Depending on the edition of the poem, after the title, there is supposed to be in italics, and all capitalized the word/name FERRARA.

However, It is important to note that the poem did not always feature FERRARA as an epigraph—it was intentionally added by Browning in later editions of the poem, hence scholar Louis S. Friedland’s exploration of the history of the Duke Vespasiano Gonzaga, and comparison to Duke Alfonso II d’Este.

What was discovered was that despite both Dukes having multiple marriages and young wives, Gonzaga’s wife, Diana Folch de Cardona, did not die young, unlike Lucrezia de' Medici—a point the poem hints to the reader. Through Friedland’s comparisons of the histories between the two to the poem, the final verdict aligned with d’Este as the mysterious Duke.

The image is a painting of Lucrezia de' Medici, and though this was painted for her brother one year after her passing, this painting could be used as the stand-in for the image the Duke is describing. The Duchess' somber gaze is antithetical to how the Duke describes the Duchess as a person, which makes the reader question how much truth could the Duke be speaking. Is it possible that the Duke is imagining a smile on her face because he feels guilty? Is the Duchess' stoic look a reflection of her feelings, or was it "by design" as the Duke later states?

The Duke's final words being about another artpiece he has demonstrates how little he cared for the Duchess. The need to brag about more art being made for him not only shows his ability to display power, but it also shows a reflection of his true intentions. The bronze cast is of Neptune (a god) taming a seahorse--this reflects how the Duke views himself: a god taming a lesser creature; as he sees himself as a god, he will inevitably treat the new duchess similarly. There was never going to be a dual-respect and understanding between him and the Duchess as she was as useful as a seahorse to him. His calculated shift from a painting of his "beloved" wife, to a bronze cast displaying a feat of dominance demonstrates the Duke's ability for social politics and directs attention away from the gruesome end of the Duchess.

While looking up the Duchess, Lucrezia de' Medici, came a poem called "My Next Duchess" by a priest named Lawrence Jones in which a member of the envoy warns of the Duke as a means to save the next duchess from his grasp. While the poem does not follow all the same writing conventions as Browning's poem such as form and tone, it is effective in the way that provides a secondary perspective on the story within this poem. The break of such conventions lends a sort of response that is more human that the facade that the Duke puts on.

The poem aims to explore how the envoy reacted to the Duke's monologue, and the horror at which is deemed worthy enough to become a cautionary tale to future noblewomen about the Duke of Ferrara.

(https://youtu.be/91t7U1SjCTU)

In this YouTube video, “The Defence of Guenevere” is read by a female narrator whose soft, but firm tone highlights Guenevere’s resilience during her defense, making Guenevere appear more assertive. The narrator’s voice demonstrates Guenevere’s emotional state more vividly and convincingly, allowing listeners to better empathize with her defense against Sir. Gauwaine and other knights.

https://blogs.baylor.edu/19crs/2017/06/28/textual-revisions-and-constructed-narratives-in-elizabeth-barretts-the-cry-of-the-children/#:~:text=The%20first%20published%20version%20of%20Elizabeth%20Barrett,of%20signs%20of%20human%20or%20divine%20mercy**

This article has photos of the book, the poem, and images from the survey of children working in mines relating to "Cry of The Children".

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YdWLxoHYR1E

This video shows how close, cramp, and claustrophobic the mines would be. Also, the ground is sometimes lined with rails, other times consists purely of mud and even imbedded with large rocks. This little clip is an attempt to let the readers see the harsh conditions the children working in mines had to deal with daily.

Elizabeth Browning was friends and frequent correspondent with Richard Hengist Horne. RH Horne was the assistant commissioner to an inquiry that reported the "Physical & Moral Conditions of the Children and Young Persons Employed in Mines and Manufacture." The horrific conditions that Horne related to EBB spurred her to write "Cry of the Children" (Robertson).

When heard aloud, like in this reading of "Childe Roland" the irregularity of this stanza becomes more noticeable. For instance, heavy stresses pile up in “Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight,” and the abrupt pauses throughout break the poem’s forward rhythm. The rhyme sequence (once/right/fight/Dunce/nonce/sight) echoes unevenly, giving the language a tense, unstable energy. Essentially, at the precise moment of Roland’s recognition of “the place,” where there should be triumph, the poem loses composure, creating dissonance between narrative climax and emotional collapse. Heard this way, Browning’s form enacts the poem’s theme of meaning arriving through struggle, a quality that has made its strangeness continually compelling to later readers.

This 1859 painting by Thomas Moran, inspired directly by Browning’s “Childe Roland,” visualizes the poem’s barren and hostile terrain. Turbulent clouds, jagged rocks, and desolate expanses dramatize the emotional weight of the quest. Additionally, the fiery, ominous sky evokes Romantic and Sublime traditions, but instead of ennobling Roland’s journey, the natural grandeur seems to overwhelm him. Rather than a knight striding toward a glorious destiny, the lone figure of Roland, dwarfed by the vast landscape, gazes toward the distant, looming tower. By pairing the poem with such imagery, anthology audiences can more fully experience the poem’s tension between heroic aspiration and environmental hostility. This artistic reimagining also shows how the Tower’s imagery quickly began to shape visual as well as literary culture.

When Roland recalls “the knights who to the Dark Tower’s search addressed,” he gestures toward a centuries-old literary tradition. The name Roland first appears in the eleventh-century La Chanson de Roland, a French chanson de geste celebrating the knight’s heroism at Roncevaux Pass under Charlemagne. In 1595, George Peele revived the name in The Old Wives’ Tale. Then, Robert Jamieson recorded a folk version of the tale and placed it within Arthurian legend, making Roland the son of Arthur and Guinevere. Joseph Jacobs’s English Fairy Tales, pictured below, adopted Jaimeson’s version and introduced the “Dark Tower” as the dwelling of the King of Elfland, where Roland must save his sister. Where earlier Rolands fought or rescued, Browning’s hero merely endures, stripped of glory or divine purpose. With this history in mind, this scene helps capture part of why “Childe Roland” continues to haunt later writers. Its hero perseveres not because he hopes to succeed, but because turning back would mean erasing the meaning of every struggle that came before.