Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T09:10:28.199Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The dramatic monologue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Joseph Bristow
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Get access

Summary

Early in Augusta Webster's dramatic monologue, “An Inventor” (1870), the speaker expresses his frustration over a contraption that he has not yet perfected. “It must,” he insists, “perform my thought, it must awake / this soulless whirring thing of springs and wheels, / and be a power among us” (119). These desperate imperatives (“it must”) are followed by a question that might betray a sense of futility were it not also the question of any innovator: “Aye but how?” The speaker seeks public exhibition or display of his thought; only then can the object be “a power among us,” and so enjoy a social and cultural import beyond even its maker. But the phrase also suggests a more pragmatic, less theatrical, and less hierarchical imperative for the object: it must execute his thought, it must accomplish or fulfill some action or deed, and it must be effectual.

The notion of creating a vehicle for the performance of thoughts may remind us of another nineteenth-century invention: the dramatic monologue itself. This chapter explores the element of performance in the dramatic monologue, the ways these poems enact or express aspects of their speakers, and the ways in which these varied monologues are "dramatic." It will also, however, pursue what we might term the performative element of the dramatic monologue, the methods by which these discursive forays, these words, accomplish various goals - some apparent, others subtle and less readily perceptible.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×