Prepared by : Assistant Professor Arwa Aldoory, Ph.D. THE DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE  The dramatic monologue is a form of poetry which presents the speech or conversation of a person in a dramatic manner. Dramatic monologues are a way of expressing the views of a character and offering the audience greater insight into that character's feelings and thoughts. It provides a model of close psychological observation or philosophical inquiry described in a specific setting.  M.H. Abrams notes the following three features of the dramatic monologue as it applies to poetry:  A single speaker who is not the poet utters the entire poem at a critical moment, in a specific situation at a critical moment .  The speaker has a listener within the poem , but we, the readers, too are his/her listeners . we know about the listener‟s identity and presence only from the discourse of the speaker.  The speaker makes a self-revelation speech that reveals to the reader the speaker's temperament and character. The dramatic monologue, in other words is a poem that reveals a " soul in action " through the speech of one character in a dramatic situation .

 The Victorian period represented the high point of the dramatic monologue in English poetry. the Victorian poet employs the elements of drama to express his conceptual and aesthetic vision  Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Ulysses, published in 1842, has been called the first true dramatic monologue. After Ulysses, Tennyson had another efforts in this vein such as his poem Tithonus  Robert Browning produced his most famous work in this form. His poem My Last Duchess is the most famous of his monologues, the form dominated his writing career.  “Tithonus” by Tennyson is a dramatic monologue representing a classical character from Greek mythology .  Tithonus , according to the legend , was a Trojan youth so beautiful that Aurora , the goddess of dawn , fell in love with him . He asked her to grant him immortality ,but forgot to request eternal youth. The speaker in Tennyson‟s monologue is a Tithonus withered and aged but unable to die . He is lamenting not death, but conversely, his own immortality because he is condemned to live forever.  The paradoxical images used in the poem play a significant role in expressing the cognitive and psychological state of the speaker: immortal youth and beauty beside immortal age, " light " & " ash " images . The first type is attributed to Aurora , the dawn goddess, The " ash " images , on the other hand , are attributed to Tithonus. They are full of gloom , mist and cruilty.  Another example of the dramatic monologue is Robert Browning‟s poem “My Last Dutchess”  The poem is written in 28 rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter. It is set in Renaissance Italy during the 16th century.  Browning is known to have been interested into certain aspects of Renaissance Italy, studying well known figures of the time to help with his poetic output. He was very much at home in Italian culture.

 The speaker in this poem is the Duke of Ferrara who is negotiating with an envoy for the hand of a count‟s daughter in marriage. During the negotiations, the Duke takes the envoy upstairs into his private art gallery and shows him several of the objects in his collection.  The character of the speaker is based on a historical figure, the duke of Ferrara who is obviously described as:  a tricky, arrogant, egoistic, materialistic aristocrat.  a loving but profoundly vain soul.  a malicious, spiteful, a psychopathic, narcissistic murderer.  My Last Duchess was written in the Victorian age, when women were seen more as property in a marriage than real humans capable of love. Generally speaking men were in charge in a relationship; serious notions of equality had not yet been raised.  Browning no doubt had this in mind when he wrote the poem, as an attempt to explore the dominant role of the male in society, the idea of ownership and the position of women in marriage.

 In the opening lines, the duke pulls back a curtain to reveal to the envoy a portrait of his last duchess. The portrait was painted by Fra Pandolf, a monk and painter whom the duke believes captured the singularity of the duchess's glance. However, the duke insists to the envoy that his former wife‟s deep, passionate glance was not reserved solely for her husband.  The Duke considers the humble nature of the last Dutchess an insult to him since she did not give special favor to the old family name of her husband. Unable to control her conduct ,he "gave commands" to have her killed. This demand for control is also reflected in his relationship with the envoy.  This poem explores the ironies of the aristocratic honor. The duke's immorality can be understood in terms of aristocracy. The duke reveals himself not only as a model of culture but also as a monster of morality.  The use of the word "last" in the title implies that there are several others, perhaps with curtain-covered paintings. The use of the possessive pronoun „my‟ also suggests the over controlling nature of the speaker.