Knowra Dramatic monologue Dramatic monologue A poem in which one speaker addresses a silent listener, revealing character through speech. The listener’s presence is inferred from the speaker’s words rather than heard directly.
Dramatic situation : A charged set of circumstances that gives a literary scene its immediate stakes. The speaker’s words make sense within a specific situation, often one that is only gradually disclosed.
My Last Duchess : Robert Browning’s poem in which a Duke shows a portrait of his late wife to an emissary. The Duke’s polished account exposes his possessiveness and control.
Robert Browning : A Victorian English poet whose works include many celebrated dramatic monologues. His poems helped establish the form’s characteristic mixture of vivid voice and unintended disclosure.
Soliloquy : A speech in which a dramatic character speaks thoughts aloud, typically while alone on stage. A soliloquy usually presents private thought, while this poem addresses a silent listener.
Implied audience : The audience a text presupposes through its language, assumptions, and mode of address. The silent listener shapes what the speaker explains, conceals, or takes for granted.
Porphyria's Lover : Robert Browning’s poem in which a speaker recounts killing Porphyria and preserving her body beside him. The speaker’s calm narration reveals a chilling distortion of love and agency.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson : A Victorian English poet and Poet Laureate whose works include dramatic monologues such as “Ulysses.” His experiments show the form developing beyond Browning’s unsettling speakers.
Dramatic lyric : A lyric poem that presents a speaker in a particular dramatic situation. The category overlaps with dramatic monologue but does not always require an implied listener.
Unreliable narrator : A narrator whose account is distorted by limited knowledge, bias, self-deception, or deliberate deception. The speaker’s self-presentation can conflict with details that disclose a less flattering character.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock : T. S. Eliot’s poem presenting the anxious, fragmented reflections of a speaker contemplating social and romantic action. Its self-questioning voice makes inward hesitation the poem’s dramatic event.
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