Browning and the Dramatic Monologue

by S. S. Curry

The Psalm should be read as a monologue, the character should be sustained; the feeling and experience, not of every one, but of Moses in particular, should be felt and truly interpreted.

What light the study of the monologue throws upon the peculiar oratory of the Hebrew prophets! These are speeches, sermons with fragmentary interruptions. Note, for example, in the twenty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, a speech to the drunkards of Jerusalem. The speaker is referring as a warning to the drunkards of Samaria, the northern city being intimated by the figure of the “crown—on the head of the fat valley.” But in verses nine and ten the drunkards retort, and their words have to be read as quotations, as the expression of their feelings. The speeches of the prophets, of course, are not regular forms of the monologue; but a study of the monologue enables us to recognize their dramatic character, and greatly aids in discovering the meaning of these sublime poems or addresses.

The monologue is capable of rendering special service to many classes of men. It has an important, but overlooked, educational value. It can render, for example, great assistance in the training of a speaker. The chief dangers of the speaker are unnaturalness, declamation, extravagance, and crude methods of emphasis, such especially as over-emphasis. He inclines to employ physical force rather than mental energy, to give a show of earnestness rather than to suggest intensity of thought and feeling.

The monologue furnishes the speaker with a simple method of studying naturalness. If set to master a monologue, he must observe conversation, and be able to express thoughts saliently and earnestly to one person.

Although no true speaker can ever afford to neglect the study of Shakespeare and the great dramatists, still the monologue affords a great variety of dramatic situations, and especially interprets dramatic points of view. It will also help him to gain a knowledge of character and furnish a simple method of developing his own naturalness.

An orator presents truth directly, for its own sake, and hence is apt to overlook the fact that oratory, after all, is “the presentation of truth by personality,” and that personal peculiarities will interfere with such presentation. A study of the monologue will reveal him to himself, and help him to understand something of the necessity of making truth clear to another personality. By studying dramatic art, the speaker, in short, not only comes to a knowledge of human nature, and the relation of human beings to each other, but is furnished with the means of understanding himself.

Another important service which the monologue is capable of rendering is the awakening of a perception of the necessary connection between the living voice and literature. The Greeks recognized this, but in modern times we have almost lost the function of the spoken word in education, in our over-emphasis of the written word.

The monologue is capable of furnishing a new course in recitation and speaking, of bringing the most important study of the natural languages into practical relationship with the study of literature. On the one hand, it elevates the study of the spoken word, and gives a practical course for the colleges and high schools in the rendering of some of the masterpieces of the language; on the other hand, it prevents the courses in literature from becoming a mere scientific study of words.

The true study of literature must be subjective. Psychology has tested and tried every study in recent years. Men will soon come to realize that there is a psychology of literature, and centre its study, not in words, but in the living expression of thought and feeling. Written language will then be directly connected with the awakening of the creative faculties of the mind.

The value of the monologue will then be appreciated because of its direct revelation of the action of man’s faculties, and it may be realized also that the evolution of the monologue is a part of the progressive spirit of our own time.