Dramatic Monologue

by Byron,Glennis

• ISBN13: 9780415229364
• ISBN10: 0415229367
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-19
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This refreshingly clear guide provides students with a compact introduction to this key topic in literary studies. Although most often associated with Victorian poets such as Browning, dramatic monologue has a long literary and cultural history. DramaticMonologue: *unravels the history of the genre, from the poems of Donne, to today's stand-up comic routines *presents a history of definitions of the term *explores issues at play in our understanding of the genre, such as subjectivity, gender and politics.

Author Biography

Glennis Byron is a Reader in English Studies at the University of Stirling.

Table of Contents

SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE	vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS	viii
1 Introduction	1	(7)
2 Definitions	8	(22)
Setting the terms of the debate	8	(3)
Poet and speaker	11	(9)
Reader and auditor	20	(4)
Character and subject	24	(3)
Changes in the canon	27	(3)
3 Origins	30	(27)
The influence of genre theory	30	(2)
Reacting to the Romantics	32	(5)
Contemporary theories of poetry	37	(5)
Self in the broader context	42	(3)
An alternative theory	45	(12)
4 Men and women	57	(26)
Women's voices	57	(4)
The critique of gender ideology	61	(8)
Men's voices	69	(3)
The gendered dynamics of self and other	72	(2)
Cross-gendered monologues	74	(9)
The monologue in dialogue 8o
5 Victorian developments	83	(29)
The question of style	83	(3)
The historical consciousness	86	(9)
Questions of epistemology	95	(5)
Social critique	100	(12)
6 Modernism and its aftermath	112	(17)
The decline of the genre?	112	(5)
An alternative view	117	(4)
Sixties revival	121	(8)
7 Contemporary dramatic monologues	129	(17)
The dramatic monologue and society	129	(6)
Revisionist dramatic monologues	135	(3)
Dramatic monologues and the media	138	(8)
GLOSSARY	146	(4)
BIBLIOGRAPHY	150	(5)
INDEX	155