Robert Browning's Dramatic Monologues

Robert Browning had a special bent for drama. He wrote many plays but they could not be as successful as his poetry was. Drama is essentially a representation of action but in Browning’s plays, the action was entirely internal. He laid emphasis on soul study, introspection and psychological analysis and so his plays faced failure on stage. But optimistic Browning did not feel dejected. He reduced the size of the plays and wrote dramatic monologues which turned to a great success.

 

It is true that he did not invent this genre but Hugh Walker’s remarks are quite worth quoting here;

 

“He made it specially his own and no one else has ever put such a rich and varied material into it.”

 

The dramatic monologue is dramatic because it is the utterance of a imaginary characters and not of the poet himself. In dramatic monologue, the characters do not develop through any description on the part of the poet but through a conflict between the opposite thoughts of the character himself. It is monologue because it is a conversation of a single individual to himself. Mono means one and logue means conversation.

 

The monologue is to be distinguished from the soliloquy. The monologue is much longer than soliloquy. The soliloquy is a sort of private debate, a dialogue of mind with itself, a speech of a person to himself when he is all alone, whereas a monologue implies the presence of some other characters to whom it is addressed, who listen to it, though they may not take part in it.

 

In Browning’s monologues, the characters in their speeches tell us of themselves, the interlocuters, their deeds, situations and circumstances. The poet has therefore, there objects in view in writing a dramatic monologue. He has to present plot, character and scene in the speech of a single person. Browning has used all these techniques very skillfully in his poems especially in ‘Bishop Orders His Tomb’, ‘My Last Duchess’, ‘Andrea Del Sarto’ and ‘The Ring and the Book’.

 

Browning introduces a number of characters as per demand of a drama but in his monologues, their outward appearance is rarely revealed. However, their souls are laid bare before us and all the devices of language, imagery and rhyme are employed to reveal the personality of the speaker.

 

Browning gained the most vivid effects by the use of suspense and there are many cases in which he increases curiosity with the force of climax by withholding the presentation of the scene. ‘My Last Duchess’ is a notable example of this method.

 

Actually, Browning’s monologues are the soul studies. In each monologue, the speaker is placed in the most critical situation of his life. in ‘Bishop Orders His Tomb’, the Bishop is placed in the critical situation of his life. He is on the death bed and may die any moment. His character is fully revealed through his reaction to the situation. He seems worldly, shrewd and corrupt man, not thinking of his approaching death but curious about how to build hid tomb after death. He wants to adorn his tomb in order to defeat his rival who has been his wife’s lover once.

 

Browning does not begin an action slowly moving to crisis. Rather, his monologues have an abrupt but very arresting openings. ‘My Last Duchess’ also opens with a reference to a picture of the dead duchess with clear indication that it is being shown to someone who has brought the proposal of the daughter of neighbouring duke.

 

We may conclude the whole discussion in the words that Browning was a great writer of Victorian era. He wrote dramatic monologues and added a new charm and fascination into it. His monologues are very popular among the readers of poetry.