Analyzing and Interpreting Literature / Unit 5 AIL 0423 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Self-Convicting Speaker
Captions available
The idea
Browning's Duke is the clearest case of a pattern worth carrying: a speaker whose own words supply the evidence against him. When a voice defends itself at length, read the defence as testimony and ask what it concedes. The concessions are usually where the poem is.
In practice
Read a defence as testimony.
Where people slip
Ask what the speaker concedes.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
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