The poet with his skills creates a character who under the pressure of a situation reveals his feelings and thoughts through his speech to a person and a group of persons .

There is a second character who does not speak but remains present as a listener. In this point it is different from soliloquy where the speaker speaks to him/herself. It is an objective poetic analysis of subjective point of view.

During Romantic and Victorian Period it became very popular.

Source:

The word Monologue is derived from Greek word ‘monos’ meaning ‘solitary’ and ‘logos’ meaning ‘speech.’

Features

• It has all the elements of drama such as plot , character, dialogue and setting.
• Not the poet but a single person utters the whole poem.
• The speaker indicates the presence of other characters.
• It reveals the character of the speaker.

Features of dramatic Monologue according to M.H. Abrams:

• The single person, who is patently not the poet, utters the speech that makes up the whole of the poem, in a specific situation at a critical moment […].
• This person addresses and interacts with one or more other people; but we know of the auditors’ presence, and what they say and do, only from clues in the discourse of the single speaker.
• The main principle controlling the poet’s choice and formulation of what the lyric speaker says is to reveal to the reader, in a way that enhances its interest, the speaker’s temperament and character.

Examples of Dramatic Monologue

Few examples of Dramatic Monologue in English

• “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning
• “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot
• “Tintern Abbey” byWordsworth
• “Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath
• “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold
• “Ulysses” by Tennyson
• “Mont Blanc” by Shelley