All modern life and experience have become more subjective; hence, it is natural that dramatic art should change its form. Let no one suppose, however, that this change marks the death of dramatic representation. Dramatic art in some shape is necessary as a means of expression in every age. It has become more subtle and suggestive, but it is none the less dramatic. An important phase of the changes in the character of dramatic art is the recognition of the monologue. The adoption of this form shows the tendency of dramatic art to adapt itself to modern times. The dramatic monologue, however, did not arise in opposition to the play, but as a new and parallel aspect of dramatic art. It has not the same theme as the play, does not deal with the expression of human life in movement or the complex struggles of human beings with each other, but it reveals the struggle in the depths of the soul. It exhibits the dramatic attitude of mind or the point of view. It is more subjective, more intense, and also more suggestive than the play. It reveals motives and character by a flash to an awakened imagination. However this new dramatic form may be explained, whatever may be its character, there is hardly a book of poetry that has appeared in recent years that does not contain examples. Many popular writers, it may be unconsciously, employ this form almost to the exclusion of all others. The name itself occurs rarely in English books; but the name is nothing,--the monologue is there. The presence of the form of the monologue before its full recognition is a proof that it is natural and important. Forms of art are not invented; they are rather discovered. They are direct languages; each expresses something no other can say. If the monologue is a distinct literary form, then it possesses certain possibilities in expressing the human spirit which are peculiar to itself. It must say something that nothing else can say so well. Its use by Browning, and the greater and greater frequency of its adoption among recent writers, seems to prove the necessity of a careful study of its peculiarities, possibilities, and rendition. II. THE SPEAKER What is there peculiar about the monologue? Can its nature or structure be so explained that a seemingly difficult poem, such as a monologue by Browning, may be made clear and forcible? In the first place, one should note that the monologue gets its unity from the character of the speaker. It is not merely an impersonal thought, but the expression of one individual to another. It was Hegel, I think, who said that all art implies the expression of a truth, of a thought or feeling, to a person.