Dramatic Monologue

Robert Browning
Alfred Tennyson
Dante Rossetti
and other Victorians
Dramatic Monologue
 A poem in which a single speaker who is not
the poet utters the entire poem at a critical
moment. The speaker has a listener within
the poem, but we too are his/her listener,
and we learn about the speaker's character
from what the speaker says. In fact, the
speaker may reveal unintentionally certain
aspects of his/her character. Robert
Browning perfected this form.
 (source: Abrams glossary)
From
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/rb/dm1.html

 Glenn Everett proposes that Browninesque

dramatic monologue has three
requirements:
1. The reader takes the part of the
silent listener.
2. The speaker uses a case-making,
argumentative tone.
3. We complete the dramatic scene from
within, by means of inference and
imagination.