Browning and the Dramatic Monologue

by S. S. Curry

There seems, however, to be an exception to this. Carlyle, it is said, when expressing the profoundest feeling in conversation always lapsed into broad Scottish dialect. Colonel T. W. Higginson says that he, with another gentleman and Carlyle, once passed through a park belonging to a private estate. Some children were rolling on the grass, and one boy coming forward timidly, approached Carlyle, whose face seemed to the boy the most kindly disposed to children, and said, “Please, sir, may we roll on the grass?” Carlyle broke into the broadest Scotch, “Ye may roll at discretion.”

As already intimated, dialect must not be so extreme that the audience cannot easily understand what the reader is saying. All true art is clear; it is not a puzzle. On account of its theme, and its appeal to the higher faculties, its comprehension may at times require long continued contemplation and earnest endeavor; but an accidental element, such as dialect, must never prevent immediate understanding of the words spoken or thoughts expressed. Dialect must be perfectly transparent. Its whole charm will be lost if it does not give a simple, quaint suggestion of character.

The chief element of dialect is not in the words or the pronunciation of the elementary sounds but in the melody. Every language has a kind of “accent,” as it is called, and it is this “accent” which is most characteristic. Every word may be pronounced correctly, but the artistic reader or actor can suggest immediately by the peculiar melodic form of his phrases whether it is a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, an Irishman, or a Scotsman who speaks.

In fact, the more subtle, more natural, more suggestive the dialect, the better. It must never be labored; never be of interest in itself. It is secondary to character, to thinking, and even to feeling.

Dialect should always be the result of assimilation rather than imitation. If there is imitation at all, it must be of that higher kind resulting from sympathetic identification and a right use of the dramatic instinct.

One of the greatest mistakes in rendering dialect consists in taking the printed word as the sole guide. Because a word here and there is spelled oddly, the reader confines the dialect to these words.

True dialect is not a matter of individual words. It must penetrate the speech; it never can be more than vaguely suggested in print, and the print can be only a very inadequate guide to the reader. He must go to life itself and study the melodic spirit, the peculiar relations to character, the quaint inflections and modulations of the voice, which have little to do with mere pronunciation. A Scotchman may have corrected certain peculiarities of his vowels, or a Frenchman be able to pronounce individual words accurately, but still both will show a melodic peculiarity, which remains a fundamental characteristic. One who renders monologues and omits this peculiar melodic element will fail to give the fundamental element in dialect.

Dialect must not only be dramatic and sympathetic, but also delicately suggestive and accurate. The accuracy, however, should not be literal. It must be true to the type, and be felt as a part of the background.

In the rendering of a monologue, in general nothing should be given in dialect unless the dialect is directly expressive of the character of the speaker, his views, ideas, or feelings, or unless it is necessary to the complete representation of the ideas, or can add something to the humorous or suggestive force of the thought.

Peculiarities of dialect are always associated with dramatic action. In fact, dialect is to speech what bearings are to movements. This again shows that dialect is primarily dramatic, and justifies a full discussion of the subject in connection with the dramatic monologue. A mere mechanical imitation of dialect in the pronunciation is wrong from this point of view also. The movements and actions of a character are as essential as dialect, but are more general and will often determine the most important part of the dialect, namely, the peculiar melody. When a character is truly assimilated by instinct, if there is no mechanical imitation, the dialect becomes almost an unconscious revelation.