Please explain dramatic monologue as used by victorian poets???

Answer 1

"A dramatic monologue is a type of lyric poem, developed during the Victorian period, in which a character in fiction or in history delivers a speech explaining his or her feelings, actions, or motives. The monologue is usually directed toward a silent audience, with the speaker's words influenced by a critical situation. An example of a dramatic monologue exists in My Last Duchess by Robert Browning, when a duke speaks to an emissary of his cruelty. Another example is the modernist poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot and also, in a more contemporary way, "The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team" by Carol Ann Duffy.
Influences on the dramatic monologue are both general and specific. In a general way, the dramatic tradition as a whole may have influenced the style of the monologue. Indeed, the style of the dramatic monologue, which attempts to evoke an entire story through representing part of it, may be called an endeavor to turn into poetry many of the distinctive features of drama.
The most important direct influence on the development of the dramatic monologue are the Romantic poets. The long, personal lyrics typical of the Romantic period are not dramatic monologues, in the sense that they do not, for the most part, imply a concentrated narrative. However, poems such as William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey and Percy Bysshe Shelley's Mont Blanc, to name two famous examples, offered a model of close psychological observation and philosophical or pseudo-philosophical inquiry described in a specific setting.
The novel is another indirect influence on the dramatic monologue, particularly in the novel's emphasis on closely observed detail to reveal character.
[edit]The Victorian Period

The Victorian period saw both the invention and the high point of the dramatic monologue in English poetry. Three names stand out.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Ulysses, published in 1842, has been called the first true dramatic monologue. After Ulysses, Tennyson's most famous efforts in this vein are Tithonos, The Lotos Eaters, and St. Simon Stylites, all from the 1842 Poems; later monologues appear in other volumes, notably Idylls of the King.
Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach and Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse are famous, semi-autobiographical monologues. The former, usually regarded as the supreme expression of the growing skepticism of the mid-Victorian period, was published along with the later in 1867's New Poems.
Robert Browning is usually credited with perfecting the form; certainly, Browning is the poet who, above all, produced his finest and most famous work in this form. While My Last Duchess is the most famous of his monologues, he wrote others, such as Fra Lippo Lippi, Caliban Upon Setebos, and Porphyria's Lover, as well as the other poems in Men and Women.
Other Victorian poets used the form. Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote several, including Jenny and The Blessed Damozel; Christina Rossetti wrote a number, including The Convent Threshold. Algernon Swinburne's Hymn to Proserpine has been called a dramatic monologue vaguely reminiscent of Browning's work."

"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 conversation, 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, as a suspension of the reader/listener between sympathy and judgment. The reader has a choice regarding the intent of the speaker, but he/she must remain removed until the speaker is done making his argument. Glenn Everett believes the role of the listener is one of discovery which engages the imagination, but the listener must remain detached and abstain from passing judgment until the work is known as a whole (Everett). The role of the listener is passive. He/she "cannot help but hear" because the position of the listener is exactly "a passive receptor of a verbal tour de force that leaves him no opportunity for response" (Wagner-Lawlor 287). On the other hand the typical Browning speaker is an "eloquent rhetorician" whose "dramatic situation itself is obviously only created by the presence of the other"(Wagner-Lawlor 288), the other is identified as the silent listener. The speaker characteristically uses "strongly rhetorical language which distinguishes the dramatic monologue from the soliloquy" (Everett). The elements of the dramatic monologue are each a topic for further analysis. Both Caliban Upon Setebos and "A Grammarian's Funeral" are dramatic monologues. The agenda of each speaker is quite different, as is the tone. Applying the three principles that characterize a Browning dramatic monologue can help the modern reader understand the unique intent of each poem more fully.

Caliban Upon Setebos

Caliban Upon Setebos is a dramatic monologue whose speaker is a literary figure. To understand the poem fully the listener should be acquainted with the character of Caliban as the deformed slave of Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest. In this poem Caliban is explaining his concept of religion. Defining his belief in and understanding of his God Setebos as he is able to see and experience Him in nature. The poem becomes a doctrine for Caliban's "natural theology"; one that has no books but evolves from Caliban's own observations and experience. Caliban "reads nature as a text with a hidden author, and ceaselessly endeavors to fix within an elaborative interpretative scheme himself and everything he encounters" (Shaviro 140). The listener is introduced to Caliban's. When Caliban says, "Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!/ Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon./ Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,/ But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;" (24-27). He is giving an account of his concept of creation. Caliban spends the entire poem talking about the nature of his God and the listener is given a glimpse into the psyche of the speaker. It is a powerful dramatic monologue and theological explanation. "What is most striking is the way in which the poem itself dramatizes an interpretive dilemma" (Shaviro 139). The dramatic monologue is an excellent vehicle for the intention of Robert Browning. The dynamic of speaker and listener, the choice of Caliban as speaker and the content of the poem (natural theology) all work together to serve the purposes of the poet (which could be manifold) by presenting the listener with an "argument" and a choice to be made at completion of the poem.

A Grammarian's Funeral

"A Grammarian's Funeral" is another example of a Browning dramatic monologue, but it is different from Caliban Upon Setebos. The tone of the speaker is less forwardly argumentative the poem because it is a eulogy given by a scholar's student. The suggestion to the reader/listener by the speaker is to sympathize with the speaker and respect the greatness of his teacher. The speaker wants the listener to know the attributes of his deceased teacher. There is a movement in the poem to higher ground that can be interpreted on many levels. The corpse of the teacher moves to higher ground as it is taken to the city on the hill as well as the students who have been enlightened by his teachings, and the listener may be moved to higher ground as well if he/she sympathizes with the speaker's view of education or enlightenment. The listener is invited into the poem/eulogy right at the beginning, "Let us begin and carry up this corpse,/Singing together" (1-2). From here the speaker has the attention of the listener and will continue on to speak of his teacher. The dramatic elements of this particular poem are rooted in the fact that it is a eulogy, which is in itself a type of monologue. The eulogy expresses a dramatic moment and asks the listener to pay respect. In "A Grammarian's Funeral" the speaker is clearly making an argument, but it is not direct. The argument inferred by the language used in discussion of his teacher can be seen in lines such as,

Yea this in him was the peculiar grace
(Hearten'our chorus!)
That before living he'll learn how to live-
No end to learning:
Earn the means first- God surely will contrive
Use for our earning. (75-80)


This quote is evidence of the speaker's own ideas. As he exalts his teacher he expresses his own argument in favor of a meditative life of learning. There is a moral judgement being presented by the speaker to the listener who is in turn being asked to make a judgement. The argument of the speaker in this dramatic dialogue is carried out through the praise and discussion of the deceased grammarian. We not only get to know what made the teacher great, but we also get an inside look, a portrait, of the student's mind.

Dramatic Monologue and Modern Literary Criticism


As a reader can see, the dramatic monologue is a powerful form of poetry with the potential to be quite persuasive. The form well suits poets who have something to express. It is poetic propaganda. The dramatic elements and psychological implications make it a fascinating form to read. Modern literary critics with regard to the role of speaker, silent listener and the poet have extensively examined the form of dramatic monologue as well. It is such an expressive form of poetry that the listener (reader) follows the designs of the speaker (poet) almost automatically. The perspective of critic Robert Langbaum finds the dramatic monologue a combination of "lyric and dramatic elements" that represent a "poetic innovation whose influence could be traced in the work of all the great modernist poets" (O'Neill 82) He states "We understand the speaker of the dramatic monologue by sympathizing with him and yet remaining aware of the moral judgment we have suspended for the sake of understanding" (Langbaum 34)."

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Answer 2

Dramatic Monolog

Answer 3

Poem writings are like culinary skill. You need the food and its ingredients the spices and its preparations You have to do many experiments and grow it with experience. You also need to watch the masters and read between their verses, Just to get the true feeling or emotion or differentiate the ambiguous content sometimes just rubbish or personal junks. It takes time and passion to nurture a poet and a sentimental guy to cherish a poem. All poets fall in love with their creations; always protecting and care for them.

Answer 4

Its when the yammer on and on like the audience is thier very own person shrink. Sometimes they explain thier feeling and thoughts like reading a diary outloud. Its about something important. Usually you get alot of insight into the character who is doing it.

Answer 5

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Poetic Technique: Dramatic Monologue Dramatic monologue in poetry, also known as a persona poem, shares many characteristics with a theatrical monologue: an audience is implied; there is no dialogue; and the poet speaks through an assumed voice—a character, a fictional identity, or a persona. Because a dramatic monologue is by definition one person’s speech, it is offered without overt analysis or commentary, placing emphasis on subjective qualities that are left to the audience to interpret. Though the technique is evident in many ancient Greek dramas, the dramatic monologue as a poetic form achieved its first era of distinction in the work of Victorian poet Robert Browning. Browning’s poems "My Last Duchess" and "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister," though considered largely inscrutable by Victorian readers, have become models of the form. His monologues combine the elements of the speaker and the audience so deftly that the reader seems to have some control over how much the speaker will divulge in his monologue. This complex relationship is evident in the following excerpt from "My Last Duchess": Even had you skill In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark' -- and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, —E'en then would be some stooping... In the twentieth century, the influence of Browning’s monologues can be seen in the work of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. In Eliot’s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," readers find the voice of the poet cloaked in a mask, a technique that Eliot mastered in his career. More recently, a number of poets have offered variations on the form, including "Mirror" and "Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath, and "Daffy Duck in Hollywood" by John Ashbery. John Berryman used the form in his series of Dream Songs, writing poems with shifting narrators, including his alter egos "Henry" and "Mr. Bones." One powerful example of the interplay between a dramatic monologue and the perception of the audience is "Night, Death, Mississippi," by Robert Hayden. In the poem, Hayden adopts the shocking persona of an aging Klan member, listening longingly to the sounds of a lynching outside, but too feeble to join. He says to himself: Christ, it was better than hunting bear which don’t know why you want him dead. The effect of reading the casual violence of the poem is more devastating than any commentary the poet could have provided. Hayden wrote many other dramatic monologue poems, including several dramatizing African American historical figures such as Phillis Wheatley and Nat Turner, as well as inventive characters such as the alien voice reporting his observations in "American Journal." Though not written in the first person, James Dickey's long poem "Falling" is inspired by a true story, and offers the impossible narrative of a stewardess who is accidentally blown from a plane and falls helplessly to the ground. The poem is voiced by an omniscient speaker who seems to fly invisibly beside her, observing her calm descent, her twists and tumbles, listening as she imagines herself as a goddess looking for water to dive into, and then finally watching as she removes her clothes, unsnapping her bra and sliding out of her girdle, before finally coming to rest in a Kansas field. Dickey transforms this terrifying reality into sensual transcendence, as he writes: "Her last superhuman act the last slow careful passing of her hands / All over her unharmed body desired by every sleeper in his dream."