Browning and the Dramatic MonologueCurry, S. S. (Samuel Silas)
History
Browning and the Dramatic Monologue
Curry, S. S. (Samuel Silas)
Browning, Robert, 1812-1889 -- Criticism and interpretation; Dramatic monologues -- History and criticism
My master and the neighbors all
Make game of me and Sally,
And, but for her, I'd better be
A slave and row a galley;
But when my seven long years are out
O then I'll marry Sally,--
O then we'll wed, and then we'll bed,
But not in our alley!
All these poems show the necessity for classification as lyric monologues;
that is, poems lyric in every sense of the word, which yet have a certain
dramatic or objective form peculiar to the monologue to give definiteness
and point.
The reader, however, must be very careful not to turn lyrics into
monologues. The pure lyric should be rendered subjectively, neither as
dramatic, on the one hand, nor as oratoric on the other. To render a lyric
as a dramatic monologue is as bad as to give it as a speech. The
discussion of the peculiar differences between the lyric and the
monologue, and the discrimination of lyric monologues as a special class,
should suggest the great variety of lyrics and monologues, how nearly they
approach and how widely they differ from each other. Whether a poem is a
lyric or a monologue must be decided without regard to types or
classifications, except in so far as comparison may throw light upon the
general nature and spirit of the poetry. Different forms are often used to
interpret each other, and the spirit of nearly all may be combined in one
poem.
A peculiar type of the monologue, found occasionally in recent literature,
may be called the epic monologue. Tennyson's "Ulysses" seems at first, in
form at least, a monologue. Ulysses speaks throughout in character, and
addresses his companions. But we presently find that Ulysses stands for
the spirit of the race. He is not an individual, but a type, as he was in
Homer, though he is a different type in Tennyson; and the poem typifies
the human spirit advancing from its achievements in the art and philosophy
of Greece into a newer world. Western civilization is prefigured in this
poem, and Ulysses meeting again the great Achilles symbolizes the spirit
of mankind once more entering upon new endeavors, these being represented
by Achilles. "Ulysses" is thus allegoric or epic. The monologue elements
are but a part of the objective form that gives it unity and character.
The same is true of "Sir Galahad." While Sir Galahad is the speaker, and
the poem is in form a monologue, yet to regard him as a mere literal
character would make him appear egotistic and boastful, and this would
totally pervert the poem. The knight stands for an ideal human soul. Every
person identifies himself with Sir Galahad, but not in the dramatic sense.
While in the form of a monologue, it is, nevertheless, allegoric or epic,
and the search for the Holy Grail is given in its most suggestive and
spiritual significance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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