Is there allegory in My Last Duchess If so what is it?

Answer 1

Not really. An allegory refers to a work of literature that can be taken on two levels-- a literal one, and (usually) a spiritual one. For example, the Prophet Isaiah speaks of a vineyard that looked so beautiful, but it turned out that the grapes it produced were spoiled. On one level, he is talking about actual vines, actual grapes, and a harvest that went badly several thousand years ago. But on a spiritual level, we learn that the Israelites are the vine, in the vineyard (world) which God created; they may all look like good people, but God can see what they really are, and because of their misdeeds (their violence and arrogance), they have produced nothing positive. You will find a number of allegorical stories in both the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the New Testament.

But "My Last Duchess" is more of an ironic poem, which drops hints for us about what kind of person the duke is, and how he treated the woman he used to be married to (his "last" duchess is the one who is the most recent, in other words). I don't see any spiritual lessons in this poem; I do see the poet showing us that the duke (who may be based on an actual historical figure) is not the wonderful person he seems to think he is. The style of this poem is a "dramatic monologue"-- the main character, the duke, is speaking, and he tells the story of what happened to the duchess. He seems almost proud of what he did to her. There is no moral lesson in this poem, but there is certainly evidence that the young woman to whom he is now engaged probably should not marry him (although she may have no say in the matter).