The Laboratory :

Background info: Robert Browning based his poem on a real-life figure, a French woman named Madame de Brinvilliers, a notorious serial killer who had her head chopped off in the seventeenth century. Her story is super-creepy, but also kind of fascinatingwe can definitely see why Browning based a poem on her.

Different interpretations: One could argue that the speaker has never actually been involved with her beloved, since she gives no direct proof of a relationship. Further, they may not even know she feels so strongly and so makes her imagining what theyre saying about her The Laboratory does not fit modern ideas about Victorian values - which are usually depicted as virtuous, and concerned, with happy family relationships. Browning, whose home life with his wife was mostly very happy, is careful to set his more extreme poems in past times and civilizations (he does so, for instance, in My Last Duchess and other pieces like Porphyria's Lover and Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came).

Symbolism
Glass mask : A glass mask is definitely not a warm image - contributes to the atmosphere of coldness, danger, and isolation that runs through the poem. You'd only need a glass mask if you were working with something dangerous. Line 41: Near the end of the poem, she takes off the mask - mask is a symbol of her dirty poisonous schemes, it also represents safety, caution, and protection. She's willing to toss all that out the window in order to accomplish her goal. The kings: The first time she brings up the King's, she mentions men and dancing. The association of those words tells us a lot about our speaker. For her, the court is all about pleasure and having men pay attention to her (or "wait me" as she puts it) shows her vanity?

The speaker: The voice is wonderfully captured, and we see that this woman is enlivened by more than just revenge; she is invigorated by the power that murder allows her to have. She shows something of herself - she appears to be wealthy and mixes in the highest society. But she is very different from the Duke of Ferrara, who merely speaks a word, and silences his wife forever. This character is personally weak - unable to use her position or forceful speech to change her situation. She does not use open enmity - yet resorts to stealth. She cannot keep a man's love, but almost flirts with the old man who mixes the poison - she offers him a kiss, as if she were voluptuous and desirable, but we know that she cannot compete with her rival. When she calls herself "little" and a "minion", she perhaps tries to show what others think of her.

Form The metre is anapaestic (two unstressed syllables, followed by a stressed one) - and this creates a rather jaunty effect, which seems unsuited to the poem's subject, if we take it too seriously ; Browning intends the poem to be perhaps almost comic, over the top and melodramatic - it has some of the qualities of a popular horror film, where the characters and situations are grotesque and outrageous.

Contrast

- Browning repeatedly points up the contrast between the luxury and opulence of the court and the grimness of the laboratory. Contrast : Psychologically, her resentment could be motivated by class expectations. She considers herself a "minion," which probably means a lady-in-waiting or some low-level servant, whereas her competitors are not so lowly. Minion could also be reference to physical looks? There is also some incongruity between the formal politeness of the speaker, saying "prithee", and the grim nature of her request.