本研究探討羅伯特•布朗寧的著作〈我已故的公爵夫人〉和其歷史的關聯性。很多研究都著重在這首詩中各個角色的描繪和角色內在道德和心理的狀態，此研究與其他研究不同之處在於把研究焦點從跨歷史的角色自我探索和其人際關係轉移至以歷史為主軸來論其中的人物對話。歷史在此研究扮演的角色並非僅是無意義的人物背景交代，而是以縱觀的切入點來分析〈我已故的公爵夫人〉。換句話說，此研究並非以個人為基礎作跨時或越時探討，而是以歷史的角度出發來論布朗寧和他的詩作，以意大利文藝復興時期和布朗寧從維多利亞時代的歷史觀點為基礎來分析詩。雖然一些研究在〈我已故的公爵夫人〉裡探討婚姻中的暴力和壓抑的性別關係，但此研究以當時嚴謹社會階級分層為基礎，來論布朗寧對過去歷史理解。在〈我已故的公爵夫人〉一詩中，布朗寧把貴族專制的奇觀美學化，來表現階級和權力之間的關係。因此，本研究主張布朗寧的歷史觀從階級統治出發，卻又表明了自己的自由主義為超越歷史。

This paper investigates Robert Browning’s engagement with history in “My Last Duchess.” Where modern scholarship on this poem has largely focused on the figure of the individual and the moral and psychological conditions of the characters in the poem, my essay shifts focus away from the trans-historical exploration of individual selves and human relations. I conceptualize history, not as an irrelevant and exotic background to the essence of human relations in the poem, but as integral to the meaningful expression of “My Last Duchess.” Rather than treating the individual as a category beyond or across time, my essay situates Browning and his poem in history. It interprets the poem in the contexts of the Italian Renaissance and Browning’s theorization of this historical past as a Victorian. While recent scholarship on “My Last Duchess” foregrounds gender relations in examining force and repression within a marriage, my essay calls attention to rigid hierarchical social division as the basis for Browning’s understanding of the past. In “My Last Duchess,” Browning expresses class distinction and power relations as an aestheticized spectacle of aristocratic tyranny. In doing so, I argue, Browning at once envisions class domination as informing the past and suggests that his own liberalism is beyond history.