criticizing the duchess’s attention to anything or anyone but him
Answer:
The speaker in "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning indirectly suggests his own deeply jealous nature by criticizing the duchess's attention to anything or anyone but him.
Explanation:
In Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess", the probable speaker is the fifth Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso II d'Este. He married 14-year-old Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici, who died at the age of 17. It is believed that she was poisoned.
In the poem, the Duke's arrogance and jealousy are perceptible. His wife's beauty and happiness got on his last nerve. The fact that her smiles and attention were not directed only to him made him want to have them stop completely. He "gave commands" and the smiles did, in fact, stop with her death.
[...]
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. [...]
