Thomas Blackburn describes the two Victorian poets, Robert Browning and Alfred, Lord Tennyson as great contemporaries (47). As such, it is appropriate that their works reflect and explore similar topics and themes. Their connection is especially evident in Browning's “My Last Duchess” and Tennyson's “The Lady of Shalott.” Themes of entrapment and incarceration are strongly present in both of these works. Specifically, it is the entrapment and incarceration of women that pervades their respective compositions. If one takes into consideration the way women were viewed at this historical juncture – being nothing more than “beautiful objects” (Gilbert and Gubar 54), it is quite easy to see how nineteenth-century literary representations of women would be responses to such borders. While “My Last Duchess” can be considered as an investigation into the kidnapper, represented by the Duke; “The Lady of Shalott” can be considered an exploration into captivity, represented by the Lady who gives the poem its title. Both poems are an analysis of the Victorian woman as an incarcerated and trapped subculture of a predominantly patriarchal society. It is therefore not surprising that the methods used by these fictional women to escape come at the cost of their lives. Robert Browning's doomed duchess dramatic monologue, "My Last Duchess," is the embodiment of the incarcerated woman taken to the eternal extreme. . The setting of this poem is Italy in the Middle Ages, a time when women had even less freedom than in the Victorian era. Women were considered an asset, a form of internal imprisonment. As Johnson states, the theme of “marriage as slavery” is constantly explored in Browning's early work... half of paper ......y 16.1 (1978): 70-87.Jospeh, Gerhard. "Tennyson's Optics: The Eagle's Gaze." PMLA 92.3 (1977): 420-428. Langbaum, Robert. The poetry of experience: the dramatic monologue in the modern literary tradition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1957. McGhee, Richard. Marriage, duty and desire in Victorian poetry and drama. Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1980. Orr, Mrs. Sutherland. Handbook to the works of Robert Browning. 6th edition. London: George Bell and Sons, 1899.Plasa, Carl. ““Slit from Side to Side”: Sexual Politics in “The Lady of Shalott.”” Victorian Poetry 30.3 (1992): 247-263.Ricks, Christopher. Tennyson. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1972. Showalter, Elaine and English Showalter. "Victorian Women and Menstruation." Victorian Studies 14.1 (1970): 83-89. Showalter, Elaine. “Victorian Women and Madness.” Victorian Studies 23.2 (1980): 157-181.