A Study on Robert Browning

A Study on Robert Browning’s Dramatic Monologue
T he name of Robert Browning is often associated with the term: dramatic monologue. It is in his hand that this poetic form reaches its maturity and perfection. In such poems, Browning chooses a dramatic moment or a crisis, in which his characters are made to talk about their lives, about their minds and hearts. In "listening" to that one-side talk, readers can form their own opinions and judgments about the speaker's personality and about what has really happened.
Dramatic monologue: Browning contributes to English poetry, which resembles a soliloquy in drama. In this kind of poetry, the voice speaking in the poem is not the poet himself, but a character invented by the poet, so that it reflects life objectively. Browning’s poems of dramatic monologue are chiefly collected in Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, Men and Women, and Dramatic Personae. Dramatic monologue was imitated by many poets after Browning and brought to its most sophisticated form by T.S.Eliot in his The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
My Lost Duchess and Porphyria's Lover show that the places and the characteristics of listeners and monologists are quite different in the dramatic monologue. In Porphyria's Lover, Browning has successfully heightened the atmosphere and portrayed its characters.Therefore; his artistry of dramatic monologue is really in English literature.
When discussing the poetic form of dramatic monologue it is rare that it is not associated with and its usage attributed to the poet Robert Browning. Robert Browning has been considered the master of the dramatic monologue. Although some critics are skeptical of his invention of the form, for dramatic monologue is evidenced in poetry preceding Browning, it is believed that his extensive and varied use of the dramatic monologue has significantly contributed to the form and has had an enormous impact on modern poetry. Although Browning wrote numerous dramatic monologues his contemporaries often criticized his works as being too emotional. The dramatic monologues of Browning are characterized by certain identifiable traits.
We can see how this would led naturally to a poetic genre that allowed Browning to distance himself from his poetry - his speakers are his own creations, but do not necessarily speak with his own voice. He can always hide in the background and let his narrators do the talking. This way Browning need not fear attacks on the grounds of him being self-obsessed Browning can remain constantly elusive. In fact his characters can be so extreme that we need not make any real connection with the poet at all. We have the cruel, controlling and possibly insane Duke of Ferrera, the deranged lover and killer of Porphria's Lover,' and the unreliable brothel-frequenting monk and artist of 'Fra Lippo Lippi.' Not only can Browning avoid all suggestion of self-absorption he can explore a new poetic genre.
As a result of the dramatic monologue appearing to be so unlinked to the author it feels so much more speculative and free of limitations. It is so much more entertaining because of its wide scope and of course because the characters are so unlike the author. The drama is heightened because the author is almost anonymous. The reader engages with a fictional character who confesses and holds back at the
same time bringing about intrigue and building empathy at the same time. We naturally engage with the speaker in an intense and personal way simply because we have only one speaker to directly engage with. While other people are implied in the poem (including Browning himself) everything is reported by our narrator; a narrator who is not to be fully trusted as an interpreter of events.。