Dramatic monologue is a type of poetry written in the form of a speech of an individual character. M.H. Abrams notes three features of the dramatic monologue as it applies to poetry: a single person, who is patently not the poet, utters the speech that makes up the whole of the poem, in a specific situation at a critical moment; this person addresses and interacts with one or more other people, but the reader knows of the listeners' presence, and what they say and do, only from clues in the discourse of the single speaker; and the main principle controlling the poet's choice and formulation of what the speaker says is to reveal to the reader, in a way that enhances its interest, the speaker's temperament and character.
Facts
Place of OriginVictorian Britain; the form reached its high point in English poetry in the 19th century with Tennyson and Robert Browning, following earlier Romantic-era precedents such as Coleridge's conversation poems. 1 Notable ExampleRobert Browning's My Last Duchess, and Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses (1842), called the first true dramatic monologue in English poetry. 1 Defining TraitA poem in which a single speaker, explicitly not the poet, addresses one or more silent listeners at a critical moment, the speaker's own words revealing his or her temperament and character to the reader. 1 Connections
Sources
1. Dramatic Monologue (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Dramatic monologue is a type of poetry written in the form of a speech of an individual character.
M.H. Abrams' three features, first feature
The single person, who is patently not the poet, utters the speech that makes up the whole of the poem, in a specific situation at a critical moment
Examples section, Tennyson
Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Ulysses, published in 1842, has been called the first true dramatic monologue.
Examples section, opening
The Victorian period represented the high point of the dramatic monologue in English poetry.
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