Dramatic monologue and
ballad
By –
Akshi
Dramatic monologue
▪ A dramatic monologue is a poem where a single, distinct
character speaks to a silent or implied listener, revealing their
personality, situation, and motivations through a lengthy speech.
▪ It has an audience, and the speaker is not the poet, but a
persona created by the poet. This form, famously used by
Robert Browning, creates tension between the speaker’s
perspective and the reader’s judgment, as the speech provides
insight into a specific, often dramatic, moment.
Key characteristics
▪ A single speaker: The entire poem is a speech delivered by one person.
▪ A distinct persona: The speaker is not the poet but a created character
who reveals their inner thoughts and feelings.
▪ An implied audience: The speaker addresses an unseen listener, who
may be another character in the poem or a silent, imagined figure.
▪ A “snapshot” of a moment: The speech captures a critical moment,
revealing complex psychological and dramatic situations.
▪ The poet’s absence: The poet is not the speaker, and the views expressed
belong to the character, not necessarily the poet.
Types of dramatic monologue
▪ Types of dramatic monologue in literature include soliloquy,
where a character speaks their inner thoughts aloud while alone;
interior monologue, which presents a character’s thoughts as a
stream of consciousness; and the classic dramatic monologue,
where a character addresses a silent listener or the audience.
Other categorizations focus on content, such as romantic,
conversational, or philosophical, while some focus on theatrical
context, like attending soliloquy.
Types by function and form
▪ Soliloquy: A speech in which a character speaks their innermost thoughts
aloud, typically when alone on stage, revealing their true feelings and
motivations to the audience. Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” is a classic
example.
▪ Interior Monologue: A literary device that presents a character’s thoughts
in a way that resembles the actual flow of thought. It can be presented as a
“stream of consciousness,” directly from the character’s mind, or with some
authorial control.
▪ Dramatic Monologue (classic): A speech given by a single character to
another, usually silent, character, with the intention of revealing the
speaker’s character and a specific moment in time. The audience infers the
silent listener’s reactions.
Types by subject matter
▪ Romantic Monologue: A speech focused on romantic feelings,
relationships, or desires. An example is a character confessing
their love.
▪ Conversational Monologue: A speech delivered as if it were
part of an ongoing conversation, even though the other
participants are silent. It often feels more natural and less
performed than other types.
▪ Philosophical Monologue: A speech where a character delves
into their personal philosophy or explores complex topics and
theories about life and the world.
Examples
▪ Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”: A powerful example where the
Duke’s speech to the count’s envoy reveals his possessive and jealous
nature and hints at his role in his former wife’s death.
▪ Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover”: The speaker describes how he
killed Porphyria to make her his forever, revealing his disturbed psyche to
an unseen listener.
▪ T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”: A modern example of
a speaker who reveals his indecisiveness, alienation, and anxieties through
a monologue.
▪ Carol Ann Duffy’s “Medusa”: A contemporary take on a mythological
figure, where the Gorgon speaks directly to her former lover, Perseus.
Ballad
▪ A ballad is a form of poetry or song that tells a story, often in
short, four-line stanzas (quatrains). Traditionally passed down
orally, ballads have a narrative, musical quality and frequently
use simple language, dialogue, and repetition. While folk ballads
were originally meant to be sung, literary ballads are poems
written for reading, though they still retain the narrative and
musical elements of the form.
Key characteristics
▪ Narrative form: Ballads are fundamentally narrative poems that tell a story, often focusing on
themes like love, revenge, courage, or tragedy.
▪ Quatrains: They are typically written in four-line stanzas, or quatrains.
▪ Rhyme scheme: A common rhyme scheme is ABCB, where the second and fourth lines of each
stanza rhyme.
▪ Meter: Ballads often use a consistent meter, with the lines alternating between eight syllables and
six syllables, a pattern known as common meter.
▪ Repetition: A repeated chorus or refrain is a common feature, similar to a song.
▪ Simple language: The language is generally straightforward and accessible, a feature that aids
oral transmission.
▪ Third-person narration: They often use a third-person objective narrator to tell the story.
▪ Dialogue: Dialogue is frequently included to advance the story and add dramatic effect.
Types of ballad
▪ The main types of ballads in literature are folk, broadside, and
literary ballads. Folk ballads are traditional, anonymously written,
and passed down orally, while broadside ballads were mass-
produced for public sale. Literary ballads are composed by
known authors, imitating the style of folk ballads but with written,
permanent forms and often more polished language.
Types of ballad
Folk Ballads
Origin: Passed down through oral tradition.
Author: Anonymous.
Characteristics: Often changed over time, with many different
versions existing. They tell stories of love, adventure, or tragedy
and have a consistent, but often simple, structure.
Types of ballad
Broadside Ballads
Origin: Mass-produced for sale to the public on single sheets of
paper, called “broadsides”.
Author: The author is often a known writer or printer.
Characteristics: Often used to report recent events, news, or
sensational stories to a wide audience.
Types of ballad
Literary Ballads
Origin: Written by known poets, often imitating the style of folk
ballads.
Author: A single, named author is credited for the work.
Characteristics: Can be more polished and longer than folk
ballads and are preserved in written form. Examples include John
Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci” and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.
Types of ballad
▪ Other categories
▪ Some scholars also identify categories based on theme, such as
religious, supernatural, tragic, love, historical, legendary, and
humorous ballads.
▪ Additionally, some sources distinguish between folk and lyrical
ballads, which are a specific type of ballad that emerged in the
18th century to tell more everyday stories.
Examples
▪ Examples of ballads in literature include “The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Annabel Lee” by
Edgar Allan Poe, and “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John
Keats. Other examples are “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” by
Oscar Wilde, “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Tennyson, and
various anonymous traditional folk ballads. These poems tell a
story, often with a musical rhythm, and can be traditional folk
ballads or modern literary ballads.
