VIII History of the Monologue
A glance over English literature shows us the fact that the monologue was no sudden invention of Browning’s, but that it has been gradually developed, and is a natural form, as natural as the play. A genuine form of poetry is never invented. It is a mode of expressing the fundamental life of man, and while authors may develop it, bring it to perfection, and make it a means for their “criticism of life,” we can always find hints of the same form in the works of other authors, nations, and ages.
If we examine the monologue carefully, comparing it with various poems, ancient and modern, we shall find that the form has been long since anticipated, and was simply carried to perfection by Browning. It is not artificial nor mechanical, but natural and necessary for the presentation of certain phases of experience.
The monologue, as has already been shown, is closely akin to the lyric; hence, among lyric poems we find in all ages some which are monologues in spirit. If criticism is to appreciate this form and its function in literary expression, and show that it is the outcome of advancement in culture and of the necessity for a broader realization of human nature, some attention should be given to its early examples.
If we go no farther back than English poetry, and in this only to Sir Thomas Wyatt (b. 1503) we find that “The Lover’s Appeal” has some of the characteristics of a monologue. The words are spoken by a distinct character directly to a specific hearer.
“And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay! say nay! for shame,
To save thee from the blame
Of all my grief and shame.
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay! say nay!”
Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” beginning—
“Come live with me and be my love,”
also represents a lover talking to his beloved. In reading it we should picture their relations to each other. The poem may be spoilt by introducing a transcendence of the dramatic element. It is a simple lyric. The shepherd is idealized, and expresses the universal love of the human heart. Still it is not the kind of love that one would directly express to an audience. The reader will instinctively imagine his character and his hearer, and, if reading to others, will unconsciously place her a little to the side. This objective element aids lyric expression. To address it to an audience, as some public readers do, implies that the loving youth is a Mormon.
Both these poems imply two characters, one speaking, one listening, and an adequate interpretation of each poem must suggest a feeling between two human beings.
In Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Reply to Marlowe’s Shepherd,” the positions of the listener and the speaker are simply reversed.
These poems are, of course, lyrics. They may be said by any lover. The emotion is everything. The situation or idea is simple. The expression of intense personal feeling predominates, and the impetuous, spontaneous movement of passion subordinates or eliminates all conception of character. Still, though primarily lyrics, in form these poems are monologues. In each there is one person directly addressing another. In the expression of these lyrics, we find the naturalness of the situation represented by a monologue.
While “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love” is one of the distinctive lyrics in the language, yet the intense realization of the object loved will cause the sympathetic interpreter to turn a little away from the audience. The subjective and personal elements in the poem awaken emotion so exalted in its nature that the speaker is unconscious of all except his beloved.
Still there is a slight objective element. The words are spoken by a shepherd in love and are addressed directly, at least in imagination, to his beloved. But when not carried too far or made dramatic and other than lyric, this monologue element may be an aid, not a hindrance; it may intensify the expression of the lyric feeling.
Such poems, which are very common, may be called monologue lyrics or lyrical monologues. They show the naturalness of the form of the monologue, its unconscious use, its gradual recognition, and completion.
Forms of poetry are complemental to each other, and one who tries to be merely dramatic without appreciating the lyric spirit becomes theatric.
In rendering such lyrics, the turning aside demands greater intensity of lyric feeling, otherwise it is better that they be given with simple directness to the audience.
“Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prythee, why so pale?
Will, if looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prythee, why so pale?
“Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prythee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
Saying nothing do’t?
Prythee, why so mute?
“Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move,
This cannot take her;
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
The D—l take her!”
This poem implies a speaker who is laughing at a lover, and both speaker and listener remain distinct. Its rendering seems dramatic. Its jollity and good nature must be strongly emphasized and it must be directly addressed to the lover. It is still lyric, however, because the ideas and feelings are more pronounced than any distinct type of character, in either the speaker or the listener.
The same is true of Michael Drayton’s “Come, let us kiss and part.” This implies a situation still more dramatic. The characters of the speaker and the listener seem to be brought in immediate contact, revealing not only intense feeling, but something of their peculiarities.
“Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part;
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart
That thus so cleanly I myself can free;
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows;
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.—
Now at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath,
When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might’st him yet recover.”
Burns’s “John Anderson, my Jo” has possibly more of the elements of a monologue. We must conceive the character of an old Scottish wife, enter into sympathy with her love for her “Jo,” and fully express this to him. Her love is the theme. Yet it is not the feeling of any lover, but instead, that of an aged wife, a noble, a faithful and loving character of a specific type.
Still, though the poem can be rendered dramatically, in dialect, and with the conception of a specific type of woman, the poet realized the emotion as universal, and the specific picture is furnished only as a kind of objective means of showing the nobleness of love. Some persons, in rendering it, make it so subjective that they represent the woman as talking to a mental picture of her husband, rather than to his actual presence. But it would seem that some dramatic interpretation is necessary. We do not identify ourselves completely with the thought and feeling, but rather with her situation or point of view as the source of the feeling, and certainly it may be rendered with the interest centred in her character.
Many other poems of Burns’s have a dramatic element. The failure to recognize some of his poems as monologues has possibly been the cause of some of the adverse criticism upon him. He was not insincere in “Afton Water.” It is not a personal love poem. In fact, it expresses admiration for nature more than any other emotion. The Mary in this poem is an imaginary being. Dr. Currie was no doubt correct when he said the poem was written in honor of Mrs. Stewart of Stair. It may also be in honor of Highland Mary, as the poet’s brother, Gilbert, thought. The two views will not seem inconsistent to one who knows Burns’s custom in writing his poems.
Burns frequently used this indirect or dramatic method. In situations calling only for the expression of simple friendship, he adopted the manner of a lover pouring out his feelings to his beloved, and many poems which are nothing more than celebrations of friendly and kindly relations are yet conceived as uttered by a lover.
One of his last poems, written, in fact, when he was on his death-bed, was addressed to Jessie Lewars, the sister of a brother exciseman, a young girl who took care of the poet and of his sick wife and family during his last illness, and without whose kindness the dying poet would have lacked many comforts. In writing this poem, however, his manner still clung to him, and he expresses his gratitude in the tone of a lover.
“Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast
On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee:
Or did misfortune’s bitter storms
Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,
Thy bield should be my bosom,
To share it a’, to share it a’.
“Or were I in the wildest waste,
Of earth and air, of earth and air,
The desert were a paradise
If thou wert there, if thou wert there.
Or were I monarch o’ the globe,
Wi’ thee to reign, wi’ thee to reign,
The brightest jewel in my crown
Wad be my queen, wad be my queen.”
Of course, this is lyric. Though not the lover of Jessie, in imagination he became such, and hence the lover’s feeling, though the result of an imaginary situation, completely predominates. The point, however, here is that it has a monologue form, and that we make a mistake in conceiving that every poem which Burns wrote is purely personal.
The monologue situation was so intensely realized by his imagination that his poetry, while lyric in form, cannot be adequately understood unless we perceive the species of dramatic element which a true understanding of the monologue should enable us to realize.
Burns’s poems often contain dramatic elements peculiar to the monologue and must be rendered with an imaginary speaker and an imaginary listener. Little conception of character is given, and, of course, the lyric element greatly predominates over all else. Those poems in which he speaks directly out of his own heart in a purely lyric spirit, such as “Highland Mary,” are more highly prized. But if we did not constantly overlook the peculiar dramatic element in some of his other poems we should doubtless appreciate them more highly. Even “To a Mountain Daisy” and “To a Field Mouse” are monologues in form.
Coming to the consideration of more recent literature, we find in lyric poems an increasing prevalence of the objective or dramatic element. Whitman’s “Oh, Captain, my Captain,” seems to be the direct unburdening of the writer’s overweighted heart. He does not materially differ in his feeling for Lincoln from his fellow-citizens, and every one, in reading the poem aloud, adopts the emotion as his own. There is certainly no dramatic emotion in the heart of the speaker in the poem. But there is a definite figurative situation and representation of the Ship of State, coming in from its long voyage,—that is, the Civil War,—and a picture of Lincoln, the captain, lying upon the deck. This objective element enables us to grasp the situation and more delicately suggests Lincoln, whose name does not occur in the poem.
It is almost impossible to separate the different forms of poetry. We can discern differences, but they are not “separable entities.” The monologue is possibly as much the outgrowth of the lyric as of the dramatic spirit. It is, in fact, a union of the two. Notice the title of some of Browning’s books: “Dramatic Idyls,” “Dramatic Lyrics,” “Dramatic Romances.”
Mr. Palgrave calls “Sally in our Alley,” by Carey, “a little masterpiece in a very difficult style; Catullus himself could hardly have bettered it. In grace, tenderness, simplicity, and humor it is worthy of the ancients, and even more so from the unity and completeness of the picture presented.” He neglects, however, to add that its “unity and completeness” are due to the fact that it is in form a monologue. The person addressed is indefinitely conceived, but we can hardly imagine the poem to be a speech to a company. It must therefore be imagined as spoken to some sympathetic friend. The necessity of a right conception of the person addressed was not definitely included in the monologue until Browning wrote. The character of the speaker in this poem, however, is most definitely drawn, and is the centre of interest. We must adequately conceive this before understanding the spirit of the poem. Then we shall be able to agree with what Mr. Palgrave says, not only regarding the picture presented, but the direct relationship of every figure, word, and turn of phrase as consistent with the character.
SALLY IN OUR ALLEY
Of all the girls that are so smart
There’s none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land
Is half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Her father he makes cabbage-nets
And through the streets does cry ’em;
Her mother she sells laces long
To such as please to buy ’em:
But sure such folks could ne’er beget
So sweet a girl as Sally!
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
When she is by, I leave my work,
I love her so sincerely;
My master comes like any Turk,
And bangs me most severely—
But let him bang his bellyful,
I’ll bear it all for Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Of all the days that’s in the week
I dearly love but one day—
And that’s the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;
For then I’m drest all in my best
To walk abroad with Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
My master carries me to church,
And often am I blamed
Because I leave him in the lurch
As soon as text is named;
I leave the church in sermon-time
And slink away to Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
When Christmas comes about again
O then I shall have money;
I’ll hoard it up, and box it all,
I’ll give it to my honey:
I would it were ten thousand pound,
I’d give it all to Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
My master and the neighbors all
Make game of me and Sally,
And, but for her, I’d better be
A slave and row a galley;
But when my seven long years are out
O then I’ll marry Sally,—
O then we’ll wed, and then we’ll bed,
But not in our alley!
All these poems show the necessity for classification as lyric monologues; that is, poems lyric in every sense of the word, which yet have a certain dramatic or objective form peculiar to the monologue to give definiteness and point.
The reader, however, must be very careful not to turn lyrics into monologues. The pure lyric should be rendered subjectively, neither as dramatic, on the one hand, nor as oratoric on the other. To render a lyric as a dramatic monologue is as bad as to give it as a speech. The discussion of the peculiar differences between the lyric and the monologue, and the discrimination of lyric monologues as a special class, should suggest the great variety of lyrics and monologues, how nearly they approach and how widely they differ from each other. Whether a poem is a lyric or a monologue must be decided without regard to types or classifications, except in so far as comparison may throw light upon the general nature and spirit of the poetry. Different forms are often used to interpret each other, and the spirit of nearly all may be combined in one poem.
A peculiar type of the monologue, found occasionally in recent literature, may be called the epic monologue. Tennyson’s “Ulysses” seems at first, in form at least, a monologue. Ulysses speaks throughout in character, and addresses his companions. But we presently find that Ulysses stands for the spirit of the race. He is not an individual, but a type, as he was in Homer, though he is a different type in Tennyson; and the poem typifies the human spirit advancing from its achievements in the art and philosophy of Greece into a newer world. Western civilization is prefigured in this poem, and Ulysses meeting again the great Achilles symbolizes the spirit of mankind once more entering upon new endeavors, these being represented by Achilles. “Ulysses” is thus allegoric or epic. The monologue elements are but a part of the objective form that gives it unity and character.
The same is true of “Sir Galahad.” While Sir Galahad is the speaker, and the poem is in form a monologue, yet to regard him as a mere literal character would make him appear egotistic and boastful, and this would totally pervert the poem. The knight stands for an ideal human soul. Every person identifies himself with Sir Galahad, but not in the dramatic sense. While in the form of a monologue, it is, nevertheless, allegoric or epic, and the search for the Holy Grail is given in its most suggestive and spiritual significance.
If the monologue is a true literary form, it has not been invented. If it is only a mechanism, such as the rondeau, it is unworthy of prolonged discussion; but that it is a true literary form is proven by the fact that it necessarily co-ordinates with the lyric, epic, and dramatic forms of literature. These show that it is not mechanical or isolated, but as natural as any poetic or literary form. That the monologue is fundamental, no one can doubt who has listened to a little child talking to an imaginary listener, or telephoning in imagination to Santa Claus. That the monologue can reveal profound depths of human nature, no one familiar with Browning can deny. That the form and the spirit of the monologue are almost universal, no one who has looked into English literature can fail to see. This power of the monologue to unite and enrich other phases or forms of literature proves that it is an essential dramatic form, and that its use by recent authors cannot be regarded as a mere desire to be odd.
The fact that a story is told by a single speaker does not necessarily make a poem a monologue. Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” is told by the old innkeeper, but the only indication of this is in the opening clause, “Listen, my children.” There is hardly another word in the story that takes color from his individual character. The poem is simply a narrative, and the same is true of all “The Tales of a Wayside Inn.”
Mr. Chesterton calls “Muléykeh” and “Clive,” by Browning, “possibly the two best stories in poetry told in the best manner of story-telling.” Now, are these poems stories or monologues? They are both of them monologues. The chief interest is not in the events, but in the characters portrayed. Every event, every word, and every phrase has the coloring of human motives and experience.
The events of “Muléykeh” from the narrative point of view are few. Muléykeh, or Pearl, is the name of a beautiful horse belonging to Hóseyn, a poor Arab. The rich Duhl offers the price of a thousand camels for Muléykeh, but his offer is rejected. He steals Pearl by night. Hóseyn is awakened and pursues on another horse. He sees that “dog, Duhl,” does not know how to ride Muléykeh, and shouts to the fellow what to do to get better speed. The thief takes the hint, and touching the “right ear” and pressing with the foot Pearl’s “left flank,” escapes. His neighbors “jeered him” for not holding his tongue, when he might easily have had her.
“‘And beaten in speed!’ wept Hóseyn:
‘You never have loved my Pearl.’”
This poem is in the form of a story, but it is colored not only by the character of the Arab and his well-known love of a horse, but by a narrator who can reveal the character and the peculiar love of the weeping Hóseyn.
Any one reading the poem aloud must feel that though Browning may have intended it as a story, he was so affected by the dramatic point of view, that it is in spirit, though not in form, essentially a monologue.
If there is any doubt about “Muléykeh,” there can be none that “Clive” is a monologue.
“Clive” may seem to some to be involved. Why did not Browning make his hero tell his own story? Because it was better to take another person, one not so strong, and thus to reveal the impressions which Clive’s deed makes upon the average man. Such a man’s quotation of Clive’s words can be made more exciting and dramatic in its expression.
It is difficult at times to decide whether a story is a monologue or a mere narrative. But, in general, when a story receives a distinct coloring from a peculiar type of character, even though in the form of a narrative, it may be given with advantage as a monologue. Its general spirit is best interpreted by this conception.
“Hervé Riel,” for example, seems at first a mere story, but it has a certain spirited and dramatic movement, and though there is no hint of who the speaker is, it yet possesses the unity of conversation and of the utterance of some specific admirer of “Hervé Riel.” This may be Browning himself. He wrote the poem and gave it to a magazine,—a rare thing with Browning,—and sent the proceeds to the sufferers in the French Commune; hence, its French subject and its French spirit. The narrator appears to be a Frenchman; at least he is permeated with admiration for the noble qualities in the French character at a time when part of the world was criticizing France, if not sneering at it on account of the victory of the Germans and the chaos of the Commune.
One who compares its rendition as an impersonal story with a rendering when conceived by a definite character, by one who realizes the greatness of the forgotten hero of France, will perceive at once the spirit and importance of the monologue.
One must look below mere phrases or verbal forms to understand the nature or spirit of the monologue. The monologue is primarily dramatic, and the word “dramatic” need hardly be added to it any more than to a play, because the idea is implied.
Whatever may be said regarding the monologue, certainly the number has constantly increased of those who appreciate the importance of this form in art, which, if Browning did not discover, he extended and elevated.
We can hardly open a book of modern poetry which is not full of monologues. Kipling’s “Barrack-Room Ballads” are all monologues. There is a rollicking, grotesque humor in “Fuzzy-Wuzzy” that makes it at first resemble a ballad, as it is called by the author, but it interests because of its truthful portrayal of the character of a generous soldier. Kipling is dramatic in every fibre. He even portrays the characters of animals, and certain of his animal stories are practically monologues. What a conception of the camel is awakened by “Oonts!” “Rikki-tikki-tavi” awakens a feeling of sympathy for the little mongoose. In his portrayal of animals, Kipling even reproduces the rhythm of their movements. The very words they are supposed to utter are given in the character of the army mule, the army bullock, and the elephants.
All Kipling’s sketches and so-called ditties, or “Barrack-Room Ballads,” are practically dramatic monologues. To render vocally or even to understand Kipling requires some appreciation of the peculiarities of the monologue. The Duke of Connaught asked Kipling what he would like to do. The author replied, “I should like to live with the army on the frontier and write up Tommy Atkins.” Monologue after monologue has appeared with Tommy Atkins as a character type. The monologue was almost the only form of art possible for “ballads” or “ditties” or studies of unique types of character in such situations.
All poetry, according to Aristotle, expresses the universal element in human nature. Lyric, epic, and dramatic writing alike must become poetic by such an intense realization of an idea, situation, or character that the soul is lifted into a realization of the emotions of the race. Some forget this in studying the differences between lyric and dramatic poetry. It is not the lyric alone that idealizes human experience and universalizes emotion.
The study of Kipling’s “Mandalay” especially illustrates the differences between the lyric and the dramatic spirit, and their necessary union in the portrayal of human experience. This is both a lyric and a monologue. It has a dramatic character. A British soldier in a specific place, London, is talking to some one who can appreciate his feeling, and every word is true to the character speaking and to the situation. But this dramatic element does not interfere with, but on the contrary aids, the realization and expression of a profoundly lyric feeling and spirit. The soldier reveals his love,—love deeper than racial prejudices,—and though “there aren’t no Ten Commandments” in the land of his beloved, he feels the universal emotion in the human heart, a profound love that is superior to any national bound or racial limit. In the poem this love dominates everything,—the rhythm, the color of the voice. He even turns from his hearer, and sees far away the vision of the old Moulmein Pagoda, and the suddenness of the dawn, coming up
“... like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!”
The fact that poetry expresses the “universal element in human nature” is true not only of lyric poetry, but also of dramatic poetry; and in the noblest exaltation of emotion, lyric, dramatic, and epic elements coalesce.
It is the affinity of the monologue with lyric and epic poetry that proves its own specific character. The fact that there can be a lyric, epic, and narrative monologue, proves its naturalness.
Many of America’s most popular writers have adopted the monologue as their chief mode of expression. James Whitcomb Riley’s sketches in the Hoosier dialect present the Hoosier point of view with a homely and sympathetic character as speaker. Even his dialect is but an aspect of the types of character conceived. The centre of interest is not always in the emotion or the ideas, but in the type of person that is the subject of a monologue.
The same is true of the poems by the late Dr. Drummond of Montreal.
The peculiar French-Canadian dialect was never so well portrayed; but this is only accidental. The chief interest lies in his creation or realization of types of character. The artistic form is the monologue, however conscious or unconscious may have been the author’s adoption of the form.
A recent popular book, “The Second Mrs. Jim,” uses a series of monologues as the means of interpreting a new kind of heroine, the mother-in-law. The centre of interest being in this character, the author adopted a series of eight monologues with the same listener, a friend to whom Mrs. Jim unfolds her inmost heart. With this person she can “come and talk without its bein’ spread all over the township.” She remarks once that she took something she wanted to be told to a neighbor who was a “good spreader, just as you’re the other kind.”
All the conditions of the monologue are complied with; the situation changes, sometimes being in Mrs. Jim’s house, but four or five times in that of her friend. Speaker and listener are always the same. The author wishes to centre attention upon the character of the speaker, her common-sense, her insight into human nature, her skill in managing Jim, and especially the boys; hence a listener is chosen who will be discreet and say but little, and who is in full sympathy with the speaker. There is little if any plot; but while Mrs. Jim narrates what has happened in the meantime, it is her character, her insight, her humor, her point of view and mode of expression, in which the chief interest centres. This book might be called a narrative monologue, but the narrative is of secondary importance; the centre of interest lies in the portrayal of a character.
The use of the monologue as a literary form has grown every year, and no reason can be seen why its adoption or application may not go on increasing until it becomes as truly a recognized literary form as the play. The varieties that can be found from the epic monologue “Ulysses” of Tennyson to such a popular poem as “Griggsby’s Station” by James Whitcomb Riley, indicate the uses to which the monologue can be turned and its importance as a form of poetry.
The fact that we meet a number of monologues before Browning’s time shows the naturalness and the necessity of this dramatic form; yet it is only in Browning that the monologue becomes profoundly significant. Browning remains the supreme master of the monologue. Here we find the deepest interpretation of the problems of existence, and the expression of the depths of human character. So strongly did this form fit his great personality and conception of art that his plays cannot compare with his monologues. It was by means of the monologue that he made his deepest revelations. It is safe to say that, without his adoption of the monologue, the best of his poetry would never have been written; and where else in literature can we find such interpretation of hypocrisy? Where else can we find a more adequate suggestion of the true nature of human love, especially the interpretation of the love of a true man, except in Browning? Who can thoroughly comprehend the spirit of the middle part of the nineteenth century, and get a key to the later spiritual unfolding, without studying this great poet’s interpretation of the burden of his time?
Who can contemplate, even for a few moments, some good example of this dramatic form, especially one of Browning’s great monologues, and not feel that this overlooked form is capable of revealing and interpreting phases of character which cannot be interpreted even by the play or the novel?
One form of art should never be compared with another. No form of art can ever be substituted for the play in revealing human action and motive, or even for the novel, with its deep and suggestive interpretation of human life. While the monologue will never displace any other form of art, the fact that it can interpret phases of human life and character which no other mode of art can express, proves it to be a distinct form and worthy of critical investigation. Its recognition constitutes one of the phases of the development of art in the nineteenth century, and it is safe to say that it will remain and occupy a permanent place as a literary form. We must not, however, exaggerate its importance on the one hand, nor on the other too readily pronounce it to be a mere incident and passing oddity. Its instinctive employment by leading authors, those with a message and philosophy of life, proves that its true nature and possibilities deserve study.