GENRE STUDIES UNIT-IV The Dramatic Monologue

 

The Dramatic Monologue

Characteristics

            The Dramatic Monologue is intended for presentation to an audience. It found particular favour with Browning, who may be called its chief exponent, though Tennyson also used it in his “Ulysses” and “Tithonus”. It is in the form of speech addressed to a silent listener. Its aim is character study or “Psycho-analysis”, without the other dramatic adjuncts of incidents and dialogue. He may speak in the self-justification or in a mood of detached self explanation, contended, resigned, impenitent, or remorseful.

Its Dramatic Nature

            The dramatic Monologue is part drama, part poetry. It is a speech in the poetic medium with a dominant dramatic note. It could be recited on the stage before an audience, with or without costume and scenic background. It is a study in character. It courts comparison with the soliloquy, but it is quite different because it is addressed to a passive listener, whose reaction to what is being said is hinted at by the speaker. The soliloquy is not supposed to be heard, the Dramatic Monologue is meant to be.    

Robert Browning’s contribution

            Occasionally, Browning’s finest poetry is in the form of Dramatic Monologue. His masterpiece “The Ring and the Book”, is a series of ten lengthy monologues, in which the story of a famous trial in Italian history is told from a different point of view, with a prologue and an epilogue.