Dramatic Monologue Essay -- Essays Papers

Dramatic Monologue When discussing the poetic form of dramatic monologue it is rare that it is not associated with and its usage attributed to the poet Robert Browning. Robert Browning has been considered the master of the dramatic monologue. Although some critics are skeptical of his invention of the form, for dramatic monologue is evidenced in poetry preceding Browning, it is believed that his extensive and varied use of the dramatic monologue has significantly contributed to the form and has had an enormous impact on modern poetry. "The dramatic monologues of Robert Browning represent the most significant use of the form in postromantic poetry" (Preminger and Brogan 799). The dramatic monologue as we understand it today "is a lyric poem in which the speaker addresses a silent listener, revealing himself in the context of a dramatic situation" (Murfin 97). "The character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker's life. The circumstances surrounding the co nversation, one side which we "hear" as the dramatic monologue, are made by clear implication, and an insight into the character of the speaker may result" (Holman and Harmon 152). Although Browning wrote numerous dramatic monologues his contemporaries often criticized his works as being too emotional. The dramatic monologues of Browning are characterized by certain identifiable traits. The three requirements of a Browning dramatic monologue are "The reader takes the part of the silent listener; The speaker uses a case-making argumentative tone; We complete the dramatic scene from within, by means of inference and imagination" (Landow). Critics have interpreted the third requirement, the reader's interpretation and conclusions... ...tical Views. Ed. Harold Bloom, N.Y.: Chelsea House Publishers, 1985. 23-44. Murfin, Roy and Supryia M. Ray, eds. The Bedford Glossary of Critical Literary Terms. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. O’Neill, Patricia. Robert Browning and Twentieth-Century Criticism. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1995. Preminger, Alex and T.V. Brogan eds. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton: PUP, 1993. Shaviro, Steven. "Browning upon Caliban upon Setebos." Browning Society Notes 12 (1983). Rpt. in Robert Browning: Modern Critical Views. Ed. Harold Bloom, N.Y.: Chelsea House Publishers, 1985. 139-150. Wagner-Lawlor, Jennifer. "The Pragmatics of Silence, and the Figuration of the Reader in Browning's Dramatic Monologues." Victorian Poetry 35.3 (Fall 1997) : 287-302. Woolford, John. Browning the Revisionary. N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1988.