This poem, set in seventeenth-century France, is the monologue of a woman speaking to an apothecary as he prepares a poison, which she intends to use to kill her rivals in love. It was inspired by the life of Marie Madeleine Marguerite D'Aubray, marquise de Brinvilliers (1630-1676), who poisoned her father and two brothers and planned to poison her husband, matching the narrator's actions in 'The Laboratory'.[1]
References
^English and English Literature Anthology for AQAA
External links
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