A dramatic monologue is a piece of spoken verse that offers great insight into the

feelings of the speaker. Not to be confused with a soliloquy in a play (which the character
speaking speaks to themselves), dramatic monologues suggest an auditor or auditors.
They were favoured by many poets in the Victorian period, in which a character in fiction
or in history delivers a speech explaining his or her feelings, actions, or motives. The
monologue is usually directed toward a silent audience, with the speaker's words
influenced by a critical situation. Examples of a dramatic monologue exist in My Last
Duchess by Robert Browning, when a duke speaks to an emissary of his way,
"Porphyria's Lover" also by Robert Browning, "The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form
Team" by Carol Ann Duffy, "Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath, and "Mother to Son" by
Langston Hughes.

In a general way, the dramatic tradition as a whole may have influenced the style of the
monologue. Indeed, the style of the dramatic monologue, which attempts to evoke an
entire story through representing part of it, may be called an endeavor to turn into poetry
many of the distinctive features of drama.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Features of the Dramatic Monologue

• 2 Types of monologues
• 3 The Victorian Period
• 4 See also
• 5 References

• 6 Sources

[edit] Features of the Dramatic Monologue

M. H. Abrams notes the following three features of the dramatic monologue:

1. 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 […].
2. 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.
3. 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]

[edit] Types of monologues

One of the most important influences on the development of the dramatic monologue are the Romantic poets.
The long, personal lyrics typical of the Romantic period are not dramatic monologues, in the sense that they
do not, for the most part, imply a concentrated narrative. However, poems such as William Wordsworth's
Tintern Abbey and Percy Bysshe Shelley's Mont Blanc, to name two famous examples, offered a model of
close psychological observation and philosophical or pseudo-philosophical inquiry described in a specific
setting.

The novel, and plays have also been important influences on the dramatic monologue,
particularly as a means of characterisation. Dramatic monologues are a way of expressing
the views of a character and offering the audience greater insight into that character's
feelings. Dramatic monologues can also be used in novels to tell stories, as in Mary
Shelly's Frankenstein, and to implicate the audience in moral judgments, as in Albert
Camus' The Fall and Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

[edit] The Victorian Period

The Victorian period represented the high point of the dramatic monologue in English
poetry.

• Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Ulysses, published in 1842, has been called the first true
dramatic monologue. After Ulysses, Tennyson's most famous efforts in this vein
are Tithonus, The Lotus Eaters, and St. Simon Stylites, all from the 1842 Poems;
later monologues appear in other volumes, notably Idylls of the King.

• Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach and Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse are
famous, semi-autobiographical monologues. The former, usually regarded as the
supreme expression of the growing skepticism of the mid-Victorian period, was
published along with the later in 1867's New Poems.

• Robert Browning is usually credited with perfecting the form; certainly,

Browning is the poet who, above all, produced his finest and most famous work in
this form. While My Last Duchess is the most famous of his monologues, the
form dominated his writing career. Fra Lippo Lippi, Caliban upon Setebos,
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister and Porphyria's Lover, as well as the other
poems in Men and Women are just a handful of Browning's monologues.

Other Victorian poets also used the form. Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote several, including
Jenny and The Blessed Damozel; Christina Rossetti wrote a number, including The
Convent Threshold. Algernon Charles Swinburne's Hymn to Proserpine has been called a
dramatic monologue vaguely reminiscent of Browning's work.
My last Duchess

Poem structure and historical background

The poem is written in 28 rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter.

The poem is preceded by the word Ferrara:, indicating that the speaker is most likely the
fifth Duke of Ferrara (1533–1598) who, at the age of 25, married the 14-year-old
daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo.

Lucrezia was not well educated, and the Medicis' status could be termed "nouveau riche"
in comparison with that of the venerable and distinguished Este family. The Duke's
remark regarding his gift of a "nine-hundred-years-old name" clearly indicates that he
considered his bride beneath him socially. She came, however, with a sizeable dowry.
The couple married in 1558. He then abandoned her for two years before she died on
April 21, 1561, at age 17. There was a strong suspicion of poisoning. The Duke then
sought the hand of Barbara, eighth daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and
Anna of Bohemia and Hungary and the sister of the Count of Tyrol, Ferdinand II[2]. The
count was in charge of arranging the marriage; the chief of his entourage, Nikolaus
Madruz, a native of Innsbruck, was his courier. Madruz is presumably the silent listener
in the poem.

The other characters named in the poem, painter Frà Pandolf and sculptor Claus of
Innsbruck, are fictional.

Themes

The main themes are power, influence, marriage, aristocracy and egotism. It is possible to
use blanket terms such as love and death when commenting on themes, yet love does not
seem to play on the duke's mind heavily. At least he does not love women, however he
does love the painting and gains joy from intimidating the messenger by commenting on
how he had her killed. Death does occur prior to the novel, but can only be considered as
an expression of the duke's control and not a comment on death itself. The themes of
death and ego can be found in some of Browning's other work such as The Bishop Orders
His Tomb.

[edit] Story
The poem is set during the late Italian Renaissance. The speaker (presumably the Duke of
Ferrara) is giving the emissary of his prospective second wife a tour of the artworks in his
home. He draws a curtain to reveal a painting of a woman, explaining that it is a portrait
of his late wife; he invites his guest to sit and look at the painting. As they look at the
portrait of the late Duchess, the Duke describes her happy, cheerful and flirtatious nature,
which had displeased him. He says, "She had a heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made
glad..." He goes on to say that his complaint of her was that "'twas not her husband's
presence only" that made her happy. Eventually, "I gave commands; then all smiles
stopped together." He now keeps her painting hidden behind a curtain that only he is
allowed to draw back, meaning that now she only smiles for him. The Duke then resumes
an earlier conversation regarding wedding arrangements, and in passing points out
another work of art, a bronze statue of Neptune taming a sea-horse.

In an interview, Browning said, "I meant that the commands were that she should be put
to death . . . Or he might have had her shut up in a convent." [3]

"Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni" is an ode by the Romantic
poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poem was composed between 22 July 1816 and 29
August 1816 during Percy Shelley's journey to the Chamonix Valley, and intended to
reflect the scenery through which he travelled. "Mont Blanc" was first published in 1817
in Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley's History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a Part of
France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland, which some scholars believe to use "Mont
Blanc" as its culmination.

After Percy Shelley's early death in 1822, Mary Shelley published two collected editions
of her husband's poetry; both of which included "Mont Blanc". Mary's promotion of his
poetry helped to secure his enduring reputation and fame.

In "Mont Blanc", Percy Shelley compares the power of the mountain against the power of
the human imagination. Although he emphasised the ability of the human imagination to
uncover truth through a study of nature, he questions the notion of religious certainty.
The poet concludes that only a privileged few can see nature as it really is, and are able to
express its benevolence and malevolence through the device of poetry.

Poem
First page of "Mont Blanc" from History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817)

"Mont Blanc" is a 144-line natural ode divided into five stanzas and written in irregular
rhyme.[12] It serves as Shelley's response to William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey and as a
"defiant reaction" against the "religious certainties" of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Hymn
before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni",[13] which "credits God for the sublime
wonders of the landscape".[1]

When the narrator of the poem looks upon Mont Blanc, he is unable to agree with
Wordsworth that nature is benevolent and gentle. Instead, the narrator contends that
nature is a powerful force:[12]

The everlasting universe of things

Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters... (Lines 1–5)[14]

However, this force only seems to have power in relation to the human mind.[15]

In the second stanza, the narrator turns to the Arve River as a representation of
consciousness in nature. The Arve River and the ravine surrounding the river increase the
beauty of the other:[16]

...awful scene,
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
From the ice gulphs that gird his secret throne,
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of lightning through the tempest... (Lines 15–19)[17]

When the narrator witnesses the power of the Arve River, he claims:[16]

I seem as in a trance sublime and strange

To muse on my own separate phantasy,
My own, my human mind, which passively
Now renders and receives fast influencings,
Holding and unremitting interchange
With the clear universe of things around; (Lines 35–40)[18]

He realizes that knowledge is a combination of sensory perceptions and the ideas of the
mind.[19] The river can then serve as a symbol of a conscious power and a source for
imaginative thought when he finishes the stanza, "thou art there!"[20]
The third stanza introduces the connections between Mont Blanc and a higher power:

Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,

Mont Blanc appears,—still, snowy, and serene—
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms
Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread
And wind among the accumulated steeps; (Lines 60–66)[21]

Although the power may seem removed from mankind, it can still serve as a teacher. By
listening to the mountain, one can learn that nature can be both benevolent and
malevolent; good and evil emerge from conscious choice and one's relationship to nature:
[20]

The wilderness has a mysterious tongue

Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man may be
But for such faith with nature reconciled;
Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood
By all, but which the wise, and great, and good
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.(Lines 76–83)[22]

The fourth stanza discusses the greater power behind the mountain:

Power dwells apart in its tranquillity

Remote, serene, and inaccessible:
And this, the naked countenance of earth,
On which I gaze, even these primæval mountains
Teach the adverting mind.... (Lines 96–100)[23]

The power of the mountain, which encompasses both creation and destruction, parallels
the power of the imagination.[24]

Although nature can teach one about the imagination and offer truths about the universe,
the poem denies the existence of natural religion. The power of the universe is
symbolised by Mont Blanc, but for that power to have any meaning, one must exercise
the imagination:[25]

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,

The still and solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life and death....
...The secret strength of things
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!
And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind's imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy?(Lines 127–129, 139–144)[26]
Ulysses

As the poem begins, Ulysses has returned to his kingdom, Ithaca, having had a long,
eventful journey home after fighting in the Trojan War. Confronted again by domestic
life, Ulysses expresses his lack of contentment, including his indifference toward the
"savage race" (line 4) that he governs. Ulysses contrasts his restlessness and boredom
with his heroic past. He contemplates his age and eventual death — "Life piled on life /
Were all too little, and of one to me / Little remains" (24–26) - and longs for further
experience and knowledge. His son Telemachus will inherit the throne that Ulysses finds
burdensome. While Ulysses thinks Telemachus will be an adequate king, he seems to
have little empathy for his son—"He works his work, I mine" (43)—and the necessary
methods of governing—"by slow prudence" (36) and "through soft degrees" (37). In the
final section, Ulysses turns his attention to his mariners and calls on them to join him on
another quest, making no guarantees as to their fate but attempting to conjure their heroic
past:

… Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. (56–64)

[edit] Prosody

The speaker's language is unadorned and forceful, and it expresses Ulysses' conflicting
moods as he searches for continuity between his past and future. There is often a marked
contrast between the sentiment of Ulysses' words and the sounds that express them.[2] For
example, the poem's insistent iambic pentameter is often interrupted by spondees
(metrical feet consisting of two long syllables), which slow down the movement of the
poem; the labouring language casts into doubt the reliability of Ulysses' sentiments.
Noteworthy are lines 19–21:

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move. (19–21)

Observing their burdensome prosodic effect, the poet Matthew Arnold remarked, "these
three lines by themselves take up nearly as much time as a whole book of the Iliad."[3]
Many of the poem's clauses carry over into the following line; this enjambment
emphasizes Ulysses' restlessness and dissatisfaction.[4]

[edit] Form

The poem's seventy lines of blank verse are presented as a dramatic monologue. Scholars
disagree on how Ulysses' speech functions in this format; it is not necessarily clear to
whom Ulysses is speaking, if anyone, and from what location. Some see the verse turning
from a soliloquy to a public address, as Ulysses seems to speak to himself in the first
movement, then to turn to an audience as he introduces his son, and then to relocate to the
seashore where he addresses his mariners.[5] In this interpretation, the comparatively
direct and honest language of the first movement is set against the more politically
minded tone of the last two movements. For example, the second paragraph (33–43)
about Telemachus, in which Ulysses muses again about domestic life, is a "revised
version [of lines 1–5] for public consumption":[6] a "savage race" is revised to a "rugged
people".

The ironic interpretations of "Ulysses" may be the result of the modern tendency to
consider the narrator of a dramatic monologue as necessarily "unreliable". According to
critic Dwight Culler, the poem has been a victim of revisionist readings in which the
reader expects to reconstruct the truth from a misleading narrator's accidental revelations.
[7]
Culler himself views "Ulysses" as a dialectic in which the speaker weighs the virtues of
a contemplative and an active approach to life;[8] Ulysses moves through four emotional
stages that are self-revelatory, not ironic: beginning with his rejection of the barren life to
which he has returned in Ithaca, he then fondly recalls his heroic past, recognizes the
validity of Telemachus' method of governing, and with these thoughts plans another
journey.[9]

[edit] Publication history

Tennyson completed the poem on 20 October 1833,[10] but it was not published until
1842, in his second collection of Poems. Unlike many of Tennyson's other important
poems, "Ulysses" was not revised after its publication.[11] Tennyson originally blocked
out the poem in four paragraphs; it has, however, been printed with both three and four
paragraphs, structures that affect the analysis of Ulysses' narration. With three
paragraphs, the poem is divided at lines 33 and 44; with four, the five-line introduction
becomes its own movement. In this four-movement version, the first and third are
thematically parallel, but may be read as interior and exterior monologues, respectively.[6]
Idylls of the King, published between 1856 and 1885, is a cycle of twelve narrative
poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892; Poet Laureate from
1850) which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her
tragic betrayal of him, following the rise and fall of Arthur and his kingdom. The whole
work recounts Arthur's attempt and failure to lift up mankind and create a perfect
kingdom, from his coming to power to his death at the hands of the traitor Mordred.
Individual poems detail the deeds of various knights, including Lancelot, Geraint,
Galahad, and Balin and Balan, and also Merlin and the Lady of the Lake. There is little
transition between Idylls, but the central figure of Arthur links all the stories. The poems
were dedicated to the late Albert, Prince Consort.

Tennyson based his retelling primarily on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and
the Mabinogion, but with many expansions, additions, and several adaptations, a notable
example of which is the fate of Guinevere. In Malory she is sentenced to be burnt at the
stake but is rescued by Lancelot; in the Idylls Guinevere flees to a convent, is forgiven by
Arthur, repents, and serves in the convent until she dies. Tennyson amended the
traditional spellings of several names to fit the metre.

The Idylls are written in blank verse. Tennyson's descriptions of nature are derived from
observations of his own surroundings, collected over the course of many years.

Part of the work was written in the Hanbury Arms in Caerleon, where a plaque
commemorates the event. The dramatic narratives are not an epic either in structure or
tone, but derive elegiac sadness from the idylls of Theocritus. Idylls of the King is often
read as an allegory of the societal conflicts in Britain during the mid-Victorian era.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Publishing chronology
• 2 The Idylls
o 2.1 The Coming of Arthur
o 2.2 Gareth and Lynette
o 2.3 The Marriage of Geraint
o 2.4 Geraint and Enid
o 2.5 Balin and Balan
o 2.6 Merlin and Vivien
o 2.7 Lancelot and Elaine
o 2.8 The Holy Grail
o 2.9 Pelleas and Ettare
o 2.10 The Last Tournament
o 2.11 Guinevere
o 2.12 The Passing of Arthur
• 3 Allegory for Victorian Society
 • 4 References

• 5 External links

Tennyson sought to encapsulate the past and the present in the Idylls. Arthur in the story
is often seen as an embodiment of Victorian ideals; he is said to be "ideal manhood
closed in real man" and the "stainless gentleman." Arthur often has unrealistic
expectations for the knights of the round table and for Camelot itself, and despite his best
efforts he is unable to uphold the Victorian ideal in his Camelot. Idylls also contains
explicit references to Gothic interiors, Romantic appreciations of nature, and anxiety over
gender role reversals all point to the work as a specifically Victorian one.[2]

Tennyson tried to appeal to his Victorian audience by setting his female characters up as
the opposite of what is good in the poem. In the Victorian age there was a renewed
interest in the idea of courtly love, or the finding of spiritual fulfillment in the purest form
of romantic love. This idea is embodied in the relationship between Guinevere and Arthur
in the poem especially; the health of the state is blamed on Guinevere when she does not
live up to the purity expected of her by Arthur as she does not sufficiently serve him
spiritually. Tennyson's position as poet laureate during this time and the popularity of the
Idylls served to further propagate this view of women in the Victorian age.[3