Dramatic Monologue Essay -- Essays Papers

Dramatic soliloquyWhen discussing the poetic form of melo outstanding monologue it is rargon that it is not associated with and its employ attri thated to the poet Robert browning. Robert cook has been considered the master of the dramatic monologue. Although some critics are skeptical of his instauration of the form, for dramatic monologue is evidenced in poetry preceding Browning, it is believed that his prolonged and varied use of the dramatic monologue has significantly contributed to the form and has had an awful impact on modern poetry. The dramatic monologues of Robert Browning represent the to the highest degree significant use of the form in postromantic poetry (Preminger and Brogan 799). The dramatic monologue as we understand it today is a lyric rime in which the verbaliser addresses a silent listener, revealing himself in the consideration of a dramatic situation (Murfin 97). The character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic momen t in the speakers 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 frequently 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 readers adaptation and conclusions... ...tical Views. Ed. Harold Bloom, N.Y. Chelsea preindication Publishers, 1985. 23-44. Murfin, Roy and Supryia M. Ray, eds. The Bedford Glossary of Critical Literary Terms. Boston Bedford/St. Martins, 1998. ONeill, 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 Brownings Dramatic Monologues. Victorian Poetry 35.3 (Fall 1997) 287-302. Woolford, John. Browning the Revisionary. N.Y. St. Martins Press, 1988.