In "My Last Duchess," are there any references to physical gratification?

In a sense, the entire poem is about physical or sensual gratification. The Duke himself is very much of a sensualist. His descriptions of his dead wife focus on her external, physical self and he describes at length her glance and the blush of her cheeks. He describes the painter as asking the Duchess to rearrange the mantle on her wrist. Once the Duke and his visitor are finished looking at the portrait of the...

In a sense, the entire poem is about physical or sensual gratification. The Duke himself is very much of a sensualist. His descriptions of his dead wife focus on her external, physical self and he describes at length her glance and the blush of her cheeks. He describes the painter as asking the Duchess to rearrange the mantle on her wrist. Once the Duke and his visitor are finished looking at the portrait of the Duchess, they move on to look at a bronze sculpture of Neptune. The Duke, as an art collector, has an obvious and strong appreciation for artistic skill and the sensual beauty of art.

In his discussion of his wife, the Duke focuses on her outward appearance and behavior. There is no sense that he considered the living woman any differently than he viewed the portrait; he sees them both as possessions. He does not seem to have treated or understood his wife as an independent agent with thoughts or actually talked to her and tried to understand her views and feelings.

Although jealousy is a theme in the poem, it is more a matter of possessiveness than of love; the issue is not so much sexual misconduct as the Duchess acting as an individual human being rather than as an exclusive possession of her husband. There is no explicit sexual content in the poem.