BROWNING AS A WRITER OF DRAMATIC

MONOLOGUE

NAME: ESHA GOTEWAL

ROLL NO: 19 ENM 17
ENRL NO: GI5113
PAPER: POETRY FROM ROMANTIC TO VICTORIAN AGE
(1:1)

SUBMITTED TO:
Prof. S.N Zeba
 Browning as a writer of Dramatic Monologue

Introduction

Robert Browning (1812-1889), one of the foremost Victorian poets, was a master of the

dramatic monologue. The dramatic monologue as launched in English Literature during the

Victorian period by Robert Browning. It is not for that he has created a circle of distinctive

characters, but for the appliance of the dramatic monologue he has exhibited principal truths

uniting all men.

Definition of Monologue

A dramatic monologue is a fine blend of dramatic lyric. It is a speech by one outstanding

character other than the poet himself to a silent listener. In a dramatic monologue, even

though there is only one speaker speaking (therefore monologue), it is still dramatic as there

is an actual or implied listener whose questions and queries are anticipated by the speaker and

answered making the monologue dramatic. It is similar to soliloquy in some sense, but in a

soliloquy, there is no implied or actual listener in front of the speaker. In a soliloquy, the

speaker talks to himself at a critical juncture of his life when he is undecided about what

action he or she should follow thereafter; whereas in a dramatic monologue, the speaker not

only talks to himself but also to the speaker at the same time. Thus, this form of poetry is

interesting at it allows readers to find out what the speaker is telling himself and what he

intends the listener to understand. For example, in Porphyria’s Lover, Browning’s dramatic

monologist, the lover is speaking to the readers explaining why he has murdered his beloved

and at the same time making himself understand that he is justified in his actions.

Characteristics of Browning’s Dramatic Monologues

 Browning's dramatic monologues are known for their obscurity. He makes the hero speak

without giving a reference to circumstances. Hence, we completely fail to understand his

speech and his meaning. The technique, as Browning uses it, “separates the speaker from the

poet in such a way that the reader must work through the words of the speaker to discover the

meaning of the poet” (Greenblatt 2006). According to Fletcher, Browning’s “dramatic

monologue is found to be represented as a literal transcript of words spoke, written, or

thought at some definite time by some person who may be either historical or imaginary.” To

illustrate the charge of obscurity against him we may cite My Last Duchess, in which the

Duke of Ferrara is making a speech to the Ambassador who has brought an offer of marriage

for the Duke. We cannot appreciate the intensity and strength of his jealousy without

knowing at the very beginning that the Duke has an indulgent wife “who smiled no doubt,

whenever I passed her, but passed without much the same smile.”

Browning was not interested in truthfulness but in revelation and many of his numerous

speakers paradoxically tell the truth when they try to lie. Browning did not deny the

possibility of telling the truth but his speakers manifestly show that the truth has its own ways

and that it is built by both the speaker and the addressee.

With regard to the dramatic monologues in particular. Park Honan summarizes some of

the criticism against Browning into four main objections:

1. All Browning’s monologists talk alike-all in fact, like Browning.

2. Browning was unconcerned with words; he is verbose, capricious, and insensitive to the

finer qualities of language.

3. Browning was perversely concerned with words; he twists language for exhibitionary

purposes and adopts preposterous coinages.

4. Browning disdained simplicity; he uses technical terms that are not poetic, or that do not

turn into poetry at his hands.

 Yet Honan disagrees with these statements and feels that the poet "perfected a kind of

mesh for catching character that consisted of a remarkably intricate set of dramatic, prosodic,

and verbal techniques . . .”

The second characteristic of his dramatic monologues is that characters of his dramatic

monologues have faith in God. They believe that their actions are the result of God’s will.

Accordingly, Bishop Blougram is certain that his life of pain-stricken and tottering

compromises has been really justified by God's divine. Andrea Del Sarto says to his wife:

At the end

God, I conclude, compensates punishes and

All is as God over rules.

The third characteristic of his dramatic monologues is that they are mixtures of half truths

and falsehood. In the monologue, we do not find uniformity in the statements of the

characters. What they say at one place is contradicted by them at another place. For example

Andrea Del Sarto says to his wife:

"Had the mouth there urged never for gain

God and the glory! never gain

Up to God all there!

I might have done it for you.”

And later on, he concludes the fault of his wife and makes a contradictory speech:

Why do I need you?

What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?

In this world, who can do a thing will not-

And who would it, cannot, I perceive.

 The fourth quality of his monologues is satires against those, who speak them. But G.K.

Chesterton held a different view. He says that “they are not satires or attacks upon their

subjects. They are not even harsh and unfeeling exposures of them. They say or are intended

to say the best that can be said for the persons with them they deal.” To illustrate in The Last

Ride Together, the poet has defended the lover in every possible manner without commenting

on his love or passion.

The fifth characteristic of his dramatic monologues is the coarse and brutal language. In

most cases, we see that the Browning’s dramatic monologist is an obsessive and neurotic

character suffering from ‘I’ syndrome and has great rhetorical capability. ‘Browning’s

dramatic monologues are not just concerned with passions, but with the ‘psychology of

passions’ of unstable characters that at some critical point of their life sets into a rhetorical

mode to justify his action through a dramatic monologue. Browning’s monologues grow out

of some critical situation in the life of the principal figure and embody the reactions of that

figure to that particular situation. Placed in such a situation, the speaker indulges in self

analysis and self introspection and in this way his soul is laid bare in the poem. Let us take

two examples: Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess. Both the dramatic monologues deal

with man- woman relationships, both the speakers are male and murderers. Porphyria’s lover

is a soliloquy in isolation as there is no listener though the lover speaks dramatically. The

lover of Porphyria lives in a world of obsession and nightmare. He kills his beloved for he

suspects her fidelity. To him, she is a ‘bee’ and the moment this ‘bee’ surrenders and begins

to worship him (the bud) – her deity – he shuts her forever. She is strangled to death. He

justifies his crime by saying that he strangled his beloved while she did not feel any pain and

her smiling head was glad to rest itself on his shoulders. He fondly believes that god by

remaining silent has accepted his superiority and condoned this sinister act. But the readers
are able to discern that in his attempt to reassure himself the mad lover has betrayed his

anxiety, his sullenness and his vexation. We get to know that he has not only a great

rhetorical competence but also suffers from the ’I’ Syndrome. In My Last Duchess, the Duke,

the dramatic monologist, is a polished, sophisticated Italian aristocrat, an autocrat, a product

of renaissance, arrogant, avaricious, status-conscious, and connoisseur of art. Like all the

other speakers of dramatic monologue, the Duke is aggressive, socially and intellectually

superior to his listener. From the very beginning he asserts his superiority over the listener by

forcing him to observe the last duchess’ portrait, to hear what he has to say and not to read

the meaning of her life, like painted countenance with passionate glance and cheerful blush

and half flush. The Duke in his own typically narcissistic self delineation puts himself in the

spot light and turns the listener into a shadow. The envoy is compelled to listen to his story

suspending all his power of judgment.

The sixth characteristic is that they state Browning's philosophy of life. They are the best

vehicle to express his philosophical ideas. The characters, as in The Last Ride Together serve

the same purpose. The poet has defended the lover in every possible manner and expresses

his views in a simple and elegant manner. In The Last Ride Together the philosophy is based

on the glories of failure. For example:

Fail I alone, in words and deeds?

Why all men strive and who succeeds?

Look at the end of work, contrast

The petty Done the undone vast.

Browning's dramatic monologues are his best poetic pieces.

Diction:
Browning’s use of diction is a vital part of the interesting style of the monologues and helps

to reveal character in each poem. It refers to (1) vocabulary (2) allusions (3) dramatic irony

(4) figure of sound, especially alliteration and cacophony.

As a general rule, Browning’s vocabulary is suited to the particular persona and to the

particular situation in each monologue. In "Fra Lippo Lippi,” for instance, there are learned,‘

poetic, archaic, unfamiliar, colloquial, and slang words. Nevertheless, all the words have

functional purposes. In ’Fra Lippo Lippi’ there are forty words that occur nowhere else in

Browning’s poetry."

Sometimes Browning uses an allusion, "an indirect reference, by means of mention or

quotation, to something real or fictitious outside the work," in order to indicate character and

attitudes in the poems. Another aspect of Browning’s diction which illuminates the character

of the persona is the use of dramatic irony. This type of irony to occur when “a speaker is

made to use words bearing to the audience, in addition to his own meanings, a further and

ominous sense, hidden from himself . . . ." In Browning’s monologues, dramatic irony is

used whenever there is a discrepancy between what the character says about himself and what

the poet wants the reader to think about him.

Browning’s use of alliteration is an important aspect of the sounds of his poems. Once in

a while, certain consonant clusters appear in the monologues to give the effect of cacophony.

Then, this repetition makes Browning’s verse creak and grind, as in these lines from "Rabbi

Ben Ezra":

Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets

the maw-crammed beast?

Honan concludes his discussion of Browning’s diction in the monologues by saying:

We should at least suspect at this point that many of the so-called

“Browningisms” of Browning are nothing more nor less than verbal

 devices for the revelation of character, and that special kinds of

words... may be resorted to by Browning again and again to fill

slightly different requirements of character delineation in

different monologues…

Only one Character in a Piece

Browning would take a character, get inside it and make it speak in such a way that it

expresses its whole personal history and philosophy. Like Shakespeare, “Browning is

incapable of creating many characters together in a piece, influencing each other's conduct

and action.”

Conclusion

The element and energies of life are tightly knit in microcosmic completeness. Such

situations offered Browning different moods of confusion, sophistry, and self-deception; of

every type of complication and aberration of thought. The typical apologies and self-

justifications of his subjects give him the fullest opportunity of exhibiting his talent as leading

counsel, one of whose art is to induce his victim to speak freely in self-defence; it is the

occasion on which the people are apt to reveal most. The poet acquired such mastery of his

method that he could use it to any degree of complexity.

Insofar as his speakers can never be fully trusted, Browning implicitly shows us that

reality is so much more complex than it seems and that truth happens more than it is told.

Browning never interrupts and judges his speakers and characters but ironically and

implicitly invites his readers to do so by obliquely debunking the speeches of his

reprehensible speakers. Despite his enduring reputation as a staunch optimist and a born
moralizer in the nineteenth century, Browning never teaches lessons in his poetry, except

perhaps the fact that nobody should take a confession at its face value.

Works Cited

Fletcher, Robert Huntington. “Browning’s Dramatic Monologs,” Modern Language Notes,

108-111.pdf.

Chesterton, G.K. Robert Browning. 1909. London: Macmillan. pdf.

Honan, Park. Browning’s Characters. Yale University Press, 1961.pdf.

Browning, Robert. “Porphyria’s Lover.” Poetry Foundation,www.poetryfoundation./46313.

---.“My last Duchess.” Poetry Foundation, https:/www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43768.

---. “Andrea Del Sarto.” Poetry Foundation, https:/www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43745.

---.“The Last Ride Together.” Poetry Archive, poetry archive /b/the_last_ride_together.html.

---. “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” Poetry Foundation,https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43775.