setting,
no descriptions, no breaks in the conversation, the depths of the
human heart are exposed.
One of the greatest dramatic monologues in all literature is _My
Last Duchess_, and it is astounding that so profound a life-drama
should have been conceived and faultlessly expressed by so young a
poet. The whole poem contains only fifty-six lines, but it could
easily be expanded into a three-volume novel. Indeed it exhibits
Browning's genius for condensation as impressively as _The Ring and
the Book_ proves his genius for expansion. The metre is interesting.
It is the heroic couplet, the same form exactly in which Pope wrote
his major productions. Yet the rime, which is as evident as the
recurring strokes of a tack-hammer in Pope, is scarcely heard at all
in _My Last Duchess_. Its effect is so muffled, go concealed, that I
venture to say that many who are quite familiar with the poem, could
not declare offhand whether it were written in rime or in blank verse.
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