Browning and the Dramatic Monologue

by S. S. Curry

All poetry, according to Aristotle, expresses the universal element in human nature. Lyric, epic, and dramatic writing alike must become poetic by such an intense realization of an idea, situation, or character that the soul is lifted into a realization of the emotions of the race. Some forget this in studying the differences between lyric and dramatic poetry. It is not the lyric alone that idealizes human experience and universalizes emotion.

The study of Kipling’s “Mandalay” especially illustrates the differences between the lyric and the dramatic spirit, and their necessary union in the portrayal of human experience. This is both a lyric and a monologue. It has a dramatic character. A British soldier in a specific place, London, is talking to some one who can appreciate his feeling, and every word is true to the character speaking and to the situation. But this dramatic element does not interfere with, but on the contrary aids, the realization and expression of a profoundly lyric feeling and spirit. The soldier reveals his love,—love deeper than racial prejudices,—and though “there aren’t no Ten Commandments” in the land of his beloved, he feels the universal emotion in the human heart, a profound love that is superior to any national bound or racial limit. In the poem this love dominates everything,—the rhythm, the color of the voice. He even turns from his hearer, and sees far away the vision of the old Moulmein Pagoda, and the suddenness of the dawn, coming up

“... like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!”

The fact that poetry expresses the “universal element in human nature” is true not only of lyric poetry, but also of dramatic poetry; and in the noblest exaltation of emotion, lyric, dramatic, and epic elements coalesce.

It is the affinity of the monologue with lyric and epic poetry that proves its own specific character. The fact that there can be a lyric, epic, and narrative monologue, proves its naturalness.

Many of America’s most popular writers have adopted the monologue as their chief mode of expression. James Whitcomb Riley’s sketches in the Hoosier dialect present the Hoosier point of view with a homely and sympathetic character as speaker. Even his dialect is but an aspect of the types of character conceived. The centre of interest is not always in the emotion or the ideas, but in the type of person that is the subject of a monologue.

The same is true of the poems by the late Dr. Drummond of Montreal.

The peculiar French-Canadian dialect was never so well portrayed; but this is only accidental. The chief interest lies in his creation or realization of types of character. The artistic form is the monologue, however conscious or unconscious may have been the author’s adoption of the form.

A recent popular book, “The Second Mrs. Jim,” uses a series of monologues as the means of interpreting a new kind of heroine, the mother-in-law. The centre of interest being in this character, the author adopted a series of eight monologues with the same listener, a friend to whom Mrs. Jim unfolds her inmost heart. With this person she can “come and talk without its bein’ spread all over the township.” She remarks once that she took something she wanted to be told to a neighbor who was a “good spreader, just as you’re the other kind.”

All the conditions of the monologue are complied with; the situation changes, sometimes being in Mrs. Jim’s house, but four or five times in that of her friend. Speaker and listener are always the same. The author wishes to centre attention upon the character of the speaker, her common-sense, her insight into human nature, her skill in managing Jim, and especially the boys; hence a listener is chosen who will be discreet and say but little, and who is in full sympathy with the speaker. There is little if any plot; but while Mrs. Jim narrates what has happened in the meantime, it is her character, her insight, her humor, her point of view and mode of expression, in which the chief interest centres. This book might be called a narrative monologue, but the narrative is of secondary importance; the centre of interest lies in the portrayal of a character.