Robert Browning and the Dramatic Monologue

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Robert Browning and the Dramatic Monologue

• A Presentation for English 2323 prepared by
• Dr. Brenda Cornell
• Central Texas College

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Background

• Robert Browning is one of the most famous poets
  of the Victorian period. Although he mastered
  many styles and techniques, Browning is most
  famous for the dramatic monologue, defined as a
  narrative poem in which the speaker addresses
  someone who does not respond. Theres more to
  this definition than meets the eye In his
  narrative, the speaker tells two stories an
  intentional one, the surface story he wants the
  listener to hear, and an unintentional one, the
  story about himself, which the listener must
  infer. For the most part, like Chaucers
  Canterbury pilgrims, Brownings speakers are not
  aware of the psychological self-revelation
  communicated in their inner stories.

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Courtship and Marriage to Elizabeth Barrett

• Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, England,
  and his education took place, for the most part,
  among his fathers 6,000-book library. As a
  writer, Browning was regarded as a failure for
  many years, living in the shadow of his wife
  Elizabeth Barrett Browning. However, late in life
  Brownings brilliant use of dramatic monologue
  made him a literary icon. Today, his most widely
  read work is Men and Women, a collection of
  dramatic monologues dedicated to his wife.
  According to the stories, Browning presented
  himself at Elizabeths door one day and told her
  My dear Miss Barrett I have fallen in love with
  your poems and with you. Thus began one of the
  tenderest romances of all time.
  (http//www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-browni
  ng)

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Objections over-ruled!

• When she met Mr. Browning, Elizabeth was in a
  wheelchair, victimized by tuberculosis. She had
  never had a suitor because her over-protective
  father would not allow young men to call upon his
  daughter. Robert Browning, who asked to marry
  Elizabeth, was no exception but unlike young men
  before him, Browning was not afraid of Mr.
  Barrett. Robert persisted in his courtship, and
  Elizabeth agreed to marry him. They eloped and
  set up housekeeping in Venice, Italy Elizabeth
  gave birth to one child, a son and they all
  lived happily ever after.

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Personal References in Poetry

• Browning's Men and Women consists of fifty-one
  poems, all of which are monologues spoken by
  different narrators, some identified and some
  not the first fifty take in a very diverse range
  of historical, religious or European situations,
  with the fifty-first - One Word More - featuring
  Browning himself as narrator and dedicated to his
  wife. The title of the collection came from a
  line in her Sonnets from the Portuguese. Browning
  himself was very fond of the collection,
  referring to the poems as "My fifty men and
  women" (from the opening line in One Word More),
  and today, Men and Women has been described as
  one of Victorian England's most significant
  books.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_and_Women_(poetry
  _collection)Poems_in_the_collection

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Specific Features of the Dramatic Monologue

• M. H. Abrams notes the following 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 we know of the auditors'
  presence, and what they say and do, only from
  clues in the discourse of the single speaker.
• The main principle controlling the poet's choice
  and formulation of what the lyric speaker says is
  to reveal to the reader, in a way that enhances
  its interest, the speaker's temperament and
  character.1
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_monologue

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Works Cited

• http//www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-brownin
  g)
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_monologue
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_and_Women_(poetry
  _collection)Poems_in_the_collection