Analysis of Robert Browning Poetry

Authors Avatar

By Nadine Esaid

“Dramatic Monologue usually presents a psychotic killer. However, despite the shock factor, we often feel sorry for the narrator”

A 'dramatic monologue' is a type of poem, favored by many poets in the Victorian period, in which a character in fiction or in history delivers a speech explaining his or her feelings, actions, or motives. A dramatic monologue, also known as a persona poem, is a poem with a speaker who is clearly separate from the poet, who speaks to an implied audience that, while silent, remains clearly present in the scene. A silent audience is implied; there is no dialogue; and the poet speaks through an assumed voice: a character, a fictional identity, or a persona. Since a dramatic monologue is by definition one person’s speech, placing emphasis on certain qualities that are left to the audience to interpret themselves. The use of this lyrical poem can make the reader feel certain emotions for the narrator such as empathy or even anger. As a result, the reader becomes more closely involved in the poems and can feel very strong emotions for the individuals portrayed; this is because a lot of sentiment has gone into their speech. All the narrators in Browning’s Poems actions are caused by one thing-jealousy. The style of the dramatic monologue may even be an effort to turn poetry into many of the distinctive features of drama. When Browning wrote his monologues such as “My last Duchess”, “The Laboratory” and “Porphyria’s Lover, we had obvious connections to the narrators because the use of the context just suggested to us how much pain they were going through- it felt very personal. All of the poems always resulted in an emotionally stricken audience.

Victorians were quite introverted at that time, so if they suddenly realized people started to reveal their inner emotions, they were just so engrossed. The dramatic monologue was arguably a drug for the Victorians; widely regarded as the most significant poetic innovation of the age. It gained widespread use, after the 1830s, by an overwhelming amount of poets.  These poems were like a fantasy that could never happen so it made people more open about it.  There were some good outcomes and some bad. Their likely effects were maybe women having total dominancy over men, resulting in divorce or murder, more suspicion between couples and most of all observation over one another. On the other hand, people became more open to one another.

All poems were written in the Victorian Period, but they were all set in different places. In “My Last Duchess,” the poem is set in the late Italian Renaissance period in the 16th century. “The Laboratory” is set in France during “Ancien Regime”; it was the time before the French revolution. The last poem we learnt about is “Porphyria’s Lover”. This poem was set in romantic era. During all these times all three poems were set in, it was a patriarchal society. Patriarchal society was a time where men were inferior and more important for being responsible for the welfare and authority over their family meaning women were less important and more closed-in and had to obey what their husbands or fathers said to them. It was a patriarchal society in the Victorian times as well as when the poems were set in.

Join now!

The narrators in all three poems have clearly defined characters. They have all been possessed by the fact that they could not/will not have their lovers for eternity, motivating them into murder. Both, in “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover”, have similarities because they are both narrated from a male lover’s point of view. Whereas, in “The Laboratory” the narrator is female, this instantly gives us a totally opposite point of view.

The narrator in “My last Duchess” is very dominant, which brings us back to my point that it was a patriarchal society. This is evident when ...

This is a preview of the whole essay